Review and Giveaway: Unique Skins

Like many other bloggers, I am – well, addicted to electronic gadgets is probably a good way to put it. From laptop to iPod to Blackberry… When I have extra money to spend, these are the things that I tend to save up for. And there are so many things that you can do to personalize them nowadays so that your gadgets reflect your own individual personality and taste. Whether it’s customized ringtones or wallpapers, the options are endless it seems. And here’s another fun way that you let your gadget can show off your style – with a Unique Skin.

What it is:

Unique Skins are custom vinyl ‘skins’ that are available for laptops, cell phones, mp3 players and many other devices. They are adhesive-backed, so stick firmly to your device – but are completely removeable without damaging it. Here are some details about how they’re made:

After testing many different materials Unique Skins has chosen to use Cast vinyl manufactured by the leader in the industry 3M. The 3M™ Controltac™ with Comply assures the customer of a higher gloss and non-visible air release channels for bubble free application. Other features of this high end material include pressure activation, slideability and repositionability for fast and easy applications. Here at Unique Skins we use a cast vinyl and also a cast laminate to protect the quality of the image.

The skins are completely customizeable with whatever graphics or text you desire. There are many stock images to choose from, or you can upload your own images to use as well. The skins are cut so that your device will continue to be accessible and function exactly as it normally does. Depending on the device and how much use it gets, the skins last anywhere from 6 months to years as long as they aren’t removed.

Here’s my take on it:

Thanks to Unique Skins and the Family Review Network, I was able to try out a skin for one of my own electronic devices. Given that my iPod and laptop are already both green (my favorite color), I chose to design a skin for my red Blackberry Curve.

The process was extremely easy, especially if you’ve used computer graphics programs before. Simply choose your device’s model (most popular electronics devices are available – and if yours isn’t, just drop them an e-mail) and a blank diagram of that specific model appears in the design area, along with pop-up bubbles that explain how to proceed. You can then choose from various sets of available graphics (like ‘nature’ or ‘sports’, or click on a button to upload your own photo(s). Text can be added very simply as well, and you can customize the font, text size and color from several available options.

I sat down with my girls and let them help me pick the photos and graphics to use on my Blackberry skin. I wanted something that showed off the most important parts of my life – my family – and that would also serve as a way to find me if the Blackberry should ever get lost. I also thought it would be fun to include a couple of elements from my (new) personal blog design as well.  The backgrounds I chose were from the stock photos available on the site, and I was able to maneuver the photos around so that the portion I chose would be included in the design.  Once ordered, my Blackberry’s new ‘skin’ only took a couple of days to receive, and came exactly as specified.

Here’s my final design (front and back), as it appeared in the design area on the Unique Skins site:

And the final product, as it appears when installed on my Blackberry:

I love the refreshing look of the beach scenes, especially coupled with the photos of my three favorite girls in the world.  Installing the skin was fairly easy as well – although I would recommend doing so very carefully, and when you have some time to put into it. Especially in the area of my Blackberry’s keyboard, it was important to press the adhesive down between every button. I haven’t tried to remove the skin in general, since doing so would render it unusable afterward. But I did notice while re-aligning parts of it, that the skin peeled off from my phone’s surface quite easily and was very easy to re-position as needed. I’m confident that my phone will be in great shape when I decide to take the skin off permanently.

The bottom line:

Unique Skins are a fun, easy and creative way to customize your electronic device to reflect your life, your personality, and whatever else you want. Whether you want to promote your business, show off your family, or just let everyone see your own personal kind of style, this is a great way to go about it.

Where can you find it?:

You can design and order your Unique Skin at http://www.uniqueskins.com. Prices depend on the type of electronic device, but range anywhere from $6 to $8 for a cell phone skin or $20 for a laptop skin.

Would you like to try it?:

I have three $15 gift certificates to Unique Skins to give away to three lucky readers! If you are interested in creating a customized, all-your-own skin for your own electronic device, here are the rules:

1. Enter by leaving a comment on this post to tell me what kind of device you’d like to create a skin for and what you think you’d want to put on it.  Please don’t just say ‘choose me’, or your entry will be discarded. US entries only, please.
2. The contest will run until Wednesday, September 17th at 11:59 pm EST. The winners will be selected through random drawing, contacted by e-mail, listed on this post and also submitted to PRIZEY.Fetch.
3. Please leave a valid e-mail address or other way to contact you! If you don’t wish to leave your e-mail address, please make sure that you leave a unique name and check back with PRIZEYWinners to see if you won. If any of the winners haven’t responded within 3 days, an alternate winner will be chosen by random drawing.
4. If you’d like an extra entry or two, you can either subscribe to my RSS feed (click on the orange icon in the upper right sidebar), or mention this contest on your blog with a link back to this post – or both. Please leave an extra comment on this post for each of the extra entry options that you choose, letting me know – for a total of 3 comments if you do both extra entry options.

Good luck!

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – the random number generator has chosen comments #18, #16, and #21 as the winners:

Congratulations to:

• Genevieve Larson (no blog) who said, “I would pick one for my sons ipod. Currently it is covered in duct tape“.
• Lori Barnes (no blog) whose extra subscription entry has won for her.
• Shannon (no blog) whose extra link and note about the contest on facebook entry has won for her.

I will be e-mailing you shortly to work out the details!

Re-Visiting this review (March 2010):

Just a quick update to say that since I no longer have this Blackberry, I don’t have this particular skin either. When I removed the skin from the phone though, I had no trouble at all and there was no residue of any sort left behind. The finish on the phone looked just as nice as it did when the skin was applied about 8 months earlier.

I’m glad that I went back and looked at this review again though – because I would like to get a new skin for my laptop and I’d forgotten the name of this company offhand. 

This post courtesy of: