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.

Finger Paints Summer in the City Collection Summer 2012 Swatches and Review

Finger Paints has some nice brights out for summer this year. The Summer in the City collection is mostly cremes, but there's a little bit of sparkle in there for variety.


Finger Paints Beach Bound. A medium bright purple creme. Dries darker than bottle color.

Finger Paints Flip Flop Fuchsia. A bright fuchsia creme. Not neon, but still a very strong-looking color. Reminds me of NARS Anardana, just a little less saturated.


Finger Paints Late Night Rendez-vous. A blue, green and teal iridescent metallic sparkle. Makes me think of all those Zoya Charla / OPI Catch Me In Your Net / Orly Halley's Comet clones from a few summers back.


Finger Paints Movie in the Park. A sheer, purple-tinted base with tiny purple, blue and pink glitter. Very pretty and twinkly and a lot more opaque than I thought it would be!


Finger Paints Sexy Sundress. A bright yellow-toned green. Similar to OPI Did It On 'Em, just brighter.


Finger Paints Toe-teally Hot. Bright teal creme. Less bright than Milani Fresh Teal.

The formula on these was thick. It dragged a little on the nail and I needed to wait a few minutes between coats to ensure an even application. However, due to the thickness, they were also very opaque and I only needed two coats of each. Drying time is on the longer side.

Fun little collection, isn't it? I like Beach Bound and Sexy Sundress the best. A lot of them seem similar to existing colors from other brands, but they're still quite cool.

The Finger Paints Summer in the City collection is available now, exclusively at Sally Beauty.

(This was sent for review.)

Finger Paints Gumdrops & Lollipops Collection Spring 2012 Swatches and Review

One more Spring 2012 collection... This one is Finger Paints' spring set, called Gumdrops & Lollipops. Isn't that promo picture adorable? The polish colors are mostly your standard spring shades, but there's a few nice surprises thrown in to keep it from being too predictable.


Finger Paints Blue Raspberry Taffy. This is a typical bright blue/slightly deeper sky blue creme shade. There really isn't anything different about this one that sets it apart from the dozens of other bright blue cremes that come out every year. It's a pretty color, but very, very common.


Finger Paints Choco Mint. This is a little more green than most of the turquoise/pastel teal cremes we've seen so far this year. The name Choco Mint is spot on- this looks exactly like mint chocolate chip ice cream without the chocolate chips. Anyone know of a dark brown chunky glitter I can layer over this? I could use Nubar Black Polka Dot, that might work...


Finger Paints Circus Peanuts. The bottle color is deceptive- this dries a whole lot darker on the nail than it appears in the bottle. This one isn't quite the color of real circus peanuts, but it's vaguely similar. I'm sure they weren't going for an exact match, but if this was more orange and less pink/peach/coral toned, it would be perfect. Have you ever had circus peanuts? They're... different.




Finger Paints Grape Gumball. This one is a nice surprise! It's not a creme like the others, it has a speckled-looking finish. The shimmer particles are flat and silvery, but reflect a little blue and green at certain angles. But they're not all that shiny, really more of a 'speckle' than a 'sparkle'. Oh, and this is mostly blue, not pure purple or grape-colored. Perhaps this is Finger Paints' answer to the speckled blues in the OPI spring collection?


Finger Paints Lemon Sour. This is my favorite one. It's a light (not too whitish or washed out) lemon yellow creme. It's soft-looking and easy to wear and has one of the best formulas for a yellow polish I've ever used. It's smooth and opaque, not streaky or lumpy like most yellows tend to be. Perfect in two coats. Dreamy.



Finger Paints Pop Rock Pink. Pop Rocks! I love Pop Rocks! And this is a really good Pop Rocks color- translucent and candy-colored with a little bit of fizz to it. It's a bright coral pink jelly base with duochrome glass fleck shimmer. The glass fleck shimmer particles in this are very small compared to other similar-finished polishes. It's also very shiny and pretty, shifting colors between orange and fuchsia.

The formula on these was good. The cremes were smooth and opaque and applied very easily. The shimmers were just as nice, but a little less opaque. I did two coats of the cremes, three of the shimmers. The application was great, but I did experience some bubbling due to the thickness of the polish. The dry time on these is also a little longer than most. Like other thick/dense/bubble-prone polishes, it's best to apply very thin coats and let them dry for a few minutes before applying the next one.

The colors are cute and the formula was good, but I think I'm a little burned out on spring colors already. The only one from this collection that I really love is Lemon Sour.

This collection will be available both in store and online at Sally Beauty starting in March. Retail price is $4.99 a bottle. Limited edition.

(This was sent for review.)

Finger Paints Winter/Holiday Collection 2009

I don't think I've posted much about Finger Paints before... That's not because I don't like it! I do like Finger Paints, a lot. Especially this newest collection released for the Holiday season. It's just that you can only get them at Sally Beauty... and I have to really be in the mood to be frustrated to go there. *ahem* I won't turn this into a rant about how I'm treated when I visit Sally, so on to the pics!


I wish I was able to get better pictures of these, but the sun seems to be hibernating.

Candy Cane Shimmer. A light pink-toned red with tons of shimmer. I am not usually a red person, but I had to have this. Look at the shimmer. The shimmer! It's big, chunky iridescent shimmer. Kind of like glass fleck.

Decked With Dazzle. Light mauve-pink with big multicolored shimmer particles. This amazing shimmer even made me want pink. There's gold, silvery-white, pink, violet, iridescent... All kinds of different flecks of shimmer combined to make a soft sparkly sugar plum pink.


Evergreen Dream. This is such a ridiculously perfect color. I can't believe how awesome this is. The second picture was taken with flash to show the base color and the shimmer particles. It has enough yellow to it to make me happy and so much shimmer that it sparkles even indoors. There might be a little glitter mixed in, but it's mostly really dense large particle shimmer. Great job, Finger Paints!! A total masterpiece.

Icy Iris. I really wish my pictures of this turned out. I just couldn't hold my hands still! This is a rich, dark, deep purple with different colors of shimmer. Eggplant and amethyst. Some of the shimmer is more red-toned purple and some is more blue-toned. The base is very dark and the shimmer looks positively electric when the light catches it. This doesn't look black indoors to me. It has too much amazing color-shifting shimmer to look too dark or flat. Again, amazing, a total work of art!

Snowman's Scarf. This is a terrible picture. It doesn't really show what the polish looks like, so I'll do my best to describe it. It's the same shade of bright medium red, but it has a lot of really fine bright gold shimmer. It's not the large glass-flecky iridescent shimmer that's in the other polishes. This shimmer is like fine gold dust, very very smooth but very bright and reflective. Red and gold look really good together.


Sparkling Snow. A light snowy silver made of different colored flecks of shimmer. Some of the shimmer in this is white, some is silver, a little bit even looks iridescent. This is a lot more delicate and icy than Easel Come, Easel Go. It's light and soft looking. I'd even call it a feminine silver. Very sparkly.


The formula on these was good. I didn't really have a problem with them. They were a little three-freeish -thick but runny- but not severe. The brushes are good but the tapered handle is slightly awkward feeling in my hand. All minor issues. These are pretty solid polishes- good colors, good formula, good bottles and brushes. I did three coats of each color. Only Decked With Dazzle and and Sparkling Snow really needed the third coat, you could really get away with two on the rest of the shades. Drying time was average.

Overall, I am really in love with this collection. The colors are perfect! Lots and lots of iridescent shimmer. Purple, green! Even the reds are great. This is a lot better than the past few collections I've seen Finger Paints do. I think last year's winter/holiday collection was kind of like this too, with all the glass fleck-esque shimmer and fun colors, but my Sally never got them! Boo!

Can't wait to see what they do next, but I don't think anything can top Evergreen Dream.

Finger Paints Merry and Bright Collection Holiday 2011 Swatches and Review

Finger Paints has done a really different type of Holiday collection this year. None of the predictable reds and greens and golds commonly seen this time of year, but instead the Merry and Bright collection contains a selection of bright colors and glitters for layering.


Comet's Collar. A light metallic yellow-toned green. This is made of medium-sized shimmer particles in a subtle mix of colors- some yellowy, some iridescent, some gold. It gives the polish a textured shimmery look with glints of iridescent color when the light hits it just right.


Drummer Boy. A light blue glitter in a clear base. This is your standard type of glitter particle- big, round, silver-based. The blue coating looks lighter or darker depending on the angle, and is very shiny in a chrome-like way, but isn't actually very sparkly.


Frosty Night. A plain silver glitter in a clear base. Like Drummer Boy, this glitter is shiny but not sparkly. It's actually rather dull looking, it doesn't come alive in the light like normal glitter. This is probably my least favorite silver glitter ever.



Santa Kisses. A red glitter in a clear base. This one isn't as shiny as the others, and it's not sparkly, either. It's colorful, but it's dull and lifeless.


Winter Sky. Under winter skies, we stand glorious.... Winter Sky is a very unexpected bright but soft blue with gorgeous electric aqua shimmer. It doesn't look like much inside, but the shimmer really comes out in sunlight.


Yule Be Merry. Another really unexpected color. Bright magenta with pink and purple flash.

Just for fun, this is what my label for this one said. I know it's not the real label because it's a sample, but it still made me smile. I love typos on polish bottles!

Since the glitters are so sheer, I thought I'd try layering to see what they look like:
This is one coat of Drummer Boy over Winter Sky. Much better layered, but still no sparkle! Just shiny metal plates.

The formula on these was somewhat hit and miss. The glitters were thick and a bit goopy, but the shimmer shades had a fairly even, albeit rather thick, formula. Winter Sky was opaque in one coat, the rest needed three. I'm wearing three plus topcoat in these pictures. Drying time is long due to the thickness of the formula.

I have to say... I'm disappointed. I liked these better in the promo pictures because they looked more sparkly and colorful. In real life, they're just... Eh. The shimmer shades are nice, but I would personally pass on the glitters. They're really sheer and they don't sparkle. I do appreciate that they decided to think outside the box and not do the stereotypical red/green/gold-themed Holiday collection, but I gotta tell you... I miss those stereotypical holiday colors! I love those velvety, vampy reds, sparkly silver and gold glitters, blackened evergreens and snowy whites. To me, this collection feels like a random assortment of colors leftover from other collections.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but none of these colors really stand out to me or draw me in. This is the first Finger Paints holiday collection I haven't liked. In my opinion, each year Finger Paints does one of the prettiest holiday collections out of all the brands (see 2010, 2009, and I haven't reviewed it, but here's 2008 for reference). This year's collection seemed to lack that holiday magic and sparkle that the Finger Paints holiday collections always have.

Anyway, these will be available starting in November exclusively at Sally Beauty.

(These were sent to me for review.)