An End + A Beginning

What's coming to an end, you ask? The Equestria Collection pre-orders! Rounds 4 and 5 are slowly making their way out the door, along with some earlier orders that just recently paid. On that note, I want to remind everyone that if you have not contacted me in advance, reminders for open invoices will be sent today and tomorrow and on 6/26/12  all open invoices will be canceled. If you have special circumstances preventing you from paying by tomorrow, please get in touch and let us know.

And now for the beginning of something new:

If you have visited rainbowhoney.com recently, you may have noticed it no longer redirects to the blog! It may not look very exciting right now - but June 30 is around the corner and I can't wait to show you all our new website! (Please note, there is NO password available and this is the only means of keeping the store closed.) This does mean we are moving off Etsy for the time being, but I think this will be a step in the right direction for Rainbow Honey. No cart-jacking, no hold times, no constant refreshing - except maybe nearing midnight on June 29 - how many of you will be lined up to watch the opening? :)

I will have more information on the website, and a few sneak peeks later this week. In the meanwhile, I want to invite all of you who have tried polishes from The Equestria Collection to chime in with swatches and pictures of your manicures! Please email any pictures you would feel comfortable sharing on the website with the subject "TEC Swatch" and let me know how many coats and if you used a base color. We will provide credit, of course, and link back to your blog if you have one. I can't promise we will use every single picture, but there will be plenty of ways to share pictures and discuss the polishes on the website once it launches! 

Finally, we are less than 1 week away from BronyCon at the Meadowlands Expo Center! 

I hope you are as excited about this show as I am, we have spent a long time preparing for this and there are definitely a few surprises in store this week... 

Shipping Updates and Nearing the Finish Line

Our adorable 7ml bottles waiting to be filled!

Hi everyone! I'm so glad to say 95% of Round 3 is out the door. Our glitter issue with Koi Pond and The God of Destiny was certainly a curveball but replacements have been going out and shipping resumed this past weekend! Just wanted to mention that I will be auditing all the invoices sent out thus far, and reminders for unpaid invoices will be sent out this week. All unpaid invoices will be canceled on 6/25 unless you have made prior arrangements - generally done by contacting me.

With that, we are also done invoicing and if you feel you were skipped over, please contact me immediately! There may have been a misspelling in your email address - or you may have forgotten to provide one entirely! (It happens!)

Round 1 Status: Shipped; if you paid on time and have not received your order, please contact me. KP and TGoD replacements have also shipped.

Round 2 Status: Shipped; if you paid on time and have not received your order, please contact me. 90% of KP and TGoD replacements have shipped, a few internationals will go out later this week.

Round 3 Status: 95% of paid invoices have shipped. If you need more time to pay or would like to cancel your order, please get in touch.

Round 4 Status: All invoices have gone out and shipping has started. If you have not received your invoice (they were sent last week) please contact me.

Round 5 has been included with Round 4  for invoicing and shipping and the same status applies.

All in all, it is a shipping marathon from now until the last package goes out. I'll try to keep things updated on Facebook, but definitely look out for a new blog post later this week full of announcements - some of which I am very excited about! Cliff hanger? Maybe. But the week is half over already, so you won't be left waiting for too long!

Winners, Updates, and a Bleeding Glitter

You see that up there? THREE winners! Abby, Hailey, Jessica - I will be in touch with all of you shortly!

And thanks to everyone who participated!

On to updates!

Round 1 Status - All paid invoices shipped. If you are domestic and have not received your order, please contact me. If you are international and have not received your order by 6/21, please contact me then. 

Round 2 Status - All invoices paid as of 6/10 in Round 2 have shipped as of 6/11. 

Round 3 Status - Shipping has begun! Now, let me elaborate a bit here: while it would be awesome to be able to get everything out the door in a day it isn't realistic. A lot of you know how much time and care we put into packing everything up, and between that and continuing to produce the polishes you all love, well, it takes a little time. The orders have gotten smaller in comparison to the first round, so I am expecting we'll be done shipping Round 3 by the end of the week, maybe with some internationals going out over the weekend.

Round 4 Status - Invoicing has begun! Shipping will start as soon as Round 3 is out the door.

Round 5 Status - Invoicing for Round 5 will begin as soon as invoicing for Round 4 is over. I know this was originally scheduled to begin a week from today (6/18) so if you know you will need additional time to pay please contact me and I'm sure we will be able to work something out. 

The Tale of a Bleeding Glitter

Let's talk about the kinds of glitters that go into nail polish. If you're a fan of indie polish, you've seen the term "solvent resistant" thrown around quite a lot, I imagine. What this means is that the material is resistant to the wear and tear of solvents, like the ethyl acetate and butyl acetate in nail polish. It's very much a necessary quality of any glitter we use, but it is difficult to determine just how resistant a glitter will be without testing.

Can you tell which of these glitters is solvent resistant?

How about now? This is about 5 minutes after mixing.

And now? This is about an hour after mixing. What we see on the left is called a "bleeding" glitter - it is not colorfast and as such has lost its color to the solvents in the polish. Definitely something to remember before you even consider dunking that craft store glitter in some precious polish. There's a very good chance it will warp and bleed, among other things.

Unfortunately, one of our suppliers made the mistake of sending us this glitter on the left and having used what I thought to be the same glitter for months now we used it in several batches of Koi Pond and The God of Destiny. It's heart breaking for sure! But mistakes happen and I have already resolved the issue with my supplier and with my affected polish lovers - they will be getting replacements as soon as the correct glitter arrives! 

For those of you not familiar, Koi Pond and The God of Destiny are pretty awesome layering polishes - that's why the clear base is essential!

 The God of Destiny from the Chrono Cross Collection

 Koi Pond from the Sakura Matsuri Collection

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns feel free to email me or message me on Facebook! And just as a side note - I do read all of your comments here, and I thank you for all the congratulations and kindness in celebrating my 2k milestone :)

The Race to 2000 Likes and a Giveaway

You guys, we did it:

And we did it so fast, I even missed the actual 2000th fan!

Because you're all so awesome, you deserve to be treated as such. Enter below to win 1 of 3 sets featuring the secret polishes of the Equestria Collection: Celestia and Mare of the Moon

Celestia - Inspired by Princess Celestia 

A sheer, sky blue polish filled with bursts multichromatic shimmer and opalescent flakes, turning every color into something new.

Mare of the Moon - Inspired by Princess Luna 

A deep and mysterious indigo polish with a violet color shift and a sprinkling of silver moon crescents and holographic glitters.

I will be featuring this polishes later this week, and I anticipate many bloggers and nail enthusiasts will too as the collection pre-orders continue to make their way into your hands. 

In the meanwhile....

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Shipping Updates and Growing Pains

Hi everyone! Happy June! Hope everyone had a wonderful week - it has been an incredibly busy one here!

Round 1 Status - We are aiming to have Round 1 all out the door by tomorrow (Saturday, 6/2) and have been working round the clock to accomplish this. The average number of polishes per order in Round 1 was between 7 and 8 and more than half of these ordered the entire Equestria Collection! I am SO excited to be sending out so many secret polishes!

Can you see those secret polishes in the back?!

Round 2 Status - I am not done invoicing Round 2 as of this morning, I hope to fix that today! So if you haven't received an invoice, don't worry - they are coming! Round 2 shipments will begin going out on Monday, and hopefully this will catch us up to the original schedule for the remaining rounds:

Monday, June 4 - Invoicing for Round 3 begins

Friday, June 8 - Shipping for Round 3 begins

Monday, June 11 - Invoicing for Round 4 begins

Friday, June 14 - Shipping for Round 4 begins

Monday, June 17 - Invoicing for Round 5 begins

Friday, June 21 - Shipping for Round 5 begins

As always - feel free to contact me regarding your orders and shipments: dee@rainbowhoney.com

We've implemented a lot of changes this week with the hopes of speeding up production and filling - some more exciting than others. For one, most of Round 1 will notice the new Rainbow Honey labels:

Aren't they pretty? I know I'm excited about them! One step closer to my dream of foil printing on the bottles! Another change that seemed like a given at the time was outsourcing my signature boxes - that one didn't work out! I was so excited about this and in the end the mass produced boxes were just not up to my standards. So we continue to make them in house and assemble them by hand, one by one.

And that's what's been going on around here. I look forward to feedback from those of you receiving your orders this week! And I think there was a consensus on Facebook that seeing the secret polishes will only build excitement - but some form of tagging posts or pictures with a *spoiler* alert would be appreciated. I won't be posting pictures yet, but I can tell you I am in love with both of them. Maybe I'll release the names some time next week...