Links checked 12/12/13
This is intended as a follow up to October's entry I Have a Project for You which was about the color shifting flakes in some of our most popular polishes.
This is intended as a follow up to October's entry I Have a Project for You which was about the color shifting flakes in some of our most popular polishes.
In October, I gave you all the assignment of looking at the ingredients list of your flakie polishes and reporting back the unusual which you did; some of you apparently did your own research on the subject as well. This generated lots of suggestions and ideas but no solid answers.
Thanks to other women's blogs and the internet, I was able to find ingredients lists to these flakies- Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, Nubar 2010, a brand called Joe with their polish Twilight, Coastal Scents' solitary Cosmic, my own polish Covered in Diamonds from Studio M, and finally a generalized list from Nfu Oh. I compared them side by side, looked up and identified every ingredient but found there to be no relevant or potential one that they all had in common. Rather than narrowing the field, this left it wide open. The general consensus seems to be that these mysterious flakes, rather than being polyester based like glitter, are likely some form of coated mica flakes but I haven't been able to confirm this. This is made more likely by the fact that TKB Trading’s Travel to’s are mica coated with titanium dioxide (a whitener), Silica, and Tin Oxide. Their Star Bites and Moon Dusts, also duochromes, have similar composition.
Out of frustration, I eventually emailed Nubar and Nfu Oh regarding the flakes but as expected (and two months later), I still haven't gotten a response, not even a generic one. I had also emailed the owner of BlingFlake who seemed quite willing to assist and have his brain picked but he didn't respond either. Good job ignoring customers there people. That’s a real turn off.
I have continued to do research and hunt for possible flakes for purchase but have found only the same link each time, one that a lot of you has also found.
The company, Guangzhou Sheng Zhu Daily Pigments Co., Ltd., is a manufacturer in
I'm now working on motivating a company to buy these for resale so go check out the flakes at this link and tell me what you think. More importantly, exclaim long and loud about how you love duochrome flakie polishes and would love to buy the dry flakes for yourself, if only we could find the things. The point of this? It's an investment and regardless of a company's buying power, they aren't going to buy unless they believe the demand is great enough and there's money to be made. Remember, we're trying to influence companies here.
While I wait for a response to my product suggestion/request, I emailed Guangzhou Sheng Zhu Daily Pigments Co., Ltd. myself and requested further information, possibly pricing if they are willing to speak with me. We shall see. -MK
Related Entries:
I Have a Project for You
Nfu Oh Flakes
Hit the Duochrome Flakes tag for other related entries not listed above
MK - Yep, I think that is the magic flakie you have found. Interesting, especially as now there are a lot of polish lines coming out with flakie polishes, eg Cult nails, picture polish and finger paints. I've sent them an email about prices. I'll let you know if I get some and I send you some!
ReplyDeleteAhhh, I'd buy some for me for sure!
ReplyDeleteI think it's the magic flakie too! I would love to buy some.
ReplyDeleteI got an email back and they said "Confirm these flakes (SZR101~SZR106) can be applied in nail polish, without any color change. --- In fact, this series (diamond irregular flakes, SZR101~106, is specially designed for nail polish.)" The price for a kilo is $130, but Fedex shipping is a killer! Humm, what to do? I might ask a question on my blog to see if people are interested in buying some.
ReplyDeleteOooh it's great news that you've finally found them! (Hi, I'm a new follower to your blog :) ) I'd be very interested in buying some! It says you can request a free sample, perhaps you could do that just to try them out?
ReplyDeleteTo address both the questions of Kitties & Lillian, (and I will eventually post this as an update above), the company emailed me back quickly. They had no problem with my being a single person as opposed to a company BUT the caveat is the total price. Min order would be 0.5kg per flake (or 1.1 lbs). You must buy at least 1kg (2 lbs), the cost being $130. Shipping for an order that small would be at least $65. I should also point out that they make 6 different flakes and naturally I would want them all- shipping would go up again. Samples are free but shipping on that alone would be $42. Buying them is more than tempting but I haven’t decided what to do. Responses from other companies about buying this to sell to the rest of us has been mixed.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely love these flakies and I wish they were available to the general public! I came across that site in my search but the price and quantity put me off!
ReplyDelete"MyNailGraffiti" at www.mynailgraffiti.blogspot.com has a store which sells glitter and pigment for frankening. http://youmixcosmetics.ecrater.com/
Maybe you can contact them and ask if they want to be a reseller?
I would LOVE to be able to find some of these multi-color flakies! I mix my own soak off gel polish colors, and it would be utterly awesome if I could get a hold of some of these things! I'm just crazy enough that if the price was right, I'd buy 2 pounds of it, LOL.
ReplyDeleteMK, I'm thinking of getting a kilo of each of the single colours to split up and on sell, then allowing people to just mix them together to make the multicoloured one if they want to (so not getting that 6th colour) While the flakes are cheap enough, I'd have to mark up the price per gram a fair bit to make it worth my time and effort in packing and weighing out the bags. I'll certainly send you some for all your work in sourcing these for us.
ReplyDeleteYou should see if anyone's interested in doing a group order! I would be interested, but don't know how we'd work out the logistics of splitting up the product...
ReplyDeleteI hope to have an update for you but at the moment it's too soon to say.
ReplyDeleteHello. I've been looking at your blog posts for quite some time. Your posts are very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI was going to share to you that I found the seller at Alibaba who sells the flakies, but I'm glad you already have the information :)
I have previous experience buying from Alibaba, so I contacted one of the agents from Guangzhou Sheng Zhu Daily Pigments Co., Ltd.
I used the Alibaba chat and this is the best way to contact them as you have more chance to negotiate prices and shipping.
Yes the price for the 6 flakies samples (5 grams each) is 41USD via Fedex, but if you ask for EMS shipping, the total will be 25USD for the 6 samples. Less than a dollar per gram, how good is that? I think is very reasonable.
I just finished my chat with the agent, she was very nice. She accepts payment by Western Union or Bank transfer, she does not accept Paypal. Some of you may be wary about this type of transaction, but I've done it before for Alibaba transactions and by my own experience, it is safe as long as it is a well established company. The agent also took her time to prepare a detailed invoice.
Well, I share this to you in case some of you don't want to wait until someone decides to resell it, plus I think the price for the EMS shipping is reasonable considering that the samples are free and the price per gram of flakies results affordable.
*Note in case you are seriously interested on buying flakies this way, you should contact an agent and ask for samples and the price for EMS shipping, because shipping rates varies by location, the rate I got is for shipping to USA.
www.bunnynails.blogspot.com
I'm new to your blog. Thank you for putting this all together, I appreciate someone who is willing to share suppliers for frankens. I'm looking for flakes as well and so far the only luck I've had with finding something suitable for nail polish is this website: http://www.glitties.com/glitter-flakespage.html .
ReplyDeleteLet me know what you think! Also, do you know how to make a jelly base for frankens or where I can find one? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Keep up the great blogging!
There's a few ideas in my head for that. We'll say buying a jelly based store bought polish is too obvious and skip that. Food coloring does not work, don't bother trying because it won't mix together. If you have a bleeding glitter, use it to color clear polish by mixing up a bottle and let it sit. Once settled, the polish can usually be drained out w/out too much trouble. Craft glitters are usually excellent bleeders. A few pigments, not eye shadows, can also be used like that. There is also the option of coloring your clear with a touch of TKB's colored suspension bases but the finish is not quite as jelly like.
ReplyDeleteI received the flake samples from Guangzhou Sheng Zhu Daily Pigments. I'm still waiting for TBK Trading's Luster base to franken withs. That way I can compare these flakies with the ones on nail polishes that are already in the market.
ReplyDeleteThey won't bleed. Let us know how that works out for you.
DeleteHi MK, This is Dustin from youmixcosmetics, I was randomly searching the web tonight and came across your site and found it very interesting. I was unable to find your contact info but I just wanted to let you know we made a big order of this stuff and it arrived last week. We will have it available within the week. If you have any questions let me know. youmixcosmetics@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteI sent you an email so you should then have my address if you need it.
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