The Nail Hero that I have selected for today is Clear Stampers. Seriously these are awesome. If you are a nail stamper and you don't have a clear stamper then you have no idea how much they can change your life. Here are some of the things I can now do because of clear stampers:
- accurately place individual stamps on my nail.
- stamping straight lines.
- stamping any design straight that needs to be straight.
- creating layered images using layered plates.
Over the last few months I bought quite a few different clear stampers and received some for review, so I thought I would take this opportunity to share some info about them all to help you decide which is the right one for you.
The clear stampers that I have in my collection are:
- Original Clear Jelly Stamper
- Messy Mansion crystal stamper
- Born Pretty Pink holder clear stamper
- Born Pretty white holder clear stamper
- Ali Express clear stamper
- Picture Polish clear stamper
For comparison purposes of each of the heads, I've compared them to the squishiness of my Messy Mansion Pro Stamper set, as I have the best comparison photos of squishiness for those stampers. You can check out that post here.
Lets start with the first clear stamper that I got. The Original Clear Jelly stamper. This is the one with the firm head, and they do now sell a softer head, but I can't comment about how that softer head compares. The harder head is quite firm. I would rate it a little bit harder than the purple Messy Mansion pro head, but softer than the blue one. With a good quality, deeply etched plate, the image picks up nicely. This is a Born Pretty Plate and it works ok. Shallow plates like the CJS layered plates are difficult to get to work with this stamper.
Stamper number two is the crystal stamper from Messy Mansion. This came in the same frosted white holder as other stampers, but I changed the holder to his much shorter one to better see through it.
A couple of things. My new holder is slightly narrower than the original holder, so now my stamping head has shrunk to that size and falls out of the original holder. Not that that is a problem for me.
Second thing, I took this stamper to work one day when I was doing a stamping session with some of the ladies in the office during lunch. During transportation, it came out of it's holder and the back of it got suck to another stamper. As a result of peeling them apart I got some tears and markings on the bottom now, which means it's no longer crystal clear, you can see this in the bottom right photo. This is no fault of the stamper, it's mine, but I wanted to share that these are delicate and you don't want to let stamping heads touch each other.
As far as squishiness, this one is definitely the squishiest of all the clear stampers. I would say it is comparable to the Yellow Mession Mansion pro head. It picks up images really well.
Ali Express - this one came it the same frosted white holder. My stamper arrived with marks on the bottom that look like greasy finger prints. I've not been able to remove these marks or scratches, I've tried sticky tape and washing it was dish washing soap. This is a bit disappointing as it means it's not crystal clear to look through.
In terms of squishiness, this would rate about the green in the Messy Mansion pro set. It picks up the image really nicely.
Born Pretty Store - I bought two stampers, one pink and one clear to see if there was any difference between the colours. The answer to that is no, the heads are identical. I prefer the frosted white holder as it lets in more light down the shaft of the holder.
These pick up images nicely and I'd rate them about a green+ on the Messy Mansion pro set scale. That is. they are a little harder than the Ali Express one that I rated as Green, but they are not as hard as the Original CJS.
My most recent acquisition is the Picture Polish Jelly Stamper. I love this one. It has a long totally clear holder that is fully enclosed that the back end, meaning no dirt or fluff (or cat hair) gets down the shaft and sticks to the head. It also comes with a lid that protects that head of the stamper from same dirt, fluff and cat hair. It also stamps perfectly, in fact I found it to stamp the best out of all the ones I have.
I would rate it a Green+ in terns of squishiness, the same as the Born Pretty heads.
Here is a comparison picture of all the stamping images. I think you will be ok with pretty much any brand stamping head that you buy, cause they all worked well for me as along as you are using a good quality, deeply etched stamping plates (eg Moyou London, Messy Mansion, Emily de Molly, DRK, and many of the Born Pretty Plates).
Now it's mani time. Here is a mani I created using the actual Clear Jelly Stamper layered plates. A tutorial video will be added here as soon as I have edited it for instagram.
Finally, I've pulled together a list of all the places I know that sell clear stampers. I have not tried the stampers or purchased from all these etailers, and I provide these links without affiliates. I suggest you shop around to find the stamper you like at the price you like.
Picture Polish
Clear Stamper Kit - comes with a spare stamping head for the kit price.
Messy Mansion
Several options - frosted holder like mine above as well as a similar version to the Picture Polish clear stamper.
Born Pretty Store
Several options - pink, purple and frosted holders + refill heads sold separately.
Ali Express
Frosted white holder version
Clear Jelly Stamper
Several options. New stamping heads are advertised as soft compared to the original that I got above.
Girly Bits
Clear stamper. Looks like the same style as the Picture Polish one above.
Hit the Bottle
Frosted white holder version.
UberChic
Frosted white holder version
Purjoi
Frosted white holder version
Wildflowers nail Academy
Frosted white holder version
Nail Hoot
Frosted white holder and purple holder.
Gorgeous manicure <3
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the review. I order a CJS but haven't received it yet. It's brilliant to have it enclosed and with a lid to protect the head. I have 2 long-haired cats and I think I'd better buy the enclosed clear stamper too. Btw, the mani looks great.
ReplyDeletelove this post! I want the picture perfect stamper but shipping estimate to the US said $20! eek, cant justify that :( Ill have to look into the others! :)
ReplyDeleteI saw that $20 shipping too. Hopefully other companies will start making enclosed stampers with caps in the near future.
DeleteYour Mani looks great I'm excited cos I'm waiting on my one from Born Pretty :0)xxSazxx
ReplyDeleteGreat review! The MM one is the best one by far of the many I have also tried! I wouldn't suggest much hop around in fact because they are definitely not all the same. My first one from AE was hard as a rock. I couldn't justify the very expensive price tag of the original CJS stamper ($25) so I'm so glad other options came out. I've got quite a few from AliExpress as well as the Crystal one from MM. It's also worth noting pretty much every indie company these days has their version so its definitely possible to get them from all around even internationally.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I'm hoping for is that MM eventually sales her heads separately for the crystal stamper so that we can purchase back ups without buying the entire stamper again. I did note my Crystal stamper also came with little fingerprints that I can't quite remove from the bottom, but it hasn't affected my stamping at all. Thanks again for sharing!
Yay! Great post, I've been wanting to read a comparison review of all the Clear Jelly Stampers for a while! Just put in an order to MM as I wanted a mat as well.
ReplyDeleteI seriously need to get my hands on one of these!
ReplyDeleteGreat comparison of all of the different stampers! I'm not much of a stamper myself, but these seem like they would be really handy!
ReplyDeleteGreat review. I sense if the new messy mansion one is the same as the picture polish one
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review. Was actually interested in how some of the cheaper ones compared to the others and if the heads contained imperfections.
ReplyDeleteYour butterflies look stunning! Wonderful manicure, looks like made at some fancy nail and beauty studio! Oh, and thanks for that Clear Stampers review you've made! I think I should try one.
ReplyDeleteA perfect review. Paradoxically, the original CJS is the worse stamper of the list xD
ReplyDeleteThis is so helpful! I just bought the Born Pretty clear stamper a few days ago and am waiting to receive it. I wanted a clear stamper but had no idea where to start so I just got the Born Pretty one because of the price and just hoped it would work ok. If I'm not happy with it I will definitely try one of those you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the review. The PP one looks really good. I just ordered another version which you can buy here in Germany. I hope it actually works but it just costed 3 EUR (~3 USD), so I decided to give it a try. :D
ReplyDeleteSuch a great comparison post; thanks for putting it together.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for compiling this great comparison! I just received the BPS one (today in fact) to review and I'm so so excited!
ReplyDelete