Rica Blackout and Whiteout Nail Art Stamping Polish Review (UPDATED)

Hey stamparellas,

I have lots of reviews for you guys these days and that's because there are so many awesome things coming out on the market that I want to bring to your attention.  First, because having options is critical to making the best use of your money, and second because the more you see different types of products or brands of products the better idea you have of what works the best for you.  So today I have stamping polish from a brand a several of you may be familiar with called Rica.  Rica is an indie polish maker likely best known for her Glossy Glam topcoat and to date also released one stamping plate and a variety of gorgeous polishes.  Last weekend she also released two new stamping polishes, called Blackout and Whiteout, so I took the opportunity to purchase both after seeing several swatches on Instagram.

Blackout is exactly what it sounds like a black creme one coater polish while Whiteout is the same only it's white.  I took the liberty of swatching both to see if they were indeed one coaters and they were. Now my biggest question was how these polishes would perform in regard to opacity.  I swatched both over white and black a well as on my nails.



 What's interesting about these polishes is that they are supposed to be extremely opaque in terms of stamping while also being full coverage one-coater nail polish that is thin enough to be used as regular polish. Intriguing yes?  I'll also be honest and say right now my holy grail stamping polish is Mundo de Unas so I really wanted to see how other brands would compare in terms of opacity etc.  After all I love my MdUs, but the shipping from Mexico to the US can be somewhat cost prohibitive, and they most certainly cannot be used as regular nail polish.



As you can see from the swatches these polishes are extremely opaque as base colors.  They also transfer cleanly and lift off with scotch tape like the best stamping polishes I own.  My only issue with both polishes is that they dry quickly.  Quicker than my MdUs and Konad polish I timed it out (yes I am that obsessive compulsive) and it seems that the Rica polishes will dry in roughly 5-10 secs while MdU will dry around 30 to 45 seconds and Konad around 20-30 seconds.  After looking at all 3 polishes I realized this was happening because the Rica polishes are much thinner than either Konad or MdU which makes sense since they can be used as regular nail polish.

I know you're asking why do I care about that? Well since I've been using mostly MdU these days it meant I'd gotten a bit used to taking more time to line up my images etc using the Rica polishes I had to speed things up quite a bit.  In addition this also allowed me no time to correct errors or smudges on the pad before stamping because the polish would dry too quickly.  In addition this also meant images didn't transfer quite as cleanly as they could have because of some drying on the pad before transferring to the nail.  In the grand scheme of things it made for a little less precision and a bit more speed than I would prefer however l managed.  I don't think however a stamping newbie would be as successful.

What do you think? My overall impression of these two polishes is fairly good.  Opaque with a few issues with patchiness related to the drying time, local (to the US that is), shelf leveling and smooth formula, and can also be used as regular polish (though it all honesty I probably won't use them as such) at least not the Blackout.  However, I will admit a one coat white polish is extremely tempting to have in my arsenal.  Let me also mention that Rica is already creating a few more polishes in this line up and has a pale yellow releasing pretty soon as well as more stamping plates from her line. I'm delighted enough with both of these polishes to say they are not quite equivalent to Konad special polish but are still an alternative if you are looking for options.  The Blackout and Whiteout duo retails for $12 or individually for $7 USD each. You can purchase Rica stamping polishes, plates, and her regular polishes on Big Cartel.  I'll have up some more nail art using these polishes and the details of the art above shortly. Thanks for reading and see you next post...