Announcing...

Mentality Nail Polish would like to announce its very own color of 2014: Red-purple. We have also launched what appears to be a first in nail polish: textured holos. Check out our store at http://www.mentalitynailpolish.bigcartel.com/ and/or Google for swatches. Hope everone had a great holiday season!

Metallic Creams and Swatch: Male Hand

Metallic and cream are two words that usually do not go together. I am not sure why. When I mixed this line of colors, Hillary asked me to describe them. I called them metallicreams. She smiled and said that she had never heard of such a thing. After a bit of research and debate about any other type of description, we decided that yes, such a thing does exist. Well, kinda.

The result is a color line with a very interesting spectrum of creamy greys and neutrals with a brushed metallic reflection and a satin finish. Each has a creamy reflection for a "base color to silvery white" color shift. I am eager to use these polishes with an airbrush.

They are great for stamping nail art.

Then there is the light versus shade difference. The swatch photos on Facebook have come out a bit darker than the polish appears in real life. I mean, at the reflection angle that my eyes are at when the photos are taken versus the camera and light source angles. And don't forget the gravitational pull of the moon, humidity levels on Venus, time of galactic day... lol. You would not believe how many thousands of pictures that we have taken in vain attempts to photograph our various polishes. Shade pictures show different color saturation than do full light pictures. The colors also look different at different angles. This is a reality that continuously presents itself when we take pictures of Mentality polishes. Rest assured that we will take many more pictures.

The colors in the set remind me of lots of different things. Some remind me of pewter tones. Others look like they could be part of a science fiction movie set. Various shades of metal tones abound in the set.

Today I have a swatch on my hands using a single coat of Shadow stamped with Discreet using a Cheeky image. The first picture is in filtered sun/partial shade. The second picture is under florescent light. The third was taken under a day light color high pressure florescent lamp.

I also posted another version over on Instagram

You can find swatches of the Metallic Creams and all of our polish lines at www.mentalitynailpolish.bigcartel.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/mentalitypolish

Orgasmic - The Brilliant Collection

The Future of Mentality Nail Polish

Today’s blog is about business and being in the business of nail polish. The integrity of the Mentality Nail Polish brand is extremely important to us, and to all of our fans that wear our polish. We have worked very hard to bring you the best and highest quality pigments that are to be found and will continue to do so at the most affordable price that we can. We often refer to it as “T-shirt boutique”. It’s boutique made affordable.

We have seen comments in various forums regarding the quality of our polishes versus the low prices that we strive to keep them at. It has been our goal to drive down the cost of inputs so that we can keep prices low. This means we have sought out the primary manufacturers of raw ingredients wherever possible.

To this extent, we are in the beginning phases of registering with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the FDA. We believe in the product that we make and believe that our government will stand by it as well. It is an ongoing bureaucratic nightmare at times, but the effort is worth it every time that a fan posts another one of what is becoming a relentless stream of nail art pictures to one of our pages. Those pictures keep us motivated.

International shipping

Nail polish is a big deal. It is a really big deal. I mean it is an every world government United Nations controlled dangerous goods throw you in federal prison tax collector postal inspector and men in black kind of big deal. Nail polish is a flammable substance and mail goes on airplanes. We do not have the luxury of ignorance in the 21st century regarding the actions of hateful people and what they might do to their fellow human. We have even been required to sign anti-terrorism papers by our major suppliers just to be in this business. It is a massively big deal.

So, we are now certified with the International Aviation and Transportation Administration. MSDS sheets are available for our product including ingredients declarations for the European Union. We have secured a special permit with the US Postmaster to ship via the United States Postal Service. Mentality Nail Polish is registered with the US Department of Commerce as an official cosmetics manufacturer. We are registered with the US Customs and Border Protection after registering with the US Transporation Security Administration as known shippers of dangerous goods so that our products can legally leave the country. We are even authorized to use the US Customs Automated Export System so that we can be tracked in the official import/export GDP numbers of the US and every country that we ship to. We have done this to secure the integrity of the Mentality Nail Polish brand so that our product can make it legally onto the hands of our fans.

That said, we cannot knowingly an international package to a domestic address for international forwarding. Don’t ask. We can’t do it because we are required by law, like every other nail polish manufacturer, to tell the government where our product goes, what it is packaged in, and how it gets there. That is what the shipping label is about. It is an automatic registration of the route each bottle of polish has taken. It is information communicated directly to the governments of the world that can be tracked to anyone that handles or receives our product.

If you live overseas, we will only ship via Fedex legally which is reasonable only for very large orders. Otherwise please see Sally Magpies or Edgy Polish for international orders. They have taken the time and made the investments necessary to retail our product at the international level.

Prices, Coupons, and Black Friday

You will notice that our prices have changed. Domestic orders still receive free shipping. Some polish prices have gone up. Many, many prices have gone down. Reasons range from accounting adjustments to changes in the real costs of inputs at the manufacturing level. Where we can save our fans money, we have aggressively done so and will continue to. We will send you a bottle of top coat for $5.50 shipped domestic. The Brilliant Collection went up to $9.25 to reflect the real cost of materials. So for all of those pictures that our fans have submitted with Rapture or Fervor on a shelf next to one of the more costly designer or boutique polishes, you are correct. That is where a high-quality boutique stained glass holographic polish belongs, and we are delighted that we can bring you such a product as inexpensively as we can.

Black Friday is coming up, so everyone expects their favorite brands to offer incredible discounts. We are less-than-fans of Black Friday. The news is filled each year with people hurt in stampedes, mob fights over the latest toy understocked, and people forgoing holiday time with family to camp in front of their favorite store for a chance to out-sprint the next person in line for a soon-to-be-discontinued thing. We would rather not participate in that type of activity. There are no coupon codes active. We will instead continue to offer our current promotions: free domestic shipping and free shipping to Canada on orders of $50 or more.

Thank you for reading and we hope all of our fans around the world have a happy and safe holiday season.

Danny and Hillary

Mentality Nail Polish

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INTERNATIONAL GIVEAWAY!!! 33 MENTALITY NAIL POLISHES!!!

We are offering a choose-your-own giveaway of 33 Mentality Nail Polishes on our Facebook page. We will ship to a winner anywhere in the world on the list of approved countries for shipment of dangerous goods (nail polish is flammable). We will cover the shipping and any associated duties for the contest package. No duplicates. Enter by 12: PM, October 11, 2013.

Either of the two links posted below will connect with the giveaway. There are many chances to enter. Enter as often as you would like. Good luck!!!

http://bit.ly/17LneMm

https://www.facebook.com/MentalityPolish/app_228910107186452

Insight into Mentality

Hey, everyone. This blog is another "thoughts from the maker" where I will continue to introduce myself to the other members of the nail art community. So often in the world of indie nail polish, the maker is the same person that models, maintains social interaction, and runs the business. Here at Mentality, my wife is most often the person conversed with online. She is a gorgeous hand model and is a smart business person. I love being her team mate. I spend my days working at production. We both work at shipping, and make as many color-line decisions together as we can.

I do the color building itself. I don’t know how or why, I just do it. My wife asks me for color families or helps me establish guidelines for a line, and then I go to work. I call it seeing color clouds. I can push a color back and forth in my head to make it do what I need from it for a polish build.  I found a color book by Tauba Auerbach that keenly describes the cloud that I see in a way that I could never fully describe: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/09/tauba-auerbachs-rgb-colorspace-atlas-depicts-every-color-imaginable/.

When I work to build a color, I usually describe it as pushing a color. I “backbuild” the components to the color and then push the color values to where I want them. It’s probably what the makers in the big color houses do. I don’t know. I am not them. I am also not a CMYK-type machine. The colors that I build are all customs. I do not knowingly dupe anyone else’s color. I do work in a bit of a vacuum, and when I produce something that is similar to something else already produced, my wife is quick to ask me what makes it different. It has to be different. There are 16 million colors, and when accents are considered, there is simply no reason to exactly copy anyone’s stuff. That’s not Mentality. We build an alternative color set to the existing color houses. 

Our named polishes are tied to the same line of thinking as our company name. Mentality is defined as a way of thinking. Each of us is the sum of our individual experiences. Who we are and what we want to aspire to; all of it is our own individual mentality. We choose the names of our polishes in the hopes that we share these characteristics and aspirations with you. Sometimes we are Irritable and sometimes Ecstatic. Perhaps you have a grandmother named Virginia and a cousin named Jackie. We hope that you find Elation in your lives, and practice Charity. I hope that better answers some of the questions that we have received on the subject.

Pigment and glitter is quite a bit of fun, I do have to say. I mean as a stereotypical male that has done all the stereotypical things that I could as a guy, yay for colors. Then again, I am not exactly a stereotypical kind of guy. I am proud to say that both I and my wife graduated with a 4.0 GPA from Texas Women’s University. Yes, I graduated from a woman’s university. One of our vendor reps did a double take the other day when that came up in conversation. Good times.

My reasoning was simple. It is a great school and offered outstanding online classes. The education that I took away from that school, however, is as deeply important to what I do now as has been the life experiences that have brought me to this point. I received an immediate crash course in sensitivity training there. I challenge any man to successfully graduate from a woman’s university and act like a cretin while doing so. I learned to question my own status quo there in a way that I never could have imagined. I also came to the realization there that I was receiving a specific insight into the world that had thus eluded me. I hope to spend the rest of my life describing by my actions what I learned there.

Now I have the honor of making nail polish for the most beautiful hands on the internet: my wife and our growing list of friends. I am consistently amazed by the pictures of nail art that my wife shows me proffered by both women and men to a seemingly relentless stream of internet postings of our polish in action. There, in visual proof I find the product of my work. The color choices that I decide on as a maker come to life on the hands of insanely talented artists everywhere and I get just a little giddy for it.

I also feel extremely humble for it. Thank you to everyone that has worn or will wear our polish. It is custom, boutique, and all those special things that go along with being an exclusive micro-batched hand-made indie nail polish. Many of you even wear polishes mixed in their own bottle and thus have no exact duplicates even if the recipe is the same. I hope you love them.

Thanks for reading!

~Danny

The Dark Mattes for Men

Hello, everybody. It is good to write again. It is my wish to use this blog to introduce you to the thoughts and persons behind the Mentality Nail Polish Brand.

Our goal is create an affordable alternative nail art palette. There are so many great stand-alone nail polishes out there, but not all of them work together when doing a manicure. The polishes that make it into our production line are designed to work with the other polishes in its collection, and with the entire Mentality product line.

This time around I present the Dark Matte Collection. This is a line of blacks that dry to a matte finish and cover the color spectrum in 8 steps: red-black, copper-black, gold-black, olive-black, green-black, teal-black, blue-black, and violet-black. The matte formula is quite durable after curing. You can even fix minor dents in the polish while curing by pressing on the dent and/or gentle polishing such as seen in the forthcoming Withstand swatch. I used a bit of saliva on the end of my finger tip and burnished the dent smooth, which is only a little bit gross. lol

This line reminds me of after-hours parties. These dark colors seem to me so formal but scream rebellion. I could see this line worn by a color conscious goth man or woman tired of the same old blacks. I could see these polishes at home at a concert or a club. The classic nature of the color black also lends to formal settings and the deep colors remind me of luxurious fabrics and dinner dresses. I can also imagine a myriad of Cosplay characters that would need appropriately matching nail polish.

The opaque nature of this line also lend to use as a cosmetic cover. Many of my friends have worked as bartenders and used nail polish on their toe nails to cover nail discoloration from constant exposure to beer yeast. Many sports are dangerous to fingers and toes as well. Nail bed bruising can be dreadful to look at and these polishes would be well suited to visually covering the damage. I suggest no medical benefit, only cosmetic. And by all means, if there is something wrong with your body, go to a doctor or a pharmacist and find out what's wrong or how to fix it. Come on, I'm a guy too. There have been numerous times that I have come back in from outside to my wife saying, "Honey, you are bleeding". My response is usually, "Where?"

~ Danny

This is Courage, a red-black matte nail polish:

This is Strength, a copper-black nail polish:

This is Hope, a gold-black nail polish:

This is Endeavor, an olive-black nail polish:

This is Persevere, a green-black nail polish:

Shown as one coat of polish.

This is Resilience, a teal-black nail polish:

This is Withstand, a blue-black nail polish:

*You can see the shiny spot in my index finger where I burnished a dent. It contrasts a bit to the matte finish on the other fingers.

This is Valor, a violet-black nail polish:

We are constantly amazed by the color combinations and nail art submitted to our Facebook page by our fans, and there are extensive swatches of these polishes and others available at the end of a quick internet search. Check out the nail art that others are doing with Mentality Nail Polish and what those people have to say about our nail polish.  

The Matte Collection for Women

Today, I'd like to show you some of the polishes from the Matte Collection, as presented for women.

All of the polishes have similar formulas. All of the pictures show the polish with two coats and no top coat. Most of them were opaque in one coat. Application tip: put down a thin coat and then don't mess with it until it's dry. The matte finish shows up before the polish is cured and may lead the wearer to think that the polish is fully dry before it actually is. As with other matte nail polishes, it is easy to ding until it's fully cured, but the wear time is fantastic. My wear test revealed four days of wear before removal, and it was taken off to swatch, not because it had chipped.

On to the swatches:

Rascal is a matte black and pictured with two coats and no top coat.

Mischief is a matte grey polish; shown two coats and no top coat. 

Vicious is a matte red; shown two coats no top coat.

Ruffian is a matte blue; shown two coats no top coat.

Visit our store at http://mentalitynailpolish.bigcartel.com/ for purchase or to browse other colors. The Matte Collection retails for $6.50 each. Shipping is always free to the United States. International shipping rates apply.

The 420 Collection for Men

This blog features the 420 Collection as presented on male hands. 420 is a term used in the marijuana community. The collection name and individual polish names are intended to spawn conversation regarding the social issues surrounding the efforts to change legal restrictions regarding the use of marijuana.

Educate is a dark red holographic nail polish with green accent flecks.

Legislate is a dark gold holographic nail polish with green accent flecks.

Medicate is a dark green holographic nail polish with green accent flecks. The holographic pigment overwhelms the base color in this lighting and it does appear similar to Regulate here.

Regulate is a dark blue holographic nail polish with green accent flecks.

Visit http://mentalitynailpolish.bigcartel.com/ for purchase or to view other swatches.

Thanks for reading!

Nail Art ~ Male Hands

This blog is a nail art picture for guys. The nail polish base is Regulate from the 420 Collection. The top coat is Matte Holo and the stamp is Scoundrel. I used the RA 116 plate from Red Angel for the stamped image on the middle finger.

Matte Holo gives an appearance of finely chewed aluminum, and reminds me of the ground aluminum that can be found leftover from an aluminum milling job. There is an interesting chase of light across Matte Holo, because of the holographic pigment, and I chose Scoundrel, a semi-gloss, to make the stamped marijuana leaf stand out against the Matte Holo.

The inspiration for this manicure is my 1914 Conn alto saxophone. I polished it once to a bright silver and immediately missed the patina that had built up over so many years. I have not deep cleaned it again and love the patina.

Thanks for reading!

Nail Art Projects ~ Male Hands

The following images are visual art projects. They feature Mentality Nail polish on my hands. I believe that fingernails are the perfect canvas on which to display messages. This can be as simple as a smiley face meant to encourage the wearer to let go of sorrow, or as a message to all those who see it.

I call the following image "Superhero" and it pays homage to the superhero that resides in all of us. There are times that I feel that I can take on the entire world, as well as those when it feels as if the world is out to get me. It is up to me as a survivor to never give up. The manicure uses Vicious, a matte red polish, with a black "S" painted freehand with Rascal, a matte black polish.

The following image is political art. It features a red, white, and blue manicure that used, Vicious, Ruffian, an equal sign in Rascal, and the white is Matte Holo. The image suggests an Air Force service member's funeral and is meant to make the viewer uncomfortable. The  lines and angles of the composition lend to the viewer being unable to find a place to rest, except back to the message displayed. I tweaked the image several times to give a warm, faded appearance with heavy contrast, such as might be seen through eyes heavy with tears, except for the equality banner which received its full colors. The connotation that I intended is that sexual preference is irrelevant when it is your child that has given a life in service, because it is only a family member of a deceased veteran that ever gets to see a flag presented in this manner.

More art projects will follow. Thank you for reading. ~ Danny

The Matte Collection for Men

This is collection of matte nail polish that has been put together with the subtle taste of men in mind. 

A word of note: I have purposefully left my hands and nails in their usual rough state. I am hard on my hands and use them like the tools that they are. This blog entry features minimal clean up to mimic conditions that men might experience in real life.

That brings up a valid point. Painting nails is like painting a deck. Preparation of surface and product is important. You may want to buff your nails to ensure a longer wear. Shake the bottle of paint first, or roll between your hands to mix.Apply a thin even coat starting from the base of the nail and spread to the tip quickly and evenly. Do this type of stroke in the middle, then to each side of the middle paint. Let the paint dry completely. Too thick a coat will take too long to dry. Wipe your brush off well first and then dip for just enough paint to do a layer. You don't have to get it exactly right. The extra paint on skin or cuticles will come off in the shower after the polish dries.

Nail polish is a bit different than auto paint. It is plasticized, which means it’s designed to flex with your fingernails. Automotive paint will chip off finger nails and is quite thin and not designed to flex, although it dries quickly. Nail polish is thicker and as it dries, a chemical reaction takes place that creates an immediate shell across the surface of the paint, and then the interior of the paint dries to cure. This takes a minute, even for a thin coat. Multiple thins coats give better results than a thick coat. I still have issues with application. My wife, however, is a genius with that little paint brush.

This blog features pictures of me posing with my Fender DG-7, which I keep in the garage to jam on as my daily beater. My left hand finger nails are usually shaped to accommodate playing, and I have mostly permanent callouses on my finger tips. I peel the callouses off when they become too thick. My right hand usually has longer finger nails so that I can finger pick, Travis pick, or claw hammer. I am classically trained and have widely varied musical interests.

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This is Mischief, a matte grey polish. I like the subdued color against the fingerboard.

This is Mischief with a single coat of Suede topcoat. Suede has a matte finish and adds surface texture.

The suede top coat is matte and adds a texture that is very similar to hammered metal surfaces. I did an acoustic jam and solo bit over Thriftstore by Macklemore while wearing this polish.

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This is Vicious, a dark matte red. The color is an eye-catcher without being flashy.

 This is Vicious with a coat of Suede top coat.

I like the hammered metal feel. I did a bit of impromptu jamming to Justin Timberlake's Suit and Tie and jacked the freshly painted index. So be it.

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This is Ruffian, a bold matte blue polish.

This is Ruffian with a coat of Suede top coat.

I really like this combo. I was jamming again, this time to Tennessee Boltdriver's version of Driving my Life Away. I love playing blue grass.

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This is Rascal, a matte black polish.

This is Rascal with a single coat of Suede top coat.

This last picture shows the top coat perhaps a bit more shiny than it was in real life. I may have been a bit rushed since I wanted to jam to Scream and Shout by will.i.am and Britney. I have minimal preference for any particular style. I just love to play music.

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Follows is a swatch of Scoundrel, a satiny finished black to compare finish.

Follows is Scoundrel with a coat of Suede top coat. It shows how the matte top coat changes the finish.

I hope you all enjoyed reading the blog. The Harlem Shake is queued on my Spotify and I am going to go stand in the corner and swing my arm around in a circle, until the chorus starts, which then I am going to just freak out a bit on the dance floor... I mean in my garage. Hope you enjoyed reading.

The Dark Metallics for Men

My hands are jacked; plain and simple. On an actual serious note, as the maker of Mentality Nail Polish, I do also actually practice martial arts and a whole host of real-life things that destroy my finger nails. I’m a guy. Guys are taught that our hands are heavy-duty tools. I would say that my hands look horrific most of the time and thinking about it, it's kind of surprising that my wife wants to hold them.

I am also a speed skater and that has destroyed my toenails. The first time that I used the nail polish that I make on my toes for a wear test, I was dumbfounded to find that my pinky toenails had grown back together. They usually grow with multiple splits in them and stay that way because I spend so much time on my feet. Nail polish fused my toenails in place so that they could regrow as a single nail again. Crazy. Perhaps I might see the end of me accidentally stabbing my wife in the legs with a jacked toe nail.

This blog features the Dark Metallics collection as presented for men. The listings feature another dose of humor for the listing and I am wearing all-cotton Muay Thai style fist wraps in the pictures. The collection features shimmery golden tones and the polish dries to a satiny metallic finish. These colors are perfect for the man that wants to something more than a matte finish and grey scale colors. These colors are reserved and mature, but scream out, “Hey, I can color coordinate too”. The polish-jobs in the pictures are either a single coat, two coats, or a putty paste-job with some polish to fix the spots that I messed up. There is minimal clean up so that I could keep the look realistic. I'm a guy. When I'm through here, I am probably going to go do situps, the lawn, or dig a trench. I can never be sure.

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So there I was, wrestling an alligator in an Amazonian river with a pack of Piranha nipping at my toes when a Kodiak bear comes roaring across the banks at our melee. That was when I thought to myself, “What is a Kodiak bear doing in South America and did it manage to track me here after I arm-wrestled it for that salmon yesterday?” He too must have had the Hunger.

Hunger is a red-toned dark gold shimmer and dries to a satiny metallic finish

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A multitasking man, I like to practice my Karate chops when I go gold panning in my spare time. Long hours spent breaking rocks with hammer fists, while looking for the riches of gold can really drive up a Thirst.

Thirst is a dark gold-toned shimmer and dries to a satiny metallic finish.

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Down, up, left, left, right, up, down and the crowd goes wild. A perfect combo is more than worth a perpetual thumb callous or the occasional gamer’s elbow. It’s the irreplaceable glory of victory for which men Yearn.

Yearn is a green-toned dark gold shimmer and dries to a satiny metallic finish

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Real men are sensitive creatures. Take the average barbeque for instance, and the chorus of vocal pain that can be found roaring in unison at the loss of a hamburger mistakenly sent flying on a poorly aimed flip. It makes a man’s heart Ache.

Ache is a blue-toned dark gold shimmer and dries to a satiny metallic finish

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Zeal, seriously, what is zeal? The dictionary says it means having good energy to get things done. I say it means bow hunting the monster from Predator with one arm tied behind your back. Yeah, now that says Zeal.

Zeal is a purple-toned dark gold shimmer and dries to a satiny metallic finish.

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Thanks for reading ~ Danny