Low Spending Stamping

How much do you love nail stamping? If you’re not great at free hand nail art, like me, and you still love that finished look of a well-designed nail, stamping is the way to go in my opinion. So, you decide you want to have a go at it. YouTube offers a huge number of tutorials on what to do and what not to do. They tell you what nail polish to use, how to prep your stamp, why liquid latex is a good choice while stamping and what techniques to use to both pick up your image and get it on your nail the right way. But what image plates can you use? Do they have to be Konad, Bundle Monster or Pueen? Do you have to spend loads of money on your plates? The answer is no, not per se…

The Brands

There are so many options when it comes to stamping plates. When I just started out I didn’t know what to buy and I went on YouTube to see what plates other people use. The first ones that I saw there where the above mentioned Konad and Bundle Monster. So I went online and checked them out. The prices weren’t shocking me as such, but if you would like a variety of images and options, one plate doesn’t cut it. Also, you can start with one plate, but if you fall in love with the concept, like me, you just want to buy more and more! Now, here in Holland a round Konad plate will cost you about €4 to €5 which is about 4,20 to 5,30 US-dollars or 3,40 to 4,25 British Pounds. Bundle Monster is a bit cheaper, around €2 (2,10 US-dollars or 1,70 British Pounds). Other more well-known brands are the earlier mentioned Pueen, MoYou-London, héhé and Born Pretty. Many online stores sell these brands around the prices mentioned for Konad and Bundle Monster. Yet, they don’t need to be priced like that! As you might know by now, I’m a sucker for good deals. So I decided to check out Aliexpress. Now, Aliexpress sells some crappy stuff, but they also sell the good stuff! Take Born Pretty for example. Many of you may know Born Pretty is actually cheaper to buy from the Born Pretty store itself. They are located in China, but thay actually ship for free worldwide. So don’t buy your Born Pretty products in more expensive online shops that need to make money on the items themselves. The Born Pretty store also often has items on sale for great prices! Also, Aliexpress has a separate Born Pretty store on their site. Often they sell the same products for an even lower price! This isn’t always the case, so compare the prices to prices in the Born Pretty store. But before you decide to buy from either of those Born Pretty stores, some other sellers on Aliexpress tend to sell Born Pretty items for lower prices as well, which may turn out to be the best deals. I’ve seen Born Pretty round image plates for as little as €0,53 (0,57 US-dollars or 0,45 British Pounds)!!

Now, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t take this even further, and see if the “brandless” plates that Aliexpress offers do the job as well. Now, here is where you should be alert. Some plates on Aliexpress will say héhé, but actually they are dupes. They have a sharp edge, don't have the héhé back, or packaging. The cheapest plate I could find on Aliexpress actually said héhé, but wasn’t héhé. It was priced at a mere €0,17 (0,18 US-dollars or 0,14 British Pounds)! Sadly, this little dupe, was useless. No matter what kind of stamp I used or which polish, it did not pick up the image. I have a few héhé dupes and have only one plate that works for me. Besides the héhé dupes, Aliexpress also sells plates with a JQ code. Checking YouTube I find there are people that seem to have luck with these plates. I on the other hand, didn’t get lucky and the plate was as useless as the héhé dupes. Now, I did get lucky with another plate which had a BC code on it. It picks up great! All these plates; JQ, BC or any other, are dupes from either héhé, Bundle Monster, Konad, Pueen, you name it! Basicly, buying these dupes is a bit of a risk. The prices are laughable which makes it kind of hard to resist the risk, but know that many of these dupes, suck. The Born Pretty plates on Aliexpress aren’t dupes! The actually come in the Born Pretty packaging and have the Born Pretty back on the plates. I can’t promise you, if you buy a Born Pretty plate from a different seller, that it isn’t a dupe, but if you buy them from the Born Pretty store on Aliexpress you are guaranteed it actually is Born Pretty.

I hope this post was useful for you, and you are now armed with the information you need to start stamping with low spending.