Lacquer or Leave Her: Popular Polish Company 'Borrows' Bloggers' Images

Updates are live. Continue checking for more.

UPDATE 8:44AM 7/26: Mary and Jeanette have both taken their posts down until the issue is resolved. This is likely a result of the Facebook post made by Revlon.

In the wake of Lynderella and Julep, Sinful Colors comes riding in with a whole new nail controversy to shake up the polished world.

Sinful Colors stole images from bloggers The Swatchaholic and Swatch and Learn without express permission for use in their promotional pamphlets.

I strolled into Walgreens after my workout yesterday to pick up a Gatorade. (I swear that was my only intent.) The draw of the polish aisle was too strong, so I meandered over. I'd read about the 99 cent sale Sinful Colors was having, so I looked at the colors. What caught my eye was a small flyer that read "Nail It" on the front. I couldn't not pick it up, it being so close to this blog's moniker.

The alarm bells started ringing immediately after seeing the first image in the centerfold.

I said to myself "I know those nails!" The shine on the nails, the shape of the nails, and the curve of the fingers are signature The Swatchaholic. But where's her watermark? Where's that curved text that I myself emulate in my own pictures? It's certainly not on the picture, and there's no mention of her in the pamphlet.

I raced home, took some phone pictures and promptly emailed her inquiring about this possible copyright infringement. I calmed down a bit, did my own manicure, and headed to bed.

Waking up the morning revealed that there was indeed a blatant case of copyright infringement. She'd written back and informed me that they had indeed stolen the pictures.

Twitter further fueled the fire lit under all the bloggers butts when Mary at Swatch and Learn alerted us that her image was also lifted without permission. Here's hers:

Now read that text accompanying Mary's picture.

Using a toothpick, gently swirl the colors together to create a fun and unique design.

Or...ya know...buy a stamp to get it perfect, like Mary did.

So not only has Sinful Colors pilfered images without permission and removed watermarks, they've flat out lied to their readers, claiming that the technique used in Mary's stolen picture can be accomplished with a toothpick. That's clearly a stamp, which they'd known if they'd read Mary's post.

Let's go back to Jeanette's picture. What's up with that bottle Sinful Colors? Did you change your branding since publishing this picture? Oh that's right, it's a COLOR CLUB bottle. In fact, both of the images use no Sinful Colors polishes. Wow.

The kickback from readers has already been uproarious and angry. Check out Sinful Colors's Facebook page and their community page for just a bit of it.

So what can you do? Share this info with your friends and reconsider your purchases of Sinful Colors. This is outright theft and copyright infringement.

If you have additional updates you'd like to share, leave a comment and I'll edit this post accordingly. If you know who the owner of the following image is, please let me know so we can contact her in case her work was also stolen: