The hardest part of new products

First, I am so sorry I am such a bad blogger. I tend to do better keeping up with Facebook, where I can post a few lines and be off! I get busy with working, family, and friends, and sleep wins out over posting.

Moving forward, I want to talk about the latest addition to the KBShimmer family of products: Nail Polish!

By now, anyone that has been to my shop or seen my products locally, knows I love color. One thing that you may not know is that love of color extends to my own body, specifically my toes. I love picking out a new color to paint my toes. Blues, purples, pinks, greens; no color is off limits. Even when working in a business environment, you can always have a sassy color hidden under those practical pumps.

One of the newest trends in handmade cosmetics, I think stemming from the popularity of mineral make-up, is "Franken" polish. That is taking store bought polish, mixing colors, adding glitters, and even pigments to create your own unique polish. But now, some of us have taken it one step farther, creating custom polishes from scratch!

As much as I love new products, I am not one that enjoys the testing phase. I like to jump right in and go. But working with a new medium, it is always better to plan ahead, test your components, and take it slow to ensure quality. So I test everything new I get.

For nail polish, this started with testing glitters. I used almost a whole pint of base and bought hundreds of dollars in glitters. You see, making a polish is not as easy as adding glitter to clear polish. Glitters can "bleed" into the base, losing color and dying the polish. They can warp, or curl, leading to lumpy polish. They can flake apart, breaking in the polish, or even cause the polish to thicken. None of these are good when trying to create polish you can duplicate over and over for customers.

See how the red and black polish look? That is bleeding glitter. The white used to have an iridescent glow to it and now that is gone and the polish is very thick. The green and gold are normal.

Testing colors was fun. I have a ton of colorants for soapmaking, so I was able to use a lot of those in polish. Figuring which blended well in polish and offered shades that I loved was one of the best parts of testing. In polish, micas can really shine making for an opaque polish, while oxides and cosmetic neons can make a semi sheer color that allow for glitter to pop. One of my best mistakes was taking a pure dye and adding it to the polish. While the polish did not gain color, my fingers did when I removed it! But that testing assured that those lessons were learned before any polish was sold to you!

After all the testing, I launched the polish about a month ago, and it seems to be going over well! I invite you to go and check out the polish I have available to see if anything appeals to your sense of color. If not, send me a message. I love suggestions!

My Etsy Shop