Sweet & Treats collection available now!

For real swatches, I steal (lovingly and with permission) photos my talented friends have taken of my polishes.

First up we have Pygmy Puff - complete with a little flocking powder Arnold! - courtesy of Jacki from Adventures in Acetone.

Here is Ashley from Ashley Is Polish Addicted showcasing the violet flakies in Sugar Spun Quills.

Cas from The Mani-Logues used Sugar Spun Quills in a stamped mani.

She also posted this awesome shot of Acid Pops in her review on her blog.

Lastly, Sheila from Pointless Cafe captured the flakies in Fizzing Whizbees (and our others) beautifully in her review!

If you're a Harry Potter fan, you'll recognize that the series has inspired a Paint Box Polish collection again! I thought Honeydukes' candy shop and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes joke shop were perfect to draw on for a brightly colored summer collection.

I hope you're a fan! You can find these and all of my other products available here. Paint Box Polish now has cuticle oil and glass nail files as well as polish. Gift sets in a pretty gift bag are also available.

Don't forget you can also stop by the Paint Box Polish booth at the INDIEana Handicraft Exchange show in Indianpolis on June 14th. I think I've bribed my sister-in-law to be my minion in exchange for polish and beer. :) We're nice people and would love to say hello!

Coming Soon - Paint Box Polish Sweets & Treats Collection!

Summer is almost here and so are some bright, new colors! I drew inspiration from all things summer. Flowers, sun, fun, and candy! Here are some quick shots of the new colors. I'll highlight more swatch photos from bloggers after I send out blogger packs and posts start appearing!

The colors in this set are L-R: Acid Pops, Pygmy Puff, Fizzing Whizbees, and Sugar Spun Quills. Yes, fellow Potter nuts. The Harry Potter theme continues! 

Acid Pops is a bright, apple green with green flakies and green/blue shimmer. Pygmy Puff is a matte coral shimmer with gold flakies. Fizzing Whizbees is an orange crelly with tiny rainbow flakies, and Sugar Spun Quills is a deep, berry pink with violet flakies. I. Love. Them. All!

I also have gift sets available now in my Big Cartel store. Your choice of any currently in stock polish, any cuticle oil, and either a cobalt blue or royal purple mini glass nail file for $15. The set comes in a pretty bag, and it is ready for giving.

The Sweets & Treats collection will be available mid-June and gift sets are available now at www.paintboxpolish.bigcartel.com.

Zoya Destiny

Destiny is the other Zoya Summer PixieDust polish I picked up. The bottle shots looked great, but man oh man! I saw swatches and I knew it had to be mine! 

This mani is the blingiest one I've worn in ages. I swear if the sun hit it right, you could see the sparkle across a parking lot. I've got two coats of matte coral and gold glitter summer on my nails here. Love it!

butter LONDON Sunbaker and Champers

Today I have for you two polishes from butter LONDON's Summer collection. Both are bright, shiny foil finishes that caught my eye right away. 

Sunbaker (index through ring fingers) is a metallic tangerine color that applied like a dream. I love that the inspiration behind the color is those people who spend too much time in the sun (usually fake baking) and turn orange!

Champers (pinky accent nail) is a fantastic rose gold color that takes its name from the British slang for champagne. I'm now realizing that this photo doesn't show the rose vey well. I'll have to reswatch and get a better shot. Two coats to opacity with this one as well.

Love these colors! I think they're the perfect tribute to summertime. Did you grab any from this collection?

China Glaze Mani's Before Mimosa's

This is the second polish I picked up from China Glaze's Avant Garden collection. The swatch photos I saw online looked absolutely beautiful. However, this is an excellent example of why I need to read more closely. 

Why? Because the formula on this one was all kinds of awful. Thick, but runny, streaky, and not self-leveling at all. There are three coats to this mani, and it was still a bit of a struggle to get even. Luckily the color is an awesome light coral/peach with gold shimmer. Makes the application hurt less. :)

I cannot conclude without addressing those silly apostrophes. Or shall I say apostrophe's? Ugh. Did your naming people quit school before learning about apostrophes? Does anyone know if this is a reference to something that I'm unaware of? It drives me absolutely crazy. If I were an English teacher, kids would hate me.

Literary Lacquers More Like Fire Than Light

Today I've got a fabulous polish from Literary Lacquers, More Like Fire Than Light. This polish is one of nine in "The Good Parts" collection, which is inspired by erotic fiction. More Like Fire Than Light takes it's inspiration from Delta of Venus, by Anais Nin.

This polish is a linear holo in a very squishy, bright, orange jelly base. I used CND Stickey and NYC Grand Central Station without any dulling of the holo effect at all. Three thin, easy coats and you're done!

More Like Fire Than Light can be picked up for $10 per 15mL bottle here.

Please Don't Hate Me - Ninja Polish Divinity

Seriously, I contemplated not posting this one yet because it is so completely awesome and so completely sold out. :( Divinity is part of Ninja Polish's Enigma Collection and can be found here. Ninja Polish has an awesome feature which allows you to sign up for email notifications when the polish is back in stock. This is how I snagged it up at the initial launch.

I will briefly say that Divinity is like Clarins 230 on steroids. I came into the polish game after Clarins 230 was out. It has a royal purple base and turns almost every color of the rainbow. I used three very thin, very easy coats plus top coat for these photos (it dries matte-ish). There are a ton. You're welcome.

Indirect Lighting

Fluorescent lighting in my garage. (Really!)

In-the-light-box Macro

Lightbox

Lightbox

In the light box, with flash

Under the lamp in my living room

Under the lamp in my living room

With flash to better show the base

Lamplight in the living room

I urge you all to sign up for email notification. Divinity has a coat of $11.00 and is totally worth it.

Zoya Myrta Swatches - Summer 2012 Surf Collection

Myrta is a bright orange glass-fleck polish loaded with irregular silver shimmer that is part of Zoya's Surf collection from this summer. I picked it up during one of their fabulous promos. Seriously, you've got to be a fan of Zoya for their promos if not for their awesome polish. 

These photos are with two coats of Myrta swatched quickly without base or top coats. This polish has tons of shimmer that catches the eye and looks great! I'm rather sad I didn't get this earlier in the summer.

China Glaze Summer Neons Swatches

I love having friends in high polish places (Hi, Christy!). I saw swatches of these polishes and made her promise to tell me when these came in. I had seen neons popping up all over blogs and stores, but none really caught my eye. I actually debated buying a bottle I wasn't crazy about because I knew neons were the in thing this summer. I'm glad I didn't because I genuinely love the five I got from this collection (six, actually, but I gifted one to my niece). I like that they aren't just cremes, but have a beautiful shimmer to keep them interesting.

The first polish I tried was Surfin' for Boys. It is a super bright orange-y red with a very fine silver-pink micro shimmer that brightens it up another notch. 

Picture is fairly color accurate to the polish

My second polish was Sun-Kissed. This color is straight up highlighter yellow. There is a smattering of silver microglitter to make it extra interesting.

Color accurate photo. And a chip. :(

After that, seeing them all lined up on my bookshelf was just too much. I had to do a skittles mani. They go together so well! I was going to remove it before work this morning because I thought it may have pushed the nurse practitioner envelope a bit, even if my day is full of kids and women. Luckily, my boss loved it!

Skittles Mani, thumb-pinky: Splish Splash, Surfin' for Boys, Flirty Tankini, Orange You Hot?, and Sun-Kissed

Splish Splash is a very vibrant blue with Silver micro shimmer, Flirty Tankini is a pink-y coral with silver/pink micro glitter, and Orange You Hot? is a shimmery highlighter orange.

Skittles mani with my fav bright pj pants in the background. :)

Formula wise, some of these are bears. I used 3 coats of Splish Splash, Orange You Hot? and Sun-kissed. just two coats were needed for Surfin' for Boys and Flirty Tankini. All polishes were rather thick and tended to run down the stem of the brush after you had already wiped it and begun polishing. I do think they are worth it, though. I may add a few drops of lacquer thinner and see how that goes.

What do you think? Are you picking up any of these?

Essie Too Too Hot

This polish is from last summer's Brazilliant collection, but seems to be a dupe of Olé Caliente - which is from this spring's Essie collection. I've seen some argue that they are just close, not dupes. See what you think. I find it very buggy when a company releases polishes that are so similar this close together. These two came out less then a year apart. But, moving on... I felt like something bright and cheerful. Too Too Hot's red/coral/orange/pink-ness really fit the bill.

Essie's brush is very skinny and long, but it spreads very nicely. I never have to do very much clean up with them, which is always a plus.

I used two coats and got decent coverage, but there was definitely VNL. I've come to learn that I'd rather have some VNL than use a third coat in most cases.

Revlon Alluring Amber

I found this picture when I was sorting through my photo albums, and I don't think I've posted it yet. I know this one was found on a dusty shelf at Meijer for $0.99. I thought I'd give Revlon's formula another go for less than a dollar. 

I can't remember if this was 2 coats or three, but I think it was only 2 coats and lasted 3 days before getting a chip, which is unheard of with Revlon and I. 

This shade of orange was really nice as well. I'm not big on orange, but this one was nice and dusty. I was afraid it would look like I had traffic cones on my fingers!