Review: Mischo Beauty Luxury Nail Lacquer in Backstage Beauty

I heard about the new Mischo Beauty Luxury Nail Lacquers via the W Magazine twitter account, and the product photo got me hooked. The first photo that caught my eye was the color Empire State of Mind (a turquoise), but once the line launched on November 1st and I got a chance to browse, I ended up purchasing two other colors – Backstage Beauty and Lincoln Center. I ordered on launch day, which was a Friday, and received the polishes on Monday.

Aside from appearing to be really nice products, I was partly interested in the line because it’s not from a big, established beauty brand. The woman behind is Kitiya Mischo King, who is a beauty blogger in addition to being a chemist and cosmetologist. She decided to create the line when she had trouble finding nail polishes that were safe for use during pregnancy. Her polish line is 5-free, meaning it doesn’t contain formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate (DBP), toluene, formaldehyde resin, or camphor. The line is also cruelty-free. You can read great interviews with Ms. King on Politics of Pretty and The Seventh District.

The initial launch consists of seven shades, plus base and top coats. The colors in this collection are inspired by New York Fashion Week and named accordingly. The descriptions below are based on the product photos (not taken from the retail website, and I haven’t seen most of them in person):

• The Tents – light peachy pink
• Backstage Beauty – deep blood red
• Front Row – bold red
• Invite Only – taupe/silver glitter (maybe with some other color shimmers thrown in?)
• Lincoln Center – taupe
• Empire State of Mind – turquoise
• #NYFW – deep royal blue

I’ve seen a couple of folks criticize the naming as cheesy or trite, but I think the titles reflect the colors really well. Plus, I’ll take fashion-week-inspired names over shock-value, thinly-veiled-sexual-innuendo titles any day thankyouverymuch.

Backstage Beauty is a deep blood red with a clear base. On the first coat there’s a hint of a berry tone, but as you build coverage the color deepens. It took three thin coats to get full coverage, but the clear base gives it the advantage of not building to black – even when I added a fourth coat to a couple fingers as a test, it still remained true to the color in the bottle.

The polish comes in a chunky square bottle made of thick glass. It has a nice heft and minimalist look that makes the design nerd in me drool. Size-wise, the bottle isn’t quite as wide as a Butter London polish, but it’s twice as deep. It takes up a bit more real estate than some polishes, but the square shape stores easily and looks nice if you have your polishes displayed. The big size also contains .5oz/15ml, which is a generous amount. The top is tall and made from soft-touch plastic, so it’s comfortable to hold while you’re painting. Another good thing to note is that this bottle passed an unintentional drop test with flying colors. I accidentally knocked it off my polish shelf (about 4 feet off the ground), after which it bounced off my makeup table and skittered across the floor until the wall stopped it. No shattering or chips in the glass, and the cap didn’t even crack.

The brush is round, thin and fairly short – shorter than China Glaze/Butter London brushes, anyway. I found myself needing to dip it a couple times for each nail, but it’s easy to control the application. The polish itself is thin but not runny and gives pretty even coverage.

Normally I use a top coat over my polish, but since this is a brand-spankin’-new product I decided it was important to try it without one (I did use a base coat). With three coats it was dry to the touch in about 10-15 minutes. However, I still recommend using a quick-dry topcoat with it because I went to bed about an hour after painting my nails and ended up with skin/sheet imprints on most of them. I was impressed with the wear time. After 3 days I had some tip wear, but no chips until halfway through day 5, and those were only small chips at weak places in my nails. With topcoat, I’d expect it to last easily until nail growth starts to show (I’m going to test that theory with my other color).

In Short: It’s fairly easy to work with and the color is gorgeous. I’m looking forward to trying more shades.

Mischo Beauty Luxury Nail Lacquer ($18.00) is available at shopmischobeauty.com