Wee Bit Bitter

A few months ago I made a big discovery in nail polish, or so I thought. I was triumphant. I finally found a very unique kind of nail polish that nobody else in the English speaking nail blogging circles had posted about. This was my moment to scoop everyone (once a journalist, always a journalist) and I was giddy with anticipation.

I brought my spoils home and started swatching. I was a wee bit bitter to discover I'd just wasted $45 dollars on three bottles of crap. Okay, wee doesn't cover it.

Let me introduce you to my bad purchases. Behold 胡粉ネイル (Gofun Nail)

These three polishes are by a famous paint company from Kyoto called Ueba Essou that was established in 1751. 

What makes these polishes so special? They don't use chemicals to bind the nail polish. They use a special powder made from crushed scallop shells. I'll let their PR explain.

About GOFUN: GOFUN is a white pigment essential in Japanese painting, and is also used for a wide variety of traditional purposes, including the decoration of Japanese dolls, theater masks, and for wall painting. As it is made of scallop shells and well known as a traditional coloring material, it is also used in food products, such as salted beans. GOFUN is produced by our experienced artisans, through a traditional production method which has been maintained since the establishment of our company 260 years ago. 

According to the pamphlet I picked up with the polishes, because this series doesn't use strong chemicals, there is no harsh polish smell and you don't need regular polish remover. You can use simple rubbing alcohol to remove the lacquer from your nails. Sounds cool, huh? It also has pearl nacre in it to give the polishes a natural shine and shimmer.

The collection is quite large for a new product. Here's the different colours currently available from Ueba.

The GOFUN series has three main polish series; the colour variation series, aroma series (scented with traditional Japanese incense) and Unmo (Mica) series. They also make a nail strengthener called Byakkou, which is also made with scallop shells, and adds calcium and magnesium to strengthen your nails. They also produce their own top coat.

They're somewhat pricey (about half a Deborah Lippmann here in Japan), so I only got three.

This first one is a sheer jelly polish. It's a bright fuschia called 水桃 (Mizumomo).It's got a lot of different names, but roughly it translates as water guava, water apple or wax jambu.

The second polish is a creme called 珊瑚 (sango). It means "coral"and that's exactly the colour it is.

The final one is called 青口雲母(Aokuchi unmo).It basically translates as "green mica." This one is a special effects top coat. It gives this really cool green sheen to any polish you put it over. Almost like a duochrome topcoat. You really have to shake the bottle because all the green shimmer settles at the bottom. So much so, I thought I'd picked up the wrong bottle at first and asked the sales staff where I could find the one I was looking for.

So far so good, right? Until I started to swatch. The following swatches are very few and hastily done because I just didn't want to waste my time anymore.

Here is Mizumomo at 4 coats (and part of Sango!). It took four coats to make it even slightly even and you can still see some patchy areas. It's also still super sheer. It dried very slowly and to a strange texture. The only good news was that it doesn't smell, just as advertised.

Sango was such a crappy polish to work with. It was streaky as hell, as evidenced by my photo. This is four coats. The brush in the bottle is also very narrow, so that just makes the already crappy formula even worse. =(

Aokuchi Unmo on it's own. Finally! A polish that was exactly as advertised and didn't disappoint! It has a slightly thick formula, which may cause major colour changes on the undie polish, but I love the pearly green/gold effect. This one is a keeper.

I layered Aokuchi over a grape jelly polish so you could see the effect. Lovely, isn't it? It'd be even lovelier if I'd remembered to take a picture of the jelly first before layering it. LOL

After doing these on just one hand, I decided to take it all off. I wasn't happy with the formulas, opacity of the creme or the brushes. The only thing the polishes really delivered on is that there is no polish smell. I put my nose right up to the bottles and took a big whiff. Nothing. Refreshing after getting high on Seche Vite fumes. =P

Removal presented another obstacle. Since these polishes are supposed to come off easily with rubbing alcohol, I figured regular non-acetone remover would work fine. Nope. The polish turned into a gummy, rubbery mess that clung to everything. I ended up with cotton clumps stuck to my nails. NOT amused.

Long story short, don't buy this series unless it's the special effects top coat. The jelly and creme polishes were so bad, you'd think they were super cheap dollar store finds rather than super expensive polishes.

I'll stick to my tried, tested and true brands for now.

For more info on the brand and their products, you can visit their website gofun nails here. English language is available.

Verdict: FAIL