Review: Messy Mansion clear stamper & stamping polishes

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Hello!

Have you jumped on board yet with the clear stamper phenomenon? If you haven't, you should, and today I'm going to review Messy Mansion's clear stamper for you. I'm also going to review two of their stamping polishes, Messy Mansion Carbon (their black), and Sterling (their silver). I have been on a constant quest for a black stamping polish that won't streak, so I was stoked to see how this one did.

If you prefer your reviews video style, you can check out all the products in motion here:

Alright, let's start with the clear stamper! If you haven't heard of these yet, the idea here is that the stamping head is clear, so that you can look down the barrel of the stamper and see exactly where you're placing your stamp. Messy Mansion's has a frosted handle and comes with a scraper:

Messy Mansion clear stamper

The stamping head is pretty soft; not marshmallow soft, so you probably don't want to try to shrink images with it or anything like that, but you can push your nail into it rather than roll the image on, if you prefer that method:

Messy Mansion clear stamper

Messy Mansion clear stamper

The head is also perfectly clear so you can see exactly where you're placing your stamp:

Messy Mansion clear stamper

The stamper doesn't need to be primed (and you shouldn't prime it--that would mess up the clarity of the surface), and you can clean it with tape or with a swipe of remover. I'd avoid pure acetone as much as possible to keep the head from clouding.

To test it out, I used the two stamping polishes they sent for review, Messy Mansion Carbon and Messy Mansion Sterling:

Messy Mansion Carbon and Sterling

I did three test swatches using Messy Mansion MM24; I wanted to test two things. First, I wanted to test out how well the stamper allowed me to align an image in the center of a nail, and to properly align vertical and horizontal images. Second, I wanted to see if the polishes would smudge when I covered them with topcoat; this is a particular issue for black stamping polishes, so I was most concerned about how Carbon would work.

Let's take a look at how they turned out...First, I put a book image in the center of my thumb, and as you can see, there is no smudging, even with topcoat: 

Test of Messy Mansion clear stamper and stamping polishes

I also wanted to try out lining up a vertical image. In the picture the image looks a little distorted, but that's mostly the curve of my nail; it's almost perfectly aligned. I waited about a minute before putting on my topcoat; there was no smearing except for one small area where I went over the image with the brush twice, and even then the smudging was minimal. 

Test of Messy Mansion clear stamper and stamping polishes

Other black stamping polishes I have will smear even after several minutes' wait time, and with only one brush stroke; with this one as long as you don't go over the same spot right away, you'll be fine. This is a huge improvement, and I've been using this as my black stamping polish ever since I tried it out.

For my horizontal image I tried out the silver, Messy Mansion Sterling; alignment turned out perfectly and there was no smudging whatsoever:

Test of Messy Mansion clear stamper and stamping polishes

The color in both polishes was saturated and covered well; I had no issues getting it to pick up even though I was using a stamper I'd never used before.

So, long story short: both the stamper and the polishes are top-notch quality, and I definitely recommend them. The stamper picks up well and allows you to see where you're placing your stamp; it's soft enough that you can push your nail into it if you prefer rather than rolling. The polishes have excellent coverage and pick up well, and don't smudge! You don't get better than that, my friend.

You can find all of these in Messy Mansion's shop, and you can keep up with sales and new products on their Facebook page.

Happy stamping!