Is it really "paint"?

[henriknorem]

I'm heading into a controversial subject now.

Yesterday, I picked up my iPhone 5, and accidentally made contact between the iPhone's edge and my iPad's edge. They merely touched each other, but it still made some very nice scratches on my iPhone.

What surprised me, though, was that, lying on the iPad's bezel, were flakes of dark paint from the iPhone! I could pick it up and hold it in my hand, tear it in half etc.

I was really shocked, because Apple tell us that the color is part of the aluminum itself, but based on this, I'm wondering..

Has anyone else experienced finding "paint flakes" after scuffing their iPhone's? I still can't understand how this happened, so please fill me in if you know something I don't!