Review (1/5): Major Engraving Flaws
I was so looking forward to getting these plates. The designs are incredibly cute and diverse. Additionally, several of the medallion designs are small enough to work on my 6-year-old granddaughter’s tiny nails. I had showed her the plate pictures, and she was so excited, she danced!
There are very good pictures here of each plate. It’s easy to see in those photos how the layout of the various designs appear on the plate. Unfortunately, the two medallion plates are defectively engraved. The SPH-019 plate I received has small designs included that are not supposed to be there, specifically a witch’s hat and what looks like a long-handled spoon(?) Whereas extra designs may sound like a great thing in theory, the result is designs that are so crowded as a result that when you stamp them, you’d be picking up two designs at once. It’s true that the unneeded one can be removed with tape, but anyone who has ever done nail stamping can tell you that the timeframe from when you put the polish on the plate, scrape it, pick it up on the stamper, place it properly, and stamp it, is very, very limited. Like 5-7 seconds total for all steps. If you have to add another, very fussy step among these others, it just won’t work. The stamped design will be too dry to transfer to the nail. Perhaps a professional nail tech could do it, but even then, that isn’t a sure thing. I’m reasonably quick, but not THAT quick!
Plate SPH-020 was much worse. It’s a mess! There is a design that is on the opposite side of the plate, as shown in its picture. Instead, it is plopped on top of one design, half of which is missing as a consequence. The misplaced design is a tarantula, one that I was very much looking forward to using on my own nails, and one of the many reasons I purchased this set. Having the other half-design nearly superimposed carries the same problem explained above.
Also, there is supposed to be a haunted house with a chyron that says, “Trick Or Treat.” The haunted house is there, but the chyron isn’t near enough to look as if it is related to the house at all. Furthermore, the chyron is completely empty, and the “Trick Or Treat” message is stamped separately from it. There are tiny designs, such as a pumpkin no bigger than a dot, jammed in a place where they do not appear in the picture. This renders the adjacent designs as above, pretty useless.
The whole-nail, overall designs appear to be accurate. The medallions, however, were the main reason I ordered this collection. It would appear that the manufacturer had zero quality control to have missed such glaring engraving errors before sending them to Amazon.
I have another replacement set being sent to me. I hope they are different, but most likely they probably came in the same lot, and so will be defective, as well. If they arrive stamped properly, I will update this review with appended note. But if not, I cannot recommend this set. Such a disappointment!
Update 10/20/2020: For some reason, Amazon declined to send a replacement to me, so I’m unable to determine if another set would be different. Such a cute set, and engraved well, as designs are easy to pick up with clean, sharp definition. Too bad they sent the rejects to be sold here.