Product Review Series | Daler Rowney Simply Acrylic Mother of Pearl Structure Paste

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

It took a little while to put this one together, not because I had such a hard time with the product, but because in order for me to really show you the product, I had to use a black background, but when I actually use the product I'll be using it on white.

So for the purposes of today's review, the product will be tested on 65lb Recollections black cardstock. In the future when I use this product on an actual project it will most likely be on white.

I'm going to just start out with saying, this bottle is giant. 8.4 US fl. oz, or 250ml. That's an insane amount of product to put in one tube. I got this at my local Wal-Mart. I paid $5.97!!! They were practically begging me to buy it.

I've never heard of the product before, but since I'm always on the look out for new and inexpensive things to use on my cards, I thought "Literally, the worst thing that happens here, is I lose $6.00." That's like skipping a latte, let's all be honest.

Firstly, the fact that this is in a squeezey bottle is just amazing!
Pros:

• Not worried about drying out
• No more dry product cracking and falling into the good stuff
• No more scrambling to get the lid on between applications because we don't want our precious pastes to get hard and therefore crappy to use.

Cons:

• Can't really put excess back in the tube - it's really a use it or lose it situation. 

This gel, is just that; it really reminds me of a gel or a hand lotion. It's smooth and creamy and spreads beautifully, and you don't have to wait until it dries to get that shine. It is amazing. 

As you can see in the picture above, I have used the back of my palette knife to spread just a bit across a black page. I originally tried it on the white - because I want to show you how I would normally use the product - but there just wasn't enough contrast. 

It didn't matter if my flash was on or off, the shine on this stuff is incredible.

I looooooove using embossing pastes through stencils. I love the look and the texture and the little something extra that it brings to a card.

This stuff did not fail me. Like all other embossing pastes - your results are going to depend on your stencil. For this review - I used an incredibly basic stencil. 

Couple of Observations:

• Spreads like silk
• This particular product is quite thin, so it may seep under a stencil edge if the stencil isn't secured or is very delicate - here is an example of this paste over a shimmering background (why I had to do this review with black) but also how the edges of the stencil are not as defined.
• The product is a bit tacky when it seems dry. It wasn't until the next day that these little dots were completely dry.
• Very low odor. YAY!
• Clean up was the same as other embossing pastes - move fast, use warm water, a bit of gentle soap and an old toothbrush

Overall, I really like this product. Because of the Mother of Pearl finish, I didn't bother mixing this with colours as I typically would to coordinate with my project. I would use this for those times where I want something a bit transparent and incredibly shimmery. For the price, you certainly can't go wrong. Even if it is a bit different and you have to "waste" some product on practice runs, at this price, who even cares? I've paid nearly triple that price for half the product in a little jar that ended up drying out because the lid didn't have a good seal on it.

The only real downside that I have found using this product is the drying time. This isn't something you can just toss on a card or a project and work over in the next hour. It literally took overnight for me to feel confident that this stuff was fully dry and that was a thin stencil. Maybe if you find a background you really like, make a few of them at once and then use them later.

In the end, there is absolutely no loss when trying this product. Maybe you like it, maybe you don't. I'm not going to toss my other products in the trash because this is the be all and end all of structure gels, but once they are gone I'll certainly have less motivation to replace them. For me, this product is what I'm looking for in a shimmering gel. I'll just have to plan accordingly.

Also, They have a white medium texture paste - looks thicker and I cannot wait to try that one out! It's been sitting on my desk, calling my name. So maybe we'll see that one next week.

I hope you like today's review. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar. You can also follow me over on Facebook. If you have any further questions about this product or have a suggestion for a future review, please toss me a line in the comments section below and let me know, I'd love to hear from you.

*disclaimer: I am not sent products to review, nor am I paid to review them. I review the products that I find interesting and that I have purchased with my own money, my hope is to provide you with information based on my experience. I am not given incentive, payment or reward. All reviews are based on my experience and are my opinion only.