OK - so after the panic, we did a ton more research and made a ton more phone calls. We thought we had this whole International thing down and then they throw a wrench in the whole thing. So basically there are places Internationally that it is OK to ship to using the United States Postal Service and there are places that we can ship to using UPS or other such methods and there are places that are just plain not OK to ship to. Grrr.

So out of all our International orders received it looks like only two may not be able to be shipped. We will contact those individuals, so if you are International and do not receive an email from us - you are golden.

For those of you in Canada, we have to ship via UPS Ground. We couldn't make it to UPS before it closed tonight - so we will be doing that tomorrow. It will most likely cost more for shipping via UPS, but we will be picking up the cost on those. Once we find out the rate, then we will adjust our shipping rates online when we put the International capabilities back up on our site. I apologize to those of you affected by the delay.

We will be working on updating the site with those places that allow International shipping, but it may be a few days before the site is updated and some International shipping restored. We are trying to figure out how we can set up shipping costs by location to meet these new standards we now are learning we have to meet.

Thank you everyone for your patience as we navigate this hiccup. Now here is my question - I have been pretty open all along the way as we establish ourselves as a business. You have all ridden the highs and now a low for us. Would you rather I keep this stuff out of the blog or keep spilling all our business success and failures with you all?

In the meantime since I haven't been able to take nail pics - I leave you with a little of my stress relief...

Normal - but neither Coco or I are camera ready tonight!

Sadly, we are announcing this morning that we are going to suspend International Shipping. Last night while packing orders I was telling John that the International packages take a lot of time to prepare and are costing us money. The pricing for shipping we had set was not covering the costs entirely for shipping of the products. I asked if we should suspend shipping while we looked into the best options and we did not come to an answer right away.

Not minutes after we had this discussion, I received an email from an International customer stating that she received her envelope with a note that stated her order was destroyed as it was dangerous materials. We clearly mark all orders internationally as nail polish. According to the postal regulations, as we understand them, we can ship nail polish as long as it is under 1 litre and being sold for retail purposes and the package is marked as such. John has talked to numerous people at the post office and this weekend while I was there, the postal clerk even made a joke about how John is always so nervous asking if they are sure it is OK to ship. the answer is always, if you are following the reg you are fine.

We do also post in the terms and conditions on our site, that we are not responsible for the outcome of shipping internationally and that the buyer takes all responsibility based on shipping requirements of their country. However, in the end we would still be responsible for knowing all the shipping laws of each country. This would be a tedious undertaking, but we feel that we need to look into the regulations of each country and add countries back in as we research and learn.

We are also going to look at the possibility of a distributor in outside countries who can take our product and sell it for us internationally. Again this will be a time consuming endeavor and we feel more comfortable not sending Internationally any more until we figure all this out.

We started this company as a way to change our lives in a positive manner. In hopes that I could one day work for myself. The support we have received thus far has been amazing and we hope to continue to grow as a company and be around for many years to come. But at this point it is in our best interest until we can find a better solution to suspend International shipping. If this changes, you can be assured we will post it on here!

All orders received to date have been sent with the exception of any order received on Saturday after the post office closed at noon. Those are all packaged and ready to go. We will be contacting customs this morning for all the International packages to ensure there are no issues with sending the polishes. If there are any issues, those customers whose packages we still have that are affected will be immediately notified. We can not do anything about those already shipped.

The bright side is that there are several companies such as Shipito that act as a freight forwarder for International customers. You can look into their services or other similar services if you are an International customer and just must have your cult fix! Thank you all for your understanding in this matter.

Do you like that title? I have to start finalizing the next collection. The problem is that I have so many ideas and I have been emailed even more ideas and trying to figure out which should be the next ones is not easy when I can only pick 4 or 5 colors. (Wow - what a run on sentence!) To top it off when I tell the lab I want a color, they send me a few versions of what they understand me to want. But the problem is they are almost always to similar to each other. The upside is that sometimes, they come up with something way better than what I explained (Captivated anyone?). So I am not going to say what I asked for, since I am still working on it and don't want to give any other snoopy snoops ideas. I will say this color was a requested color. What I got back isn't close to what I envisioned, but it is definitely an interpretation of what I explained. I have been wearing it since yesterday and I am loving it, but it isn't exactly what was asked for. So I am torn, do I stick with this or have them try again? Want to see the color and help me decide?

Now keep in mind I put this one really fast while my in-laws were still here. I didn't do a clean up and then raced around doing stuff around the house. I put on Bug Repellent for the mosquito's while wearing this, then hit the beach and the pool today, wearing sunscreen and packed a bunch of orders. So by the time I got around to taking pictures, the polish dulled some and I had some tip wear. But overall for everything I did - not to shabby!

I feel like I haven't posted in forever. It has been such a busy week. I feel like I am always saying that. Can I please just have a few more hours in each day? That would be awesome!

Anyway, we have a ton of pictures from our weekend in Ft Myers last weekend for Juan's cousin's wedding. It was so nice to be able to see so many of his family members that I haven't seen since our own wedding 16 years ago. Anyway one of the nights we went to a local Ft Myers restaurant Nervous Nellie's. If you ever find yourself in Ft Myers, I suggest you check this place out. It was so hard deciding what to order, I have never seen such an expansive menu. There really is something for everyone. I don't know how they do it. Anyway enough of my rambling, my family is waiting for me so we can go do something since the in-laws are still here. So on to the outfit of the day.

Here in the U.S. we celebrate Memorial Day each May 31st. It is a day to remember all those who sacrificed their lives for our country. While I think most Americans do take some time to remember those lives lost, for a lot of us, it signifies the start of the summer season and many people celebrate with BBQ's. My favorite way to celebrate is by hitting all the Memorial Day Sales. It is usually one of the best times to go shopping there are so many sales!

Inaugural Collection

Since Juan is in the military, and I love to shop - why not celebrate with our own sale? I know you all love sales just as much as I do! So starting today thru Tuesday (Because it's the first of the month and it's when a lot of people get paid) we are having a Buy 3 Get 1 Free sale! Any colors of your choice! Just put 4 polishes in your cart and use the code: neverforget and you will receive one of your polishes free! WAHOO! Now that's something to celebrate!

A Day at the Races

And just because I am me - I grabbed a few goodies today at Ulta using my $5 off a $10 purchase. (If you follow me on , then you know what the goodies are, if you don't then you might never know...) Anyway since I got some goodies I am going to randomly pick one order and throw the goodies in their order, who knows I may pick throw in some other stuff I have picked up along the way! So what are you waiting for, head over to shop.cultnails.com and place your order!

I can't believe the weekend is already over. It was a great weekend for us. We got to attend the wedding of one of Juan's cousins. We never really get to attend family weddings because we live so far away from our family, so this was a nice treat that we were able to attend. When we arrived at the resort and entered our room I lost my breathe. If you follow me on , you already know why. For the rest of you, here is the view we saw when we entered the room.

 I am planning on swatching these and doing videos just like I did for the initial collection. Unfortunately it most likely will not happen this week. I work a Full Time job Monday - Friday which allows me to have the money to create Cult Nails and still have a life, so I don't have weekday sunlight to really work with. At night I am mom and wife and blogger and swatcher and polish packer. Right now polish packer is at the top of that list with mom and wife. Yesterday my youngest (Coco) sang with her Chorus group at Disney so we spent the day there. When I came home, I crashed! That leaves tonight and tomorrow since Friday Coco graduates the 6th grade and then we are high tailing it out of town for a wedding. That means we will be out of town all weekend since it is a destination wedding and lots of family will be there. From there my in-laws come back here for a week with us. I will be working half the time they are here and hanging with them the other half. So basically I am giving you all a laundry list of excuses as to why I am behind on the videos. But I promise I will do them! For today here are previous swatches I posted.

First up Devious Nature. I think this picture is pretty accurate. The only difference I would say is that there is just a hint more berry undertones in real life.



This is three coats of Always Winning. In the final product I can get this look in two coats. The gold glitter is much more noticeable in person as is the holo glitter. But this accurately depicts the green.

Cruisin' Nude. I think you can see the pink shimmer more in person when you are outside. Inside the shimmer all but disappears unless you are in the right light. You know how I love polishes that do that!

Let Me Fly - I had a picture, but it is not very accurate, so I decided not to post it. The splotch picture below is pretty accurate though. For more accurate pictures on nails go to http://justakelly.blogspot.com/2011/05/cult-nails-let-me-fly.html for her review. Her pictures are pretty accurate. Plus I noticed on her blog this morning she is going to be doing a small give away on her blog soon, so you just might want to follow her blog too! Love give-aways!

I found another one of Captivated all on it's own. LOVE this one!

Now for the splotch pictures:



Captivated



Always Winning



Let Me Fly



Devious Nature



Cruisin' Nude



So I have been drooling over the Olympus PEN E-PL1 lately. I seriously want it! Well actually I am going to be brazen enough to say that I really NEED this camera! Well if you ask Juan, he just thinks I'm a sucker for technology - but no I think this is exactly what I've been wanting. With Cult Nails, I take pictures of my nails and my life around me and I am wanting to do more videos. I need a camera that can capture macro shots and action shots and colors accurately. I want it to take high quality HD video with quality sound. I want to be able to put out a quality professional image for Cult Nails but we don't have the big marketing budget to make that happen with professional tools. This seems like the perfect match for our needs right now. Of course that means I need to start saving some mulah so I can get this in a few months.

Do any of you have this camera? If so what do you think about it? Do you have a blog or YouTube channel? What do you use for a camera or videos? I would love any feedback you guys might have. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Here's the commercial for those who haven't seen it.

I just wanted to give everyone an update. Juan will be picking up the collection in Orlando today and it should be in our hands and ready for packaging this evening. We have everything ready to go and will be packaging everything up tonight and dropping all U.S. pre-sales off at the post office tonight and all International packages will be brought to the Post Office first thing tomorrow morning. YAY! I am so happy to finally be able to get these out to you guys! Thank you all for your extended support and understanding due to the circumstances that were beyond our control.

As for everyone else who did not purchase during the pre-sale, there are still plenty of polishes left (if 100 - 200 of each color is plenty to you that is). So we will have those up for sale on our site some time tomorrow. YAY! Now if the samples for the NEXT collection make it to me soon, I can get things moving on that collection! Are you ready? :)

Using OTT light

In natural sunlight