I thought I'd celebrate by posting a mani I've been waiting to do for a long time now: Sacred Ground, from the Wilde collection at SpaRitual.
SpaRitual is a brand I have a lot of love for (and a lot of bottles of their polish, too). They're an eco-friendly brand who produce wonderful vegan friendly polishes; all their products are free from synthetic dyes as well as DBP and formaldehyde. They're a 'professional' brand, much bigger in the US than they are here - which means you usually only find their products in salons and spas, although you can buy them online in the UK from SpaRitual UK (very pleasant and helpful people, not at all put off by rabid nail bloggers ringing up to order polish 5 minutes before the end of office hours!).
Normally, SpaRitual have their strength in muted, natural colors and subtle shimmers and glitters (although they have their share of brighter blues and such like, you won't find any eye watering neons or garish glitter you can see from space). But when I saw the press release for their Autumn 2011 collection 'Wilde', my heart skipped a beat. 6 lovely bottles of vivid jewel tones, subtle yet gorgeous glitter and Autumn fruitfulness that made me wish it was already time to be standing by a bonfire, watching fireworks with a hot chocolate in hand (gorgeous nails on display, of course).
Of course, I had to buy all six - and here is the first, Sacred Ground.
Sacred Ground starts off with a charcoal grey/gunmetal coloured base that would be pretty on its own, but then they added lots of fine gold and blue/purple glitter and the whole thing became stunning. It's not garish, the glitter is quite subtle, but get it into sunshine or bright light and you'll be spending a lot of time staring at your nails! My camera didn't like capturing the glitter, so here's a very close up picture of the bottle, blurred, to show it more clearly.
Application is wonderful, considering it's a glitter it still goes on beautifully and dries well, I had no chipping after three days and only a little tip wear (the pictures here are after one day and a lot of typing, basecoat and two coats of polish, plus NO topcoat). The brush is fairly standard shaped but works well, I didn't have to do any clean up at all. It dries pretty smooth, not gritty at all. Removal isn't bad either, it takes a little more effort than a creme but I didn't have to resort to the dreaded tinfoil-and-cotton wool nightmare that glitter can demand.
A closeup of Sacred Ground on the nail. It's much prettier in person (curse you, substandard camera!). You can see some of the blue glitter and how it shines purple in some lights - the gold is the more dominant glitter but the blue definitely holds its own.
Isn't it pretty? I'll definitely be wearing this one again :)
