Thursday, January 26, 2012

Finger Paints Special Effects Flake Glitter Topcoat Collection Swatches and Review

There's an epidemic spreading throughout the nail polish world. Flaky fever. It's highly contagious. And if you have flaky fever, the only cure is more cowbell flakes.

Flake glitter polishes (known colloquially as "flakies") are sprouting up everywhere lately, and that's a good thing. Flake glitter polishes are not all that common; most brands only have one or two, if they even have any at all. For a while, the only flaky polishes we could get were Nfu Oh, and those are pretty pricey. Despite being relatively rare/uncommon, they're incredibly popular and loved by polish fans everywhere. Now it seems that a lot of brands are realizing that we really love our flakies and we want more of them, so they're slowly adding more flake polishes to their lines. This most recent release, the Finger Paints Special Effects collection, is the créme de la créme of flakies.

I've swatched each of these over black because it's easier to see the different types of flakes that way. Each swatch is two coats of polish.

Finger Paints Asylum. Asylum is a clear base with red and blue flakes that shift to orange, yellow, green and purple. The flakes are all different shapes and sizes.



Finger Paints Flashy. Flashy is one of those red-orange-yellow-green types of flake polishes. It's not all that different from Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure/Essie Shine of the Times/Nubar 2010/et cetera, but it does seem to have brighter colors in the flakes. I haven't compared this side-by-side with any of those other polishes, but the red in this one just seems redder somehow.



Finger Paints Flecked. Flecked is the bright green-blue type of flake, but it has an extra strong color shift.


Finger Paints Motley. Motley is a little bit different. It's a mixture of green-blue flakes and blue-purple flakes. Some of the flakes even look purple on their own without changing colors. It's hard to see the purple color from these pictures, but it's obvious in real life. The blue flakes in this one are a lot bigger than most blue flake polishes I own so you get more blue tone than green in this polish, which I appreciate.



Finger Paints Twisted. The very best one. It's a mix of all the flakes. It has every color of the rainbow visible at all times and the shapes and sizes of the flakes are all really different. If I had to choose only one polish from this collection, this would be it. It rocks.

The formula on these was good. Like most flake polishes, they have a thick-textured base. These aren't as bad as most I've used, but they're still thicker than I'd like. Other than the texture of the base, the application was perfect. Great coverage. Reasonable dry time, but still longer than regular polish.

Honestly, this is the best collection of flakes I've seen to date. They're by far the most interesting ones I've used, but they also have the advantage of not being too sparse or having flakes that are too small.

Usually the type of flake glitters we see are the single-type ones, like Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, where we only get one kind of flake in a clear or tinted base. They're either the red-orange-yellow-green ones (Hidden Treasure, Shine of the Times), the blue-green ones (Nails Inc. The Wyndham, Nfu Oh 56), and rarely, but still out there, the blue-purple ones (Nails Inc. The Old Vic). It's not as common to see the types of flakes mixed, but those are the ones I like the most. That's why I like these Finger Paints ones so much. Most of them are mixes of two or more flake types.

Another reason I like the Finger Paints Special Effects is that the flakes are large and there's a lot of them in the polish. I don't like flaky polishes that barely have any flakes and you have to do too many coats to get good coverage. These look good at one coat, but even more amazing at two. I haven't done three coats of any of these yet, but I can only imagine how cool that would look.

The only thing I don't like about this collection is that it's limited edition and only available in-store at Sally Beauty. Flake glitters this good need to be permanent and accessible to everyone! They got the price right, but they should have at least made them available online.

The Finger Paints Special Effects collection is available only at Sally Beauty stores through the month of January. They are limited edition and retail for $5.49 each.

55 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review! I'm wearing Twisted over Zoya Codie (very dark brown) now and love it! Cannot stop looking at my nails and have had many ask me what the polish was. Late Dec./Early Jan., I began stalking the Sally's here and pestering them--finally found the whole collection and bought Twisted, Asylum, and Motley--I have Essie Shine of the Times, Nails Inc. The Donmar and Nails Inc. The Wyndham so felt Flashy and Flecked would be dupes.

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  2. Great!
    My favorites are the first and the last one. :-)

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  3. I checked these out at Sally's when I was there yesterday, but they only had the orange (which I don't like orange) and green (which I have a green one from Nails Inc already) Wish they'd had Twisted as that is definitely the superstar of the collection!

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  4. I am in love, obsessed, addicted to these Flakies! I can't wait to receive mine! Thank goodness for finger paints putting these out! I could never afford Nfu.oh. As always AMAZING swatches Scrangie<3

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  5. OMG I need them all!! do you know how long they´re going to be available? I´m moving to US in a month pleaaaaseeee I need to find them!!!

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  6. I ended up getting Asylum and Twisted, my Sally's last bottle of each!

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  7. I love these! I got all of them except for Flashy.

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  8. These flakies look really cute, something special! :)

    xoxo
    Pat

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  9. I picked up Mötley and I love it - however, your swatches are making me really wish I got twisted as well. I hope I can still find it!

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  10. My Sally's was out of Motley when I went to get them :( I really need to track that one down before it's too late!

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  11. Replies
    1. Similar, but not close enough to call them dupes. They both have a mix of colors, but Twisted has a lot more flakes, bigger flakes, and more color to it!

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  12. I hope they're available online. That's the only way I can shop. I didn't realize the were limited editions. Crap!

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  13. "If I had to choose only one polish from this collection, this would be it. It rocks."

    Agreed! Twisted is the only one from this collection I got my hands on, because it was the only other bottle available at my local Sally's other than Flashy. And I do not need another Nubar 2010.

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  14. I was able to get Twisted right before Christmas and only because the lady at Sally's got it out of the back for me. Wish I'd gotten Motley, too, because now the only one left in the store is Flashy, and I don't care for orange-y colors.

    These are being scalped for ridiculous prices on eBay, so I hope FP makes them permanent. Gorgeous swatches, as always!

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  15. I bugged my Sallys SA to "check in the back" so I was able to get all of these before Christmas (and a few for the BFF). I'm glad I got them when I did because the display was EMPTY when I went earlier this week. A big applause for FP - they definitely got the flakies right, but a big booo to them also because they're LE.

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  16. I ended up ordering Ludurana Acro as a substitute for Twisted. It's not as packed in one coat but I refuse to pay the going ebay rate of $20+ for a $5 bottle of polish that just came out. I figured I was wasting gas money driving all over for it.

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  17. The blue and green ones are beautiful, but the last one is INSANE.

    I didn't think I'd like a whole mix of colours of flakes, but it looks very unique!

    I always use my SH Hidden Treasure to spice up an old manicure, it never fails!

    I hope to get my hands on these FP ones as well :) Thanks for sharing!

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  18. The only one I didn't buy was Flashy. I have the Essie Sign of the Times and didn't need a dupe.. but now I am thinking I might need a back up LOL!

    I threw on some Flecked over sally hansen insta dry bronze ablaze and it turned it from a bleh mani to an interesting one!

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  19. I've only got a mild case of Flakie Fever. I've got Green Ocean, Shine of the Times, Glass Slipper, and Twisted. For my modest nail polish collection, that is plenty!

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  20. I did see a link that Jen posted last week that these WERE on the website, but when I checked they were OOS. I've got fingers crossed for those folks that can't get them in store! I LOVE this collection and was super grateful to get mine early. I feel almost like I'm set on flakies, lol!

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  21. I need Twisted, OMG reminds me the effect of Unicorn Puke, all this rainbow shades are amazing!

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  22. Me encantan estos esmaltes pero he ido a la web de Sally Beauty no los encuentro...

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  23. Once again, if you guys get involved with swaps from Brazil, ask for the Hits Speciallitá flakies. They are AWSOME! All of these here can find their twin in Hits.

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  24. I did my mani using Julep's Gayle then used every FP flakie. It turned out so cute.

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  25. I think Motley is my Fave

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  26. These are so amazingly beautiful! I drove to so many Sally's until I found them. I feel so lucky to have them. I wish they would make them permanent though. Beautiful swatches and brilliant review as always! :)

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  27. I'm so thankful that I could get my hands on all 5 of them. Twisted and Flashy were the ones that sold out almost immediately at the 3 Sally's locations near me but thankfully they got another order in.

    Twisted is so complex and is the winner of this collection for me.

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  28. Ughhhhh I hate living in NZ! I have a hard enough time getting hold of essie and nubar polishes etc, let alone ones like these! Flecked is definitely my favourite. :)

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  29. Ughhhhh I hate living in NZ! I have a hard enough time getting hold of essie and nubar polishes etc, let alone ones like these! Flecked is definitely my favourite. :)

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  30. Ugh I hate living in NZ! I have a hard enough time getting hold of essie, nubar polishes etc, let alone ones like these! I only have one Nfu Oh flakie polish and I had to pay a bomb for it, but I would killlllll for one (or several......or all....) of these.
    Flecked is definitely my favourite. :) they're all so pretty! :)

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  31. This is the only time your nails haven't created new lemmings for me, but that's because I already own these with the exception of Flashy.

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  32. Wow, these are way cool! I've always overlooked Finger Paints..maybe I should reconsider?

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  33. I have Flecked and Asylum, but I still really want Twisted. If I don't get the others, I'd be okay, but that's the one I'm pining over the most. The collection seems to be very popular because the last time I went into Sally's, the display was completely empty.

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  34. Gorrrgeous swatches, and I'd love to get quite a few of these. But. Limited edition? BOOOOOOO. Available only in store, not online? SUPER BOOOOOOOO. Fine, FingerPaints. I'll stick with Zoya and NfuOh flakies. Also Ludurana and HITS. It's not like we have no other options...

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    1. I'm having the hardest time finding thee, Sally's is always sold out of 'em. Guess I'll have to order them online, they look sensationail. : P

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  35. Wowie. Gorgeous!
    I feel so sick over not being able to find these. I only have 1 Sally's in my area and these sold out so fast and aren't being restocked at all. I hate when companies do super popular, limited edition collections like this! If it's something so desperately wanted and needed, why not make it permanent? Why make people GO CRAZY?!

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  36. I agree with you completely! :) Twisted is by far the best one in this collection - there are so many different colours. It's beautiful...just like your nails!

    Loved all the photos you shared!

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  37. I am among the lucky ones who got all 5 of these and then some to give as gifts to friends. They were sold out at many Sally's before they even came out of the back room for display. Your photos of this collection and descriptions are the best yet out there...thanks so much!

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  38. OMG I have all of these but Twisted. I let my best friend get Twisted, the LAST ONE! I love love love love all of them! I think my favorite combo so far is to put Motley over Orlys Nite Owl...the way the purple blue shows up over Nite Owl is to die for. I've worn that twice now since I've had them.

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  39. Amazing post. Thank you so much for the swatches! I was holding out for your review and almost waited too late but luckily I got all 5 of these and some backups. I went to all three of my local Sally's on both sides of the Mississippi to make sure I got them all haha.

    I had a question about Motley--out of my 5 it seemed that Motley was less dense than the others with one coat. Your pictures with two coats look to be on par with my two coats of Motley but when you applied the first coat by itself, did you think the flakes were more spaced out and not packed in as much as the others?

    Another quick question I wanted to ask. In a previous post (either the last weekish of December or right after the New Year I think it was) I thought you had said you heard about holographic collections coming out this year or how you thought 2012 might be the year of the holo. If that was you, do you remember what collections you were referring to? I'd love to know what to keep a look out for because I am a holo fiend.

    Thank you so much for all your awesome posts!

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  40. Yowza! I have seen these swatched about a billion times and your photos make them look 10 times better than any others I've seen!

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  41. Thanks for posting all the swatches! I picked up Twisted a few weeks ago and I'm in love :)

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  42. Wow they are amazing! Twisted looks like a painting!

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  43. I still think it needs more cowbell...

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  44. D: i wanted these so badly
    i was in time for the collection but some lady bought the entire collection at the nearest sally's beauty at the beginning of this month.
    since then i've been going there every weekday and today the salespeople tell me that it's been discontinued they were never sent another collection. Sadness. D:

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  45. Kind of OT but I would LOVE to see a swatch-a-thon of all the old Urban Decay polishes you have! A bottle of Toxin just sold on ebay for $78.57 @__@ I'll just have to droll over images until they rerelease it!!

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    1. OMGosh...people are crazy!!! I wish I had that kind of money to waste on nail polish LOL.

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  46. I was there at Sally Beauty to get mine, they rock!!

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  47. I tried to get these but the only one they had was Flashy, which is a dupe to Nubar 2010 which I already have. I bought it anyways *shame*
    I went back to Sally's every day and they are not getting them back in stock and I cannot justify spending $10 or more per bottle from scalpers on ebay :/

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  48. I so need to find Twisted! It's the one I wanted the most and was the only one I was gonna get, yet I picked up the other 4 anyway. :D haha Going to try one other Sally's tomorrow, than I may just have to pout. & pray they make it permanent.

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  49. I need to find Twisted! It was the one I really wanted and was only going to buy, yet I picked up the other 4 anyway, after seeing your swatches. lol :) Try one more Sallys than I may just have to pout & hope they make these permanent.

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  50. I just got Motley, Asylum, Flecked, and Flashy. I got a heck of a deal on ebay for them plus the seller threw in Finger Paint Black Expressionism to boot. I paid $30 plus shipping for everything! I love them!!! Flecked is by far my favorite...I love the green! I don't really need Twisted because I can just layer the others and it looks just like it. I even thought about getting an empty bottle and mixing a little of each one to make my own Twisted lol. Can't wait to layer these over different colors!! I'm doing the happy dance! lol

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