pish.posh.polish: All Polish, All The Time: Monthly Indie Spotlight Series

Hey y'all! Welcome to the second installment of my new monthly Indie Spotlight Series! This month, I had the honor of interviewing Molly, the creator, owner, and maker of Shinespark Polish. I've swatched for Molly before, and purchased lots from her - I really love her creativity and vision for her brand. I love that everything is made with such care and love! So without further ado, have a look at our little chat!

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1.What inspired you to start Shinespark Polish?

Actually, the ladies at the BHB (...nail group) and my own do it yourself spirit. I'm one of those who will see something, and see if I can make/recreate it just to see if I can. After hearing all the things the ladies talked about wanting/looking for in polish, I wondered how difficult making polish would be. As I looked, I started thinking things like, "If I was making polish, I would try..." and it just snowballed from there!

2. How do you decide what to do for future collections?

Honestly, it's just an ongoing process. The 90's Kids collection was created from an accident when I had issues with the 80's Neons cremes collection. There was an initial formula issue with the cremes, and I had to switch it from being the maiden collection, and I was actually trying to recreate it without the trouble pigment. Instead, I ended up with richly pigmented jellies. Other randomness has provided inspiration: Childhood memories (Lisa Frank for the 90's Kids colors and names!), the old Hypercolor shirts (The Light, the Heat collection!), splatter paint t-shirts (80's Fun glitter bomb!), Sailormoon, and more. I still have a ton of ideas and actually find myself having to restrain myself from releasing collections too rapidly, because I just want to make all the pretty polishes!

3. What goes into the testing/prototype phase?

For me, it's usually a pretty short phase honestly. If I'm trying new things like formulas, I'll mix a very small batch (2-3 bottles) and see how it works. If it works out, then I'll consider it good to go, and keep notes on how to recreate it. If I'm playing with things like mixing pigments for something really new, I'll usually play with it in liquid form before adding the suspension base, so that I can see just how the pigments are going to work together. I've had an occasional hiccup where things haven't worked together, but most of the time the sight I see in my mind and the actual result are pretty spot-on!

4. How do you come up with the names of your polishes?

90's Kids was very much Lisa Frank. :) The Sailormoon-inspired collection, Inner Beauty, actually took its individual polish names from songs from the Seramyu (Sailormoon Musicals). Very few people probably recognized them, but each polish name was actually the name of an image song for that senshi. They also happen to be some of my favorite songs from the musicals. Additionally, there will eventually be a second Sailormoon collection for the outer senshi and Chibimoon, which will be somewhat of a companion collection to Inner Beauty. I don't have an ETA on it yet though.

5. What do you think makes Shinespark Polish such a success?

It's fun, it's different, and it's something that I absolutely love doing. I mean, I literally get a shipment of supplies in, and typically I go through them within a few days, because I go crazy mixing! In fact, the last shipment I got, I literally went through a full gallon of suspension base that day, just mixing up new and restock polish!

6. I know you work by day and make polish by night. What drives you to keep going with Shinespark Polish?

It's fun for me, and I love doing it. I love to paint in general, one of my favorite aspects of painting is the actual mixing of the colors. This is similar, but so much more involved, and working with the pigments gives so much more control! It's also a bit of a humbling experience, because there are times when you think, "Oh wow! This would be so awesome!" and you try it, and...nope, they just don't work that way! I had that realization in mixing shimmery pigments with a thermal pigment: for example Dusk. It was a super surprise, because I had honestly expected it to be a deep mauve, and I wondered what I had done wrong to end up with purple! In the end though, it ended up being absolutely gorgeous, and much better than my original plans! It was most definitely a happy accident!

7. Can you give us a behind the scenes peek where Shinespark Polish is made?

I can and I can't. It comes and goes! I actually use a small dresser as my work surface, and mix in small batches, and when I'm done everything gets stored away. I store all my inventory in a Helmer, and am contemplating getting a second one to help contain everything! I can give a few pictures from when I was doing my last mixing batch, when I was reformulating/re-mixing the 80's Neons cremes collection! I don't usually take pictures of my work area, so it's really just a picture of when I had finished bottling, and had poured my own set of minis to test with water marbling!

Molly emailed me a couple of weeks later when she was finalizing her fall collection with some more pictures! She said I could add the sneaky peak pics!

Work station!

Testing them out on the swatch wheel!

Left to right: Autumn Sky, Ever Green, Harvest, Pumpkin Spice, Hot Cocoa, Jack O' Lantern, Black Cat Sparkle, and Gilded Rose

And that concludes this month's Monthly Indie Spotlight Series with Shinespark Polish, make sure you go follow her on Instagram for news on new releases and swatches of the fall collection! I hope you guys enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy putting them together. Look forward to next month when I'll be interviewing Lorelei Lacquer!

Thanks so much for reading!