Rimmel 60 Seconds : Camouflage

Happy Easter everyone!
Having got all creative with the lighting in my last couple of reviews, of course my lamp went and broke on me today so you're all going to have to endure some rather naff natural lighting pics (naff because it's really gloomy outside today) that don't really show the true beauty of what I'm photographing. Sorry about that.
But in more exciting news, I've ordered a light tent and some new lamps!! I'm looking forward to playing with them and hopefully taking lots of lovely bright pictures once they arrive. Anyway, on to the polish!

Today I'd like to share another Rimmel offering (I promise I'll run out of steam with Rimmel eventually!) : Camouflage, from the 60 seconds fast drying range.

In the bottle it's a pretty emerald/leaf green frost with noticeable gold shimmer - a bit like GOSH Golden Dragon or maybe one of the various green/gold duochromes that're around at the moment (though this is not actually a duochrome). I thought it was really beautiful, (though nothing like any camouflage I've seen, since that tends to be more murky greens, but never mind eh) but once I got it on my nails I was surprised to find it's even nicer thean it is in the bottle (a nice change, actually, since so many polishes are the other way round!).

On the nail, the colour shifts slightly. The gold shimmer is less prominent but the green becomes a LOT more vivid and jewel toned. Instead of green with gold shimmer in it, it appears more of an intense, almost metallic green with gold/yellow tones. It changes according to the light; sometimes darker, sometimes lighter, different shades of green from leaf to emerald to that sort of green that makes you think of Christmas. It's really very eye catching, especially when the sunlight hits it directly and you get this glowing effect:

(Sorry it's blurry - this was the only close up shot I could get that was colour accurate as well as showing the inner glow). This is also one of those polishes that looks a lot better with topcoat than it does without. The topcoat seems to bring out the glow and the depth of the colour and gives it more of that 'wow' factor.

Application and formula are surprisingly good. I was actually dreading it a little since the other 60 Second polishes I've tried have tended to be reaaaaallly slow drying, thick and gloopy (since they try and be opaque in one coat, but aren't, and then you have to use two and the drying time becomes a nightmare). But happily, Camouflage seems to be exempt from this trend: it's a little thick, but not gloopy, and it's definitely not what I'd call fast drying (especially not if you consider their 60 second claim, which couldn't be further from the truth). But it's alright... it's not overly slow drying either; just 'normal'. The second coat dries quicker if you wait for the first one to be completely dry first. 

 It has that nice wide, round ended 'pro' type brush that reminds me of OPI and Rimmel's Lycra Pro range, which splays out nicely and covers the nail in a good, even coat of not-too-thick polish that dries without leaving brush marks. The rounded bristles and thicker formula make it easy to apply without flooding cuticles - all these pictures are without any cleanup (since I was in a hurry!).

Overall, this is a really stunning polish which has to be seen in real life to really appreciate how vivid it looks - it's especially gorgeous in sunlight (which of course was in scarce supply when I was trying to take pictures). Application is pretty good, not one of the best I've tried but definitely not the worst either. If I had to pick on one thing to complain about it would be the wear - two coats over Nail Envy, with one coat of top coat (Orly Sec 'N' Dry, which normally wears like iron) showed quite noticeable tip wear after 24 hours. It didn't chip though, so I added one more coat and it lasted me easily though the second day before the tipwear reappeared. Considering what a gorgeous colour this is, it's definitely worth putting up with the less than perfect wear and I will be putting this one in the 'keep' pile!

17 Fast Finish : Sulk

Today's mani is from Boots 17 : 'Sulk', from its autumn/fall collection 'A Woman Scorned'. 

(Please excuse my cuticles; I'm using the world supply of hand cream and cuticle butter right now but apparently they don't care. Stupid winter >.<)

Sulk is a gorgeous jewel tone green; in the bottle it looks closer to turquoise but once on the nail it dries most definitely green. And shimmery. It's not quite so sparkly in real life as it appears in these pictures, but it's most definitely there.

Application is average. There's nothing special about the brush (it's not bad, it does the job well enough, but I did notice the neck of the bottle is small enough that the brush tends to catch on it and get all splayed out. Not really a big deal but you do have to be careful if you don't want polish everywhere). The consistency is a little thick, not unpleasantly so, but it's gloopy enough that it does make it hard to do thin coats (I like thin coats. Not everybody does, though, so if you're a medium to thick coater, this one will be perfect for you!). Sulk is nicely pigmented; two coats is more than enough and it wears well too, BUT it's very far from the 'fast finish' the bottle promises you. This mani is one coat of nail envy, two of sulk, and after 15 minutes it was still really tacky. Like, 'has it even started to dry yet' tacky. So I added a coat of Orly Sec'N'Dry and that fixed things.

Or so I thought.

Check out the sheet mark on my index finger!! And I didn't go to bed for FOUR HOURS after I painted my nails! The bottle shots were taken straight after painting, and these other two were taken after I woke up the next morning. All I can think is that this nail must have had an extra thick coat of Sulk, and even the Sec'N'Dry couldn't save it from doom. (Though I will say that the mark is less obvious in real life than it seems here).

This polish gets 5 out of 10 overall. It's a gorgeous colour; there aren't too many jewel toned greens out there (at least in drugstore brands) that are properly green; most of them lean a lot more towards teal/turquoise/blue tones than this one does. It's also cheap and cheerful at £2.99. But I didn't enjoy the application much and it took way too long to dry for a so called fast dry polish. If you don't rush it and keep your coats thin, plus use a fast dry topcoat, it'll be fine - just don't reach for this one when you only have 5 minutes to paint your nails!

SpaRitual : Spirit Child

Hello lovelies! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, whatever you call this time of year!

Today I'd like to share with you an especially beautiful polish that I wore as my Christmas day manicure - SpaRitual 'Spirit Child', from the Wilde collection released in autumn this year. These are also hopefully the last pictures I will be posting that have been taken with my old camera - I FINALLY HAVE MY NEW SHINY CAMERA!!! Please excuse me while I happy dance all around the room ^.^

Anyway, Spirit child is a berry red shimmer that looks pretty in the bottle, but until now I'd not gotten around to trying it because it didn't 'grab' me like some other colours. Most of the swatches online didn't excite me that much, either. Now I've tried it, I realise it's STUNNING - but quite hard to take accurate photographs of. On the nail, it's a deep, rich, jewel toned, festive red that just... glows. It's extremely beautiful to look at (I got SO many compliments on this one). The shimmer isn't very obvious on the nail but in the bottle it's definitely there. In bright light it takes on a more berry tone, also pretty. When you photograph it, the berry tone seems to take over and it's all you can see. The bottle shot is about the most accurate of these three pictures, just imagine it slightly less berry toned :)

Application is pretty good - here you see three coats, but it was opaque in two. The reason for three coats here? I chipped it (my fault, not the polish) by smashing my finger against a cutlery rack less than an hour after it dried, and was pressed for time, so just repaired the chip and added a third coat everywhere to make it even! You can see the chip on my ring finger. Drying time was actually quite decent - Sparitual polishes can be rather slow to dry, but this one was significantly faster. I added a quick dry topcoat after the 3rd coat, but the 2nd one dried without assistance in a quite reasonable time. Wear was average to good - it was pretty worn and chipped at the end of the second day, but then again it had survived cooking an enormous dinner for 8 people and unwrapping lots of presents.. including the reluctant packaging of lots of kids' toys. (Why do they make it so hard to get those things out of the box?)