USPS Price Increases

A note to my international customers regarding USPS price increases:

I'm not sure exactly how it's going to shake out because I can't find the list of which countries are in which zones, but right now it looks like the lowest cost for one polish to ship internationally will be $7.35, and the highest zone is $9.15. Two to three polishes will be between $8.55 and $12.15. And, of course, the costs just go up from there.

I may need to suspend international shipping for a bit while I figure all this out. =\

Smitten with the Holidays Stock Info

I will be stocking the Smitten with the Holidays collection in my Etsy store on November 26, 2012. I'll put half the stock up at 1pm CENTRAL TIME on November 26, and the other half up at 7pm CENTRAL TIME on November 26, so that as many different time zones as possible will have access to the stock.

Also, I'll be running a special for Cyber Monday, 20% off your order with code CYBER20. That code will be valid starting with the 1pm restock and will be good until midnight CENTRAL TIME the night of November 26.

In addition, leftover stock of the Halloween collection will be priced at $7 each, and will be eligible for the Cyber Monday discount.

Happy shopping and, as always, thank you all so much for the support! <3

Smitten with the Holidays - Holiday 2012 - Coming Nov 26, 2012

Group shot!

The Smitten Polish Smitten with the Holidays collection will be available on November 26, 2012 at www.smittenpolish.com! Here are some larger swatches and descriptions:

A Midnight Clear - Blue jelly base with tiny blue flakes.

Adeste Fidelis - White jelly base with rose, pale green and coppery glitters.

Flurry - Grey jelly base with light blue and iridescent glitter, as well as larger white square glitters.

Frost Fairies - My favorite, and probably the most difficult to photograph. This is a semi-sheer white jelly base with blue and aqua shimmer.

Greensleeves - Teal-leaning green jelly base with green shimmer as well as tiny green and gold flakes.

The Holly and the Ivy - White jelly base with dark red and green matte glitters in two sizes.

Grinchy Claus - Warm leaning green with gold shimmer.

Nuttin' For Christmas - rich brown with tiny red-gold flakes and deep red shimmer.

Sleigh Ride - Bright red jelly base with pinkish-red shimmer.

Merry and Bright - Inspired by Victorian Christmas cards, this is a muted berry jelly base packed with various sizes and shapes of copper and gold glitters.

Smitten Polish Restock Info

Hi, folks! Thank you all for being so patient waiting for the new collection to be released. I ran into some delays with my new bottle supplier and bottles got here later than I was hoping. They're finally here, and I'll be opening the shop on Thursday, October 11. 

As I did last time, I'm going to split my stock into two batches to try and accommodate people across as many time zones as possible. Half the stock will be listed at 1pm CENTRAL TIME and the other half will be listed at 7pm CENTRAL TIME on October 11.

Shades that are currently scheduled to be stocked are:

Hocus Pocus

Spice Cake

Wicked, Tricksy, False!

ERMAHGERD, CANDY CORMS

Confection

Glass Elevator

I Want It Now

You're Turning Violet, Violet

Pure Imagination

Winter Is Coming

Candy Kisses

Hillary's Dream

Mint Chip

I know there are shades that people want that aren't on this list. Some of them are out of production for the moment because of supply issues with some of the colorants I was using, and some are out of production because they just weren't selling. I find it difficult to keep up with stocking more than about 15 to 20 shades total, so shades will come and go based on availability of ingredients as well as demand.

And lastly, thank you all for being the very best customers anyone could ask for. It really means the world to me. <3

Smitten Polish Halloween/Fall 2012 Collection

Many, many, MANY thanks to my sweet friend Cilucia for taking these pictures for me. I was out of town and I just had no time to photograph them myself. She's a lifesaver. ♥

So here's the Halloween and Fall collection.

From left to right: ERMAHGERD, CANDY CORMS!, Spice Cake, Hocus Pocus, Wicked, Tricksy, False!

Swatches!

ERMAHGERD, CANDY CORMS! - Three coats on its own.

Spice Cake - This is slightly more brown in person. Three coats.

Hocus Pocus - This leans slightly warmer and less blue in real life. Cilucia used four coats, but I wore it at three coats when I wore it myself.

And lastly, Wicked, Tricksy, False! This is three coats on its own:

Two coats layered over a black creme:

And one coat over a black jelly.

These will be available soon! I can't give you all an exact date yet as I'm awaiting a huge order of bottles and I can't make these until those come in. I'm expecting to be able to put them up for sale during the first week of October. =)

Restock info

I'll be restocking the store this Wednesday. Half of the stock will be put up at 1pm CST and the other half will go up at 7pm CST. Hopefully this will give people across lots of time zones a chance to grab what they want. =)

Smitten Update

Hi, everyone. =) There are several things that I wanted to let you guys know:

1. I plan to restock my store next week sometime, probably Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll announce it here and on Facebook (www.facebook.com/smittenpolish) 48 hours prior to the store opening. I'm also sending out my first batch of inventory to Llarowe this week, so there will be a fair number of polishes available between those two sources. 

2. This next restock will not be a pre-order. I know you guys love pre-orders, but I'm going out of town to visit my family in a couple of weeks, and I just don't have the extra time that it takes to do all the spreadsheeting and invoicing that comes with a pre-order. I'm sorry about that. =\

3. I'm working on the final iterations of my fall and Halloween shades. My plan is to start mixing those after I get back in town and to start offering them for sale at the beginning of October. 

4. I'm running into supply issues with the colorants that are used in Bluebird, Pink Lemonade and The One on the Right. Those will be offered at this restock, but I can't make any guarantees about their future availability. I do plan to start working on reformulating those shades with other ingredients, but A) I'm not sure how well that will turn out and B) I don't know how long it might take. I apologize for that, but that's the nature of this business - sometimes suppliers just stop stocking things we've been using. 

5. For my customers in Australia - the issues with the post seem to have cleared up on their own. One of my friends in Australia who had ordered actually talked to AusPost, and they said that there was a large batch of mail from the US that had been accidentally diverted to the wrong state, hence the delays. All of those packages have found their way to their recipients now, so I think we're good!

And, as always, thank you all for your continued support of Smitten. It really does mean the world to me. ♥

News about the restock

I managed to mess up the listings for Candy Kisses and Glass Elevator. If you had placed another order and then want to grab either one of those after the fact, I will be combining shipping and refunding you the difference. I'm so sorry for the hassle.

Smitten News and Updates

Hello, folks. I have some important bits of info for you.

1. For my Australian customers particularly, and all my international customers in general - I have had three packages now that I've sent to Australia that have either gotten delayed, returned to me, or have vanished to parts unknown. As stated in my shop policies, I'm happy to ship internationally, but once the items leave my hands, I really can't be responsible for what happens in transit. I'll happily replace bottles that are damaged, as well as send the correct color if I make a mistake and send the wrong one. As far as I know, there isn't an economical way to ship internationally with full tracking. I'm about to send a package to Australia via Priority Mail (at my own expense) to see if that arrives there any quicker and also to see if there's some tracking info that comes with that. If so, that might be a viable alternative. I'm really hoping to find something that will work without you guys having to spend triple the cost on shipping. But mainly I wanted my Aussie customers to know that there appears to be a problem somewhere along the way, and to let all my international customers know that I'm trying to find a solution.

2. The following shades will only be restocked until the end of this month: Lovely Lilacs, Fire and Blood, Huckleberry Pie, Moonbeam Dreams, Aquarius and Strawberry Tart.

3. The next restock of my Etsy store will be on Wednesday, August 15, at 6pm CENTRAL TIME. It will include all existing shades, including the Confection Collection, plus two new ones.

This one is Hillary's Dream. This is shown at 3 coats, but it also works well layered over black.

And this one is Candy Kisses, shown here at three coats. This one is a white base with pink and purple glitters.

I think that's all the news. Thank you all, as always, for the amazing support you all have been!

Lilacquer The Diva Plavalaguna

I love duochromes. Loooove them. The Diva Plavalaguna from Lilacquer's Fifth Element collection is my new favorite.

This beauty shifts from a beautiful green to a gorgeous azure blue. I had a really hard time capturing the shift, I think because the shift isn't as dramatic as some, but trust me when I say this polish definitely shows off two different colors.

The formula is top notch. What you see here is two super-easy coats. Dry time was excellent. I should also say that this polish looks smoother in person than it does in these photos. Macro shows off every little flaw, but in person my nails look smooth and metallic.

The Diva Plavalaguna is simply perfection. And now I must order several of the others from the Fifth Element collection. So beautiful!

Lilacquer polishes are available on Etsy here!

More invoices sent

I just sent out another batch of invoices. I'm now short two bottles of Pure Imagination, and I'm now waiting on the glitter to finish those. I'm hoping it'll come today. I really appreciate your patience. I didn't anticipate that one being quite as popular as it turned out to be!

Quick Update

My lacquer base should be here tomorrow (happy dance), so the remaining invoices for the pre-order will go out as soon as I have the rest of the bottles of Pure Imagination made up. Once I get those orders handled, I'll be doing more mixing for another restock. =)

Starting Invoicing

Alrighty. Despite having a pulled muscle in my back (FYI - a box of 300+ polish bottles is heavy), I have all the pre-orders mixed except for 16 bottles of Pure Imagination. I need more lacquer base to complete those, which should be here this week. I'm going to start invoicing - don't freak out if you don't get yours and you ordered Pure Imagination! I won't invoice until I have the bottles actually made up. =)

Also! Remember to check your spam/junk folders. I had a few people whose invoices got stuck there last go round. Thank you all so much! ♥

Smitten Polish Confection Collection Pre-Order Information

• This pre-order is for the Confection Collection ONLY. I plan to restock my other shades in a couple of weeks, but I needed to be able to focus on making these so I can supply as many of you as possible with this collection.

• I plan to leave this form up for 48 hours. PLEASE NOTE: I expect that demand may exceed the supplies I have on hand, but I do have more supplies already en route to me. I won't invoice you until your polishes are actually ready to go, so if there's a delay please don't think I forgot about you. It just means that I'm waiting for more supplies to arrive. =)

• Polishes are $9.00 per bottle. All bottles are full size 15ml bottles. Shipping for the US is $3.00 for the first bottle, $0.50 per additional bottle. For Canada, it's $3.50 for the first bottle, $0.50 per additional bottle. For the rest of the world, it's $5.00 for the first bottle, $1.00 for each additional bottle. 

• If you need more than one bottle of any shade, simply fill out the form again. I haven't figured out a better way to handle orders for multiple bottles yet. 

I think that's everything. The pre-order form is located here. Thank you all so much for your continued support! =D

•  

Smitten Polish Confection Collection

I've been working on this collection for weeks, and it's finally ready to go. I'll post the pictures first, and then later today or tomorrow I'll post the pre-order details. 

The Confection Collection consists of two milky glitters, two micro glitters and one that's a mixture of micro and larger hex glitters. 

Confection is multiple colors and sizes of glitters in a white milky base. Three coats for opacity.

Glass Elevator is various sizes of light aqua hexes in a milky white base. Again, three coats for opacity.

I Want It Now is green and black micro glitter and teal holographic micro glitter in a green jelly base. These swatches show three coats, but it could also be layered over a green creme or shimmer.

Pure Imagination is several shades of small blue glitter, including blue holographic micro glitter, suspended in a blue jelly base. These swatches are also three coats, but it could work as a layering polish as well.

And finally, You're Turning Violet, Violet, which is the one that is the most difficult to photograph. This one is multiple sizes of various shades of purple and blue holographic glitter suspending in a purple jelly base. Because all of the glitters are holo, it proved VERY difficult to photograph. This is shown at two and three coats (the darker being three coats, obviously). 

I also made a little video of it since the bottle shots are so woefully inadequate.

So there you have it. I'll put the pre-order info up either later today or tomorrow. Thank you all so much for your continued support. It means more than you know. =)