A month or so ago, I saw a launch announcement from a brand called Lucky Lacquer. I skimmed their website, read their product description, and was sold. Jelly nail polishes with fun east asian themes? What more could I want? They were also running a free shipping promotion as part of their first month of operations, so I bit the bullet. I placed an order on May 3, 2026. I finally received the polishes on June 1 after some mail snafus (Fig. 1)

Preliminary Desires

Here’s one thing about indie brands that I don’t like. Constant drops. It devalues the product and eventually leads to poorly thought out combinations, products that feel incomplete, or even repeating items. When it comes to nail polish, I’ve finished half a bottle and gone looking to purchase two more as backups, only to find that the product has been discontinued and a (what I perceive to be) more inferior version of a previously perfect product might be available instead. At least most of the times, these products don’t carry a 20% price jump…

I was hopeful with such a thoughtful brand design and small collection in the store that this would be a brand that would focus on permanent collections. However, they have already launched two more collections since (strike that, it’s now THREE new collections), and added several basics (this I like). Time will tell if the pace will slow down (see the note at the end).

My Order and Thoughts

My order did experience some complications. It left the Toronto distribution center within a week of the order, and has never been seen since. I eventually reached out to the owner after a couple weeks of waiting, and they promptly sent me another package. In truth, I wasn’t all too hopeful because I wasn’t sure if they had prepared to cover the cost of missing items, but it seems they were ready to do so. To me, its a positive sign when a new brand is willing to eat the cost of a missing or damaged product as part of their learning costs. I saw online I was not the only one who had their order go missing. I have thoughts on this, namely, the packaging is likely too small and is therefore easily misplaced in transit. The owner also reached out to Canada Post to launch an investigation, which I greatly appreciated because I personally don’t love going through the process myself. I’ve also received a heck ton of phishing emails related to this missing order investigation though.

First Impressions

The new package arrived within a week, with tracking following it all the way to my mailbox. The box was small, with somewhat thinner cardboard as the outer box. Inside was a sheet of decorative wrapping paper around a bundle of nail polish. The polishes were wrapped with brown paper that had slits in then, with more brown paper padding the bottom. I also received a business card with an apology, and an extra small container of cloud shaped glitter. A note here, the brown paper packaging (honeycomb packaging) wasn’t used correctly. I believe it becomes far more effective when the slits are pulled open and wrapped over several times such that there is actual padding. Otherwise, its just paper. Nonetheless, everything arrived intact and the presentation was simple and nice. I prefer this over confetti and sequins or miscellaneous diecuts that I typically have no use for.

The Actual Review

The Polishes: I don’t like to give ratings out of 5 stars. What I can say is that the colours were reasonably accurate to their descriptions and what was pictured on screen, especially the red and pink. Hawberry Jelly is a mid to deep toned red with a hint of orange to me. White Peach is a pale, milky pink that does indeed have a touch of peach. It builds up more quickly in terms of opacity, which aligns with its description as a crelly. It was paler on me than was shown in the photography. Heavenly River was a navy with silver flakies, but was deeper on me than shown in the images. So much that it looked almost the depth of Asterism, which was a blue-black with gold flakies. It was more blue than black than I expected. Now, both these blues were crellies, and they had an opacity in four layers between White Peach and Hawberry Jelly (Fig. 2).

Image/Marketing Accuracy: Pretty dang good, but not perfect. I appreciated the numerous photos to help narrow down the ones I’d be most interested in. When it comes to Asterism, I felt that the colour and flakie distribution was the most inaccurate. It was lighter and lower in flakie content than represented. The flakies had settled in this bottle (unlike Heavenly River), and despite a lot of rolling around, I couldn’t get them resuspended in the polish. I also wonder if something happened to the black pigment.

Application: I used four layers for most of my nails, and did some blending across my hands. The polish felt very thin and runny, but didn’t drip off the brush before I could get it on my mails. I felt that the brush shape was well suited to the formula.

Other Notes: Hawberry Jelly had a single black speck. I assume its a contaminant and not undissolved pigment. Longevity of the polishes has been excellent, exceeding my typical wear time (though it has been a rather relaxed week with less typing than usual, see Figures 3 and 4). I only got chips on the weekend when I was disassembling a four foot long fish tank using fishing line, scraper blades, utility knives (best bulk purchase ever), bag clips, and a very helpful boyfriend. The following week saw more chips along the sides of the polish, but the tips remained evenly worn off rather than in chunks. I also lost my left hand index finger polish and thumb and right hand middle finger polish. It’s absolutely normal for my polish to eventually lift off over time, but usually it shreds off rather than staying cohesive. The final removal process was actually quite a delight. I use 100% acetone and cotton pads, which usually smear intense colours all around my fingers. While this still happened, it was less messy than usual and the cotton pads soaked in the polish, rather than having the usually chunky bits.

Thoughts on the website: Very pleasing to the eye, easy to browse both on mobile and at a computer. The menu changes depending on the size of the screen, and is easy to access. Individual colours are shown as a circle swatch with relevant characteristics.

Thoughts on branding: Super cute! The cloud art, the koi, the soft muted colours… all of these elements seem thoughtfully put together. The bottles themselves have a transparent sticker with the branding in black, and the base of the bottles have printed text on round paper stickers on the bottom. A small criticism here is that the bottom sticker is too large for the inner glass ring of the base and looks a bit sloppy. The naming is also inconsistent, for example, Hawberry Jelly is simply labelled “hawberry” in lowercase.

Future purchases?

Likely yes! If they start the rapid release and discontinue cycle however, I will probably not recommend them to my friends. At the time of writing (this was drafted a week ago), they added yet another collection. This genuinely annoys me a bit, as three collections have been released with only a few days in between. Personally, I think it would be better to release in batches if they’re all going to roll out within a month. And well, I don’t feel that the three latest collections feel as cohesive as the previous ones. I’m actually wondering if the release schedule is based on how quickly the owner can take images, given that there are quite a lot of similar shades and it’s important to show all of the related colours together.

Some extra notes: They’ve dropped yet another collection on June 15th, just hours before I was going to post this, and right when I was redoing my nails with Hawberry. This collection seems more personal to the owner, and is missing that cultural aspect that I enjoyed from the first drop. While I am irate at the continuous drops, none of this harms me and I imagine generating new excitement is necessary to some extent for a new brand. I only wish they put out a calendar for when new releases were coming. I find it to be polite. One could conceivably identify the perfect colour shortly after a purchase if it is tucked away in a new release. The good news is that they confirmed the collections are permanent, so yay for that.

Final thoughts: I loved the polishes I got, and expect to be using them regularly. The colours are nicely nuanced and add something really different to what I already have. Hawberry Jelly is an incredibly easy red to apply, and I really enjoy the translucency of the blues. I’m actually happy Asterism is a touch lighter than expected. There were some small things that I didn’t love, but they’re mostly a matter of taste and preference.