I feel that I am rather faithful to make-up brands especially when I find something that really works for me. But what about nail polish? I seem to buy anything and everything because I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity purchaser when it comes to nail polish. I don’t have the most lavish budget so I am an avid deal hunter. I am very lucky to have so many beauty supply stores in my area that sell a lot of the major brands at huge discounts. Unfortunately, this also makes me buy huge quantities of nail polish because, well, who can resist discounts? Not me!
Illamasqua is a brand that I don’t mind spending a little more money on…or a lot. Granted, their nail polish sells for $14 which is nowhere near bloated Chanel prices, but it’s still pricier than I would like.When their Naked Strangers Collection came out, I wasn’t that excited about it because I am more of a bold nail polish lover and the colors just seemed so…tame. I had gone to Sephora earlier in the week because I wanted to see if they had any of the Nails Inc. matter glitter “Sprinkles” polishes. Alas, they are not in store yet so I had to console myself with other nail polishes. I was playing around with the newest colors and Faithful really caught my attention. It looked like it was glowing from within. It had to be mine.
How can you resist the metallic looking glow of Faithful? The formula was perfect, as usual for Illamasqua, and I only needed two coats. This is a color that I could wear anywhere because it’s a bit neutral but still has a certain playfulness to it. It’s not overpowering, but it’s not boring either. Can you tell I love this color?
I’ve been playing a lot with glitter lately so I took out my #1 favorite glitter of all time: China Glaza Mahagonie. It has such a beautiful brown/red base with lots of holo glitter thrown into the mix. I think this combination sounded better in my head because I’m not too happy with the way it turned out once I sponged it on top of faithful. I don’t know if it was the sponge, my technique or the glitter, but this just doesn’t appeal to me as much. This just goes to show you that two rights, don’t always make a right!
Since I wasn’t too happy with the sponging, I went ahead and applied one thick coat of Mahoganie over my nails. This glitter is opaque at two coats if you wear it on its own. Since I already had a base color in Faithful, I was able to get away with one coat.
So what do you think? Are you an Illamasqua fan? Have you tried any of the China Glaze specialty glitters? This one is my favorite but Atlantis comes in at a close second. Wow…all that writing about glitter is throwing me off. Hello, my name is Cynthia and I am a reluctant glitter lover.
