Indie makers and their businesses

How do you see the indie makers? As friends that happen to make nail polish, or as business women (and men)?

There’s something I have been wanting to get off my chest for a while, and today is that day.

The nail polish world has been growing really fast over the past few years, and I mean really fast. The demand for more interesting and/or alternative finishes, colours and combinations got so high, that some girls decided to take things into their own hands and make their own polish.

The indie market grew (and is still growing) ridiculously fast. And why shouldn’t it? Every girl with an eye for colours and a good imagination and the cash to buy the necessary supplies can mix their own pretty polishes – and why not sell them to other enthusiasts? I’m right there with you so far.

To me though, this whole indie scene is business. Yes, I do know the first names of the makers of some indies, and yes, I do chat with a couple of them occasionally. But - when it comes to throwing money over the counter, then it changes from being online friends to also being a business relationship for me.

I expect professionalism, I expect good customer service and I expect communication from any business I deal with. Those are the buzz words for me.

I won’t mention any names or brands today, but let me give you a few examples of very recent not so good experiences:

1.   Bad communication

So, I ordered six polishes from a shop on Etsy. I got the message: ”Thanks for your purchase! Your item(s) will ship in 2-5 business days.” (It’s an automatic response, no actual persons were involved sending it).

After 6 business days I contacted the shop again (yes, I am like that!). I asked them when they expected to ship my polishes. This message was left completely unanswered, but my polishes were marked as shipped the following day. So, were they actually waiting for me to write again before sending my goods, or what? To me it is highly unprofessional to not bother answering your emails. It only takes a minute to write that the polishes are now shipped and sorry for the delay. That’s just sloppy and arrogant.

2.   Bad Customer Service

There is a brand that makes some polishes I really like. I live in Europe, and that means that postage usually is pretty expensive. It’s nobody’s fault but the postal service’s, but there are ways to get around that. 

I wrote a message to this particular shop owner and asked if I could combine the shipping on two smaller orders. The answer was NO. I asked the shop owner a couple of other questions about restocks, and ordering with another Danish friend to keep postage down, but every question was answered with a resounding NO. 

I think that some of the smaller shops really need to be flexible and work with their customers, instead of seeing them as a pain that asks stupid and annoying questions. All the NOs I got from this shop owner has made me stop buying her polishes at all, and I even consider selling off all the ones I’ve got. Yes, I am like that. There it is again - arrogant, no business sense, and no respect for customers or their money, obviously. Well, no more of my money is going her way, so it’s a resounding NO right back from me.

3.   Unprofessional behaviour

Delays are unprofessional, period. 

Yes, I know that things that we can't control occasionally happen. But when it happens again, and again, and again, then there’s something going on that should not be going on. 

When that order is paid for, the shop owner must do everything in their power to get things out ASAP. Guess what, it’s the law.

I don’t want to hear tedious excuses and long explanations. I’ve passed my money over your counter, and I want value for that money. Now please. Yes, I am like that! You’re a businesswoman/man – get a grip, run your business properly. Or I stop buying your stuff and move on, plenty more out there like you wanting my money and willing to step up for it.

I know this sound a bit harsh, but seriously, we wouldn’t accept the same behaviour from a non-indie maker. We accept it in the polish world because it’s more personal, because we know the girls, and possibly because we feel that a little bit of their current popularity rubs off on us. That is not how it should be. They want us to buy their stuff, don’t forget that. They make polish, and anyone can actually do that if they have a mind to. If you want to make it AND sell it, do it properly, don’t take your customers too much for granted. Fashion moves on extremely quickly don’t forget, and customer loyalty is a very easy thing to fuck up. Tomorrow you’re history if you’re not careful.

How do y’all feel about this? Please let me know in the comments below. Is it okay for these businesses to leave messages unanswered? Do you continue shopping in shops that are sending out your goods way too late and make excuses every time? How about the ones who make no effort to help you in your efforts to spend money with them, doing quite the opposite in fact?

Or - do you support the good indie makers out there who value your business, want you to wear their product and who are willing to go a few extra yards for their customers? Do you offer them your customer loyalty? I know I do, because I am like that!

Thank you for your attention.

LynBDesigns ~ So Changeable & Colorful Expletive

LynBDesigns ~ So Changeable & Colorful Expletive

I don’t own many indie polishes. I’ve come across some pretty bad indies and that’s why I’m a bit suspicious about them. I often don’t think the quality matches the price tag. At all. And, knowing I can get lots of groovy polishes at half the price and sometimes even one third of the price, well, that makes me somewhat picky. Indie doesn’t always mean quality – sometimes it just means amateur.

But once in a while it’s nice to try something new, so when Lyn from LynBDesigns had a sale, I decided to give her very pretty glitters a go.

First, here’s So Changeable. It is a blue base with some colour shifting ability, mainly blue to purple, and tons of blue fine glitter. The colour shift doesn’t show much on the nail though, so the polish looks mainly blue when worn.

The quality surprised me a lot, in the good way. This actually feels like a real polish, and not just a lumpy mess of glitter tossed into a bottle of top coat. The first layer was a bit streaky, but the second layer evened out the imperfections completely. And man, can this baby shine! It’s a beautiful blue glittery polish indeed.

Here’s what two coats and no top coat look like:

And here’s a daylight picture for you. Still no sun!

‘Tis pretty, isn’t it?

Now onto a polish I’ve been drooling over since I first spied it on another blog. I’m talking about LynBDesigns Colorful Expletive, a clear based all silver holographic polish. It has micro glitter, small glitter, glitter shreds, and even silver holographic stars. Sounds like my kind of glitter, doesn’t it? I think it does.

I sponged glitter on the tips, and it wasn’t necessary to fish for the stars, in fact, I had to brush some of them back in the bottle! I only wanted one star on each nail, and three on the thumbnails. Drying time was fast for both of the polishes. Nice bonus!

One generous coat of Poshé top coat, and my mani was done:

Here’s a pic from another angle:

I really like this, there’s a little bit of everything that I like in this mani. I’m really happy that I bought these polishes and gave another indie a try.

Do you know this brand? And what’s your favourite indie if you have one?

Both polishes:

Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: /10
Value for money: 9/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Summer Challenge Day 22: Inspired by a song

Summer Challenge Day 22: Inspired by a song

It took forever for me to figure out how to overcome this challenge. Before I actually got to it, I thought it would be easy. I mean, I love music and there are so many songs to choose between. But to actually make it match a manicure, that was so much more difficult than I ever imagined.

But after hours and hours of thinking, I picked an old song from 1986, namely Madonna’s “True Blue”. The song is from her third studio album, True Blue, and it deals with the feelings for her then-husband Sean Penn.

I used another Flormar polish for this challenge, namely number 446 which is a shimmery, yet a bit of a dusty blue. I used two layers for full opacity.

Sunshine pic: 

Indoor pic:

And since this is a love song, I added some hearts. I used an indie-polish from Daring Digits called “Love Hurts”, which is a clear base with small blue glitters and larger blue and black hearts.

There was no need to go fishing for the hearts, they were loaded on the brush each time I dipped. I did arrange them a bit on my nails though, since some of them wanted to play on my cuticles. That’s not the polish’s fault though, but mine alone :D

Here’s one coat over the Flormar, and covered with a layer of my all time favourite top coat, Poshé.  

And here’s an indoor pic.

Here’s the official True Blue video. I think it’s so funny to watch videos made in the 1980s.

So that’s my mani inspired by a song. Did you like it? Do you like Madonna?

There are other Danish girls who also did a “inspired by a song” mani today. You should definitely check their blogs out to see what they came up with.  

• Neglelir
• Se min kjole
• Mette
• Life is a fairy tale
• Vicki's Polish

Stay tuned the day after tomorrow - same bat time, same bat channel – for nails inspired by a movie! I’ve begun thinking already!