Unboxing: More Clear Jelly Stamper Plates and Polishes

Clear Jelly Stamper (CJS) offers an array of products for stampers of all levels. I’ve had the XL stamper plus a few plates and polishes for about a year, and decided it was time that I add to my design and color offerings.

This time I purchased the largest bottle of black polish CJS offers, because I like to stamp my outline image in black. I also bought a “You Choose” Kit of 6 polishes, which is a small savings over buying each one individually. I did the same with small plates, picking a “You Choose” Kit of eight plates and a free plate holder.

These stampers, plates and polishes stamp beautifully and consistently every time. I’ve had great results, and will probably purchase more from this company in the future.  I recommend these products over some of the off brand similar items you can find online. You get what you pay for, and I think you’ll find that these products deliver.  Clear Jelly Stamper is the original clear stamping head, and the company has really turned stamping into it’s own art form. They even have accessories and organizational products to make the job easier, which I love!

If you’d like to see exactly what you get when you order from CJS, please check out my unboxing video for these products on the Smoke & Mirrors YouTube channel.  And, we’d love to hear from you in the comments on your experience with these products!

Wrapped In Satin

This week I was inspired by the snowstorm we had in the southeastern U.S. to create a fun winter design. I used Gelish Wrapped In Satin as the base color, with some strokes of Gelish Blue-Eyed Beauty (both from the Marilyn Monroe Forever Fabulous collection).

Then I stamped the snowflakes using Clear Jelly Stamper plate CJS-03 and black, white and silver stamping polishes. Then I added Gelish Rough Around the Edges on top, and finished with Gelish Matte Top It Off.

 

 

 

Check out the macro shot of one of the nails:

Sun-kissed bliss!

This design meshes two lovely brights, Sun Kissed Bliss and A Tribe Called Cool, from the Just for You III (in Europe)/Secrets (in UK) collection from Harmony Gelish. After a couple years of searching I finally got my hands on some colors from this collection, which I’ve been referring to as simply the Just For You (JFY) collection because it’s only JFY collection we in the US have had. For more information about the full collection I recommend you check out Elysia’s Harmony nail blog, as she’s done a great job of swatching the full collection.  Fair warning: You may want to buy ALL the colors after reading her posts! (Note that I bought these from a US Seller online, and I don’t think they were re-directed from Europe since they have item numbers that fall in between the items numbers from the Gelish Winter 2017 and Spring 2018 collections. See my list of Gelish colors for item numbers.)

For the flower design I used Clear Jelly Stamper (CJS) layered stamping plate Cjs-14 with Born Pretty Store (BPS) stamping polish. I wanted to have white flowers but the Born Pretty stamping polishes were so uncooperative (and my latest shipment of CJS polishes hadn’t come in yet) that I just used whatever would work. I’ve had so much trouble with BPS polishes not stamping lately that I got rid of them. If you want great results with your stamping, I highly recommend the CJS polishes and plates.

This was also a good time to update my list of Gelish colors with the new fall 2018 collection plus the colors from the JFY/Secrets collection. Check out that list for info on all the Gelish US colors ever.

If you know where we in the US can purchase the rest of the JFY/Secrets collection, please let me know in the comments. There are some other great colors that I’d love to have!

High Voltage!

This week I continued testing the new Gelish Structure Gel in Cover Pink, this time with two coats under Gelish gel polish. I shortened my nails a little, and the two coats of Structure seems to be keeping them strong at this length. Here I’ve used the Cover Pink Structure Gel as a base for High Voltage and Cellophane Coat from the Make a Splash collection for summer 2018.

While I really like the security Structure provides while keeping a natural feel to the nail, it doesn’t provide shape the way enhancement products would.  It actually makes the nails look a bit rounder and accentuates any odd curvature of the nails. If you prefer to have longer nails with the clean lines and perfect shapes you can achieve when filing acrylic and hard gel, you may prefer Prohesion, Gelish Hard Builder Gel, or Polygel®.

On the nails with High Voltage I stamped using Clear Jelly Stamper (CJS) stamping polish and plate CJS LC-03, as well as a white China Glaze polish (which I wasn’t really happy with).  Here’s a macro shot of one of the nails:

Though I was happy with how this set turned out, I’m wishing I had a CJS white stamping polish. I’ve tried lots of different stamping products over the last decade, and CJS is the superior product.  Their plates and polishes work nicely together, and they work consistently well.

Unboxing the Born Pretty Gigantic Stamper

Before the holidays here in the U.S. I ordered the Gigantic Stamper from the Born Pretty Store (BPS) on Amazon.com.  Within a month I had received the package. It included:

• The stamper, which is 12 x 5 x 1.5 cm, approximately the same size as most XL stamping plates, and weighs about 120 grams
• 4 thin scraper cards

The stamper was only about $8 through Amazon.com (though the price has increased to about $15 now, it is still only $8 if you buy from BPS). It’s a squishy stamper, and works very well with no priming needed. The great thing is that it’s clear, so you can see through it to line up your nails and stamp multiple nails at one time.

To see it in action, please visit the Smoke & Mirrors YouTube channel for my unboxing video. I immediately tried a couple different stamping methods with it, and was impressed with how well it picked up the images from the plates. Since then I have used it in a couple different manicures with no problem. While other BPS stampers have given me trouble in the past because they were not squishy enough, this one felt very comfortable to stamp with.

Note that this is NOT a paid review. I bought this product to try out on myself before possibly using it in salon, so you’re seeing my real initial testing and reactions to the product.

 

Just Tutu much!

For this design I used Gelish colors from the holiday and winter 2017 collections:

• Plum-Thing Magical
• Just Tutu Much
• Ice Cold Gold

On the purple nails I stamped a scroll design using Clear Jelly Stamper plate CJS-13, then topped with the Ice Cold Gold glitter.

I’m loving my new Clear Jelly Stamper! I have tried many stampers over the years, and this one is by far the most comfortable and easiest to stamp with.  If you haven’t already heard about this stamper, check out my Clear Jelly Stamper unboxing video on the Smoke & Mirrors YouTube channel to see some of the items you can purchase.

Marshmallow Manicure

About a month ago I saw a post on the Nails Magazine website about the “marshmallow manicure” that Morgan Taylor lead artist Gina Edwards had created for Caroline Herrera’s Spring 2018 NYFW collection models.

While Gina Edwards used Heaven Sent (formerly Little Princess) for the white color, I decided to use the new white called I’m Drawing a Blanco, from the fall 2017 Matadora Gelish collection.  I’m Drawing Blanco does have a bit of shimmer to it, which I embellished with some rhinestones and Gelish Grand Jewels to create this design. The butterfly is a double-stamped (first white, then black) image from stamping plate BP-07 I purchased at The Born Pretty Store.

Bashful

This design was done with 2 coats of Bashful topped with one coat of A Moment of Magic, both by Gelish.

Then, in white stamping polish from Born Pretty, I stamped a design from the Morgan Taylor Designer Plate 3720201-2. I used the scraper and the clear stamper that came in the Designer Plates Flirty Florals kit.  As you can see, the stamper transferred the design beautifully. The design on the plate easily provided full coverage on these long nails.

When the stamped design was dry, I added dots in the centers of the larger flowers using Tinsel by China Glaze. Though I stamped these nails, I used Gelish Top It Off as I would for any gel polish manicure. It works very well for sealing stamped designs like this!

 

Give me a Break-dance

This polish is from Gelish’s summer collection, Street Beat, and it is called Give Me a Break-dance.  For some unknown reason I thought adding glitter would be a good idea, so I sprinkled a little of Paradise (by Recollections brand) on top of three coats.  In the end I was unhappy because this polish, like others from the collection, has a really pretty shimmer to it, and all I did was mask it.

The stamp is from Born Pretty Store, XL rectangular plate BP-L003, and I stamped with white Konad stamping polish. This plate works really well, especially for the price. Highly recommended it!

I’m getting some Born Pretty store brand stamping polish soon, so stay tuned for a review of that.

Fuchsia stained glass flowers

For this design I used Kung Fu-chsia from the Gelish Kung Fu Panda 3 collection. I hand painted the dots using Chain Reaction from the Urban Cowgirl collection. I made decals for the middle fingers using the Born Pretty Store plate BP-07 and clear stampers.  I simply stamped the image, and allowed it to dry on the stamper head (I have several stamper heads on hand so that I can keep working while each one dries), before coloring it in with regular polish. Then, once it had thoroughly dried, I peeled it off the stamp head and placed it on the nail. Then I top coated with Gelish Top It Off. The design has lasted beautifully for more than a week now!