The Painted Nail by Nubar Spring/Summer 2011 Nail Polish Collection

By now I'm sure everyone is familiar with The Painted Nail- the Los Angeles nail salon owned by Katie Cazorla in the TV Guide Network reality series, "Nail Files". The Painted Nail has one thing most salons don't have: their very own line of nail polish! They've just released their spring/summer 2011 collection and I'm very excited about it. It's six gorgeous glass-fleck-esque sparkling brights and a coordinating glitter topcoat. The Painted Nail's polishes are manufactured by one of my favorite brands (Nubar!) so you know the colors are going to be good.

The shades are:

Citrus Sparkle. This is an extremely cheerful color. It's a medium tangerine orange jelly base with yellow-gold duochrome flaky sparkle. I would call it a glass fleck if the shimmer particles were more round and crystal-like (like China Glaze's iconic glass fleck finish) but these are more of a flat metallic flake. Still provides the same gorgeous bright duochrome shimmer as a glass fleck.




Fairy Wings. These must be the wings of the green fairy, because this is a lovely Absinthe green. Perhaps a little more yellow-toned than Absinthe, making it more of an apple green, but still lovely either way you see it. It has a sheer light green base with lots and lots of duochrome green/yellow-gold/blue flaky sparkle to making up the bulk of the polish. It's a little on the sheer side, requiring at least three coats (pictured here) but the color is so pretty it's worth the extra effort.


Electric Blue. According to the press release I have, this one was actually named by Debbie Gibson! Normally I'm not into the whole celebrity-ooh-aaah thing, but I have a bit of a soft spot for 80's icons. Plus, she was in Mega Python versus Gatoroid alongside another 80's icon, Tiffany. Aaaaanyway, Electric Blue is a medium blue with greenish reflects and purple duochrome shimmer. This is closer to a true glass fleck finish- round, shiny pearls of glassy shimmer.

Legendary Lavender. This one is named in honor of Elizabeth Taylor. According to the press release, proceeds from the sale of this shade go to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. It doesn't specify what percentage of the proceeds, so I'm not sure if it's all or a portion or what... But still, I love a polish for a good cause. This is my favorite of the collection because it's so stunning. It's a rich royal purple base with glass fleck shimmer and dark pink duochrome. There are sparkling glints of gold, red, blue, bright violet and deep pink running all throughout the polish. This is just... superb.


Malibu Dreams. It's not often that I fall in love with a pink polish... But this one? GORGEOUS. It's a deep hot pink, on the warmer side, but it has contrasting cool blue-violet and gold flash and is extremely sparkly. The combination of the super vibrant color with the shiny, glassy sparkle is just really eye-catching. Every time I see the name, I can't help but think this was designed for Malibu Stacy.

(Image source: Simpsons Wiki)

Mestiza. This one was named by Vanessa Hudgens after a name her grandmother used to call her. She says that mestiza is a Filipino word that means "golden child". I always thought that Mestiza was an old term that meant a person of mixed ancestry, so it's neat to hear it used as a term of endearment. Learn something new every day! So, the color... It's a bright, sunny yellow with glints of gold and translucent yellow flakes with the tiniest hint of red-orange reflection here and there. So beautiful. I know a lot of people are afraid to wear yellow, but this is so easy to wear and so flattering, I can't imagine it looking bad on anyone.


Moon Drops. This is intended to be a topcoat for the colors in this collection and I'm really fascinated by it. I don't have another glitter quite like this... It's a clear base with tiny opal and clear glitter plus large translucent pearl white hexagon-shaped glitter. It's very sheer (and extremely thick, I thinned mine with a full dropper of Seche Restore) and layers beautifully over every shade I've tried it on. I'm not so crazy about it alone because it's so sheer, but it's not really meant to be worn alone, so... Don't try it unless you have perfectly un-stained nails because it will show everything!

Here's what Moon Drops Glitter Topcoat looks like over the shades in this collection:

One coat of Moon Drops over Citrus Sparkle.


One coat of Moon Drops over Electric Blue.



One coat of Moon Drops over Fairy Wings.


One coat of Moon Drops over Legendary Lavender.


One coat of Moon Drops over Malibu Dreams.


One coat of Moon Drops over Mestiza.

See how it applies the glitter in a random arrangement? I love that. The white glitter in this looks so cool over the bright colors, like snow flakes or opals. Love a unique glitter.


The formula on these was great. The polishes are all on the sheer side, so I used three coats in these pictures. Three coats was pretty much perfect on all the shades, though Fairy Wings might have looked more opaque with four. The texture is on the thick side, but not gooey-thick. Nubar thick. This really feels like typical Nubar formula, so I'm quite happy with it because Nubar is one of my favorite brands for formula quality. Dry time is longer than average, but not long like Diamond or Revlon.


I think this collection rocks. Not a bad polish in the entire set. The colors are bright and fun, the sparkle is amazing and they all have some degree of duochrome or flash to them. I have nothing but praise for the colors. Everything about them is good. I even like the The Painted Nail logo printed on the bottles, it looks very pretty. The outer boxes even have a cartoon caricature of Katie on them, which I thought was a cute touch. The only criticism I have about this collection has nothing to do with the polish. It's about the bottles- they have no labels! I had to keep referring to the press release to remember the names of the colors. I have them all memorized now, but still... Labels are good. I like labels.

You can buy these in person at The Painted Nail, but they're also available online at The Painted Nail's website. Each shade costs $12.50 (which is a bit of a markup from the standard Nubars) and is Big 3 Free. Looks like they have a lot of really good colors besides these spring/summer ones... I have my eye on H-Bomb.

(This was sent to me for review.)