Marianne Nails Nail Art Stamping Plates Review (XXL Edition)

Hey stamperistas,

Press Sample

I'm back with another review! Epic like in nature as is the usual lay of the land for my blog ;)  Today I'm going to share a brand that I've been wearing a lot so far in 2016, but across a size of plate I've never shared before.  That's right - today is all about Marianne Nails, and the lady that's going to steal the spotlight is the XXL 6 nail art stamping plate ;)  Whenever I post pictures of these XXL plates to my Instagram my feed goes wild.  Everyone wants to know where I got them from, why are they so big, etc etc.  And to be honest I don't think any of my double XL plates have gotten the attention they deserve from this brand.  Also if you've been following along you've seen at least across the rectangular plates that the etching this company produces is flawless flawless flawless!  I can and will show you again, but I thought today I'd show you something different too.  So lets get started leave your question or comments below especially if you love this brand as much as I do!

Marianne Nails

Run by the generous, kind, and oh so inspired Ghislaine Debray.  First let me pause for a second to say this woman is phenomenal and I'm proud to call her my friend the depth of her compassion is breathtaking, her commitment to quality and her business is unbeatable, and her sweetness and love of her family is pretty amazing! I love this woman to death more as a friend than a platemaker she just leaves me smiling.  I guarantee if you ever have a conversation with her you will do the same!

Now bout them plates - Marianne Nails has been around for about 2 years now.  It feels like this French based company just started yesterday.  I am still and will always be deeply enamored with this maker and her style of expression.  To date Ghislaine has released well over 100 plates not including 5 XXL plates.  She is a powerhouse of innovation and beautiful design! She also recently released her own stamping mat, which was the first to be available in the EU, and which I own cause you know addict like behavior.   In any case she continues to create beautiful art and plates that we all hanker for.

The Plate

Massive right? These plates measure 30.5 x 25 cm width by length.  Its so big it got cut off in my scanner but mostly just the edges.  You can still see all of the full sized images clearly.  This plate is also backed by a larger white plastic backing.  The earlier XXL plates have a pink backing just like the earlier medium sized plates.

Image Size Comparison

The full sized nail image on Marianne's Nails plates can vary, but generally they are 2.0 x 1.6 cm length by width.  Yes that's the same across both the regular and XXL plates.  However because the XXL plates have a lot more land on which the designs can lay you even get images such the larger florals that measure  5.5 x 5.4cm or that giant skull taking up center stage which measure 7.7 x 4.9 cm. Obviously these images are quite large and so have to be stamped across the nail in varying designs. By comparison we see the full nail image size over all is quite generous.  If you want to look across more brand you can refer to my chart.  Because of a recent request via Instagram I made a few more additions to it and added a few outstanding measurements.

Bunny Nails HD B: 2.5 x 2.0 cm
Fab Ur Nails FUN 14: 2.2 x 1.7 cm
Messy Mansion: 2.3 x 1.8 cm
MoYou London Pro (Non-XL): 1.5 x 1.3 cm 
MoYou London Pro (XL):  2.2 x 1.6 cm
MyOnline Shop MJVIII: 2.2 x 1.7 cm
Pet'la: 2.4 x 2.0 cm
UberChic Beauty: 
Vivid Lacquer: 2.0 x 2.0 cm

Swatches

So I changed the way I post my swatches now.  To be honest I was really unhappy with the ability to see each image clearly in the global swatch i.e. just on the whole sheet.  So now you can see every little detail of my swatches very clearly and individually.  This format actually really increases the time invested with regard to editing, but the results are worth it I think.  Please let me know if you like this format better than the prior format.  Even the super large images such as the skull get scaled down using this method so it all fits together neatly and they are all to scale.  So other than individualizing the swatches I didn't adjust the images in any other way. 

As with all my reviews when swatching out the images I used Wet N' Wild Black Creme and my gold standard XL marshmallow stamper from Magno Nails as it has a larger diameter and is still a marshmallow and as such my baby love.  It's still one of my favorite stampers after all these years and picks up anything with ease.  This time I also wanted to pick up entire full sized landscape images so I used a stamper which I have not reviewed here, but its a jumbo marshmallow 2.0 rectangular stamper.  Before you ask no it is not the Mochi stamper from Bundle Monster.  The pick up on this one is quite good though not quite as good as my gold standard marshmallows.  If I ever get a moment I'll put up a review of these stampers as well.

For reviews I only switch to Konad Special Stamping polish or Mundo de Unas in the event I am unable to pick up an image which I did have to do here, and not because of the plates but because of the rectangular stamper I was using.  I wanted to show every detail of the fine lines and the pickup was not quite adequate enough so I switched over to Mundo.  You can see any image that is super black in comparison to the greyish black is done with Mundo.

Remember I use Wet N' Wild Black Creme for my plate swatches is because it's cheap and readily available.   Its cheap polish that is not meant for stamping i.e. its the lowest quality polish I can use and still get away with beautiful swatches.  Of course beautiful swatches will only happen when the plates are perfectly etched.  I don't expect images generated by WnW to have near the clarity of those generated using a polish designated for stamping, and you can see that below with the MdU swatch. Stamping polishes allow an image to stamp with even more clarity and crispness than regular polish. Period.  Basically this means if I have a plate that stamps well with WnW polish I'm assured that the etching on those plates is so good it can stamp well even with crappy polish not intended for that purpose.

Final Impression

So what can I say about Ghislaine's plates?  They are fantastic and you know what that's the consistent story!  Regardless of whether you get the regular rectangular plates or the jumbo XXL sized plates you are going to end up with beautiful plates and images that are inspiring.  The pro of the XXL size is that you get well over 100 images in one go across a wide range of themes.  The more recent ones like XXL 6 feature large landscape images, but the earlier ones, several of which I personally purchased, are pretty much all full sized nail images.  The other fantastic part of these plates? They retail for 23.90 Euro.  No matter how you look at it with over 100 images that is a huge savings. These plates are so good I'd actually tell a new stamper who is just starting their collection that this is a great way to go because of the sheer number and choice of images.  Its a plate that for all intents and purposes is a set.

So as I type this review I'm actually rocking nail art from this plate that I'll be sharing with you in a bit.  I truly love the Marianne Nails plates obviously they got a lot of love over Valentine's Day, but there are over 100 plates to choose from not including the XXLs! There is literally something for everyone and you will likely never have to worry about the quality because Ghislaine is so vigilant about quality testing all of her designs. You can find Marianne Nails plates in her webstore.  The medium plates retail for 6.50 Euro.   You can find my my prior review for some of these plates here. They are just as flawless!  Btw when I was stalking about on her site I found out the 4th Collection is on sale now for 15% off. So please let me know if you have any questions in the comments and also let me know if you like the new set up for the swatches i.e. is it easier to see the images or about the same as before.  In any case thanks for reading and I'll see you next post!

This post contains items sent for my honest review.  For more information see my Disclosures Policy.