Brand: Smashbox

I know I’ve spent the week posting China Glaze polishes from their Fall 2015 collection, and another was posted today, but I have not forgotten that today is Thursday, and a Throwback polish is on the schedule!

Remember when Smashbox shade names all seemed to start with “Smashing”? I had Smashing Deep Red and Smashing Raspberry Kreme (yeah, it was spelled like that!) lipsticks, and some other Smashing eyeshadows, etc.

Well, I also owned a few Smashbox nail polishes: Smashing Mauve, Smashing Ruby, and Smashing Sepia. I received them all via swaps back in the 90s, and while I don’t think I have Sepia anymore (it was a midtone reddish-brown cream), I still have Mauve and Ruby—despite Smashbox customer service telling me in the late 90s to chuck the polishes because they were expired. Tee-hee.

Today’s Throwback Thursday swatch is for Smashing Ruby, a shimmery warm red with some fine, silver shimmer that I really liked back in the day, though now it seems a little dated. (Even the Smashbox logo on the bottle looks dated!)

Smashing Ruby has a pearly, nearly frosty finish, but isn’t streaky. The finish reminds me of Christmas red satin ribbon. Two coats gives full opacity. It was a pretty decent polish formula, though I suspect the price was higher than the quality warranted.

The bottle is cute, squared, and has smaller dimensions than its 15 mL would have you imagine. If Smashbox ever decides to revive its nail polish line, I hope they’ll base the bottle design on the original.

You’ll see that the ingredients contain a few chemicals that are no longer used by most nail polish companies: camphor, dibutyl phthalate, and formaldehyde resin.

Smashbox Nail Lacquer was 0.5 fl. oz. / 15 mL. This long-discontinued polish was formulated without toluene and formaldehyde. The label does not say where it was manufactured.

Smashbox Beauty Cosmetics Inc. (styled “SmashBox” on the polish label) was founded in 1996 by Dean and Davis Factor, the great-grandsons of famed Hollywood makeup artist, Max Factor. The cosmetics division of Smashbox—they also have a photo studio, modelling agency, and other interests—was sold to Estée Lauder Cos. in 2010, with the brothers still in charge of the company. The company is based in Culver City, CA, USA.