Rimmel Lycra Pro : Stormy Skies

Today's manicure is something I picked up a month or so ago when visiting a larger town: Rimmel Lycra Pro, in Stormy Skies.

I hadn't seen this shade before, though I don't know if that means it's new, or if it's just because my local stores only sell limited amounts of Rimmel shades (the displays are always so tiny!). Either way, I spotted this one and had to buy it because it's an unusual blue/grey shade that really does make me think of stormy skies.

In the bottle, it's more blue than grey; a dusty, smoky version of periwinkle that I couldn't wait to see on my nails. Once on the nail it dried much darker than bottle colour and became more grey. In fact I thought it was a basic elephant grey until I put it next to something grey and realised it was still pretty blue after all. 

Application was pretty much a dream. It has the gorgeous wide, flattened, curved-end brush that I love so much about Rimmel Lycra Pro (these pictures show NO CLEAN UP whatsoever, that's how tidy a cuticle line you can achieve with this brush). The highly pigmented, creamy formula applies like butter, without any of the patchiness you can get sometimes with creme polishes like this. It was almost opaque in one coat - if you apply it thickly enough then it could be a one coater - and two coats was enough for perfect coverage. These pictures show three coats, though, because the blue tone in this grey shows up better with three coats than it does with two. Drying time was pretty decent, too - I didn't bother with a quick drying top coat, as it dries well enough by itself (though it's best to let each coat dry before adding the next one, or you get brush marks).

Pros:

Just about everything. It looks great, applies well and lasts ages (only a little tipwear after 2 days, no chipping, and that's without top coat).

Cons:

It dries darker on the nail and I prefer the colour in the bottle. My pictures all show it looking pretty blue, and this is accurate for bottle colour, but in reality it's a little more grey on the nail.

Stash or Trash:

Definitely stash. This is a really great polish!

17 Lasting Fix : Smoke Signal

Much as I loved my festive blue and silver mani, I had an important meeting to attend the following morning, so it was time to exchange it for something more work appropriate. Enter Smoke Signal, from 17.

This sultry grey beauty of a creme doesn't look like much in the bottle, I have to admit. 17 bottles are not the prettiest of things - small, kind of dumpy, and not a particularly interesting shape. The brush is pretty standard, too, though this isn't a bad thing as the formula is actually pretty decent and fancy trick brushes aren't really needed here.

On the nail, it applies really well - it's pigmented enough that with careful application you could get away with one coat (though I have used two here). Drying time is reasonably fast, too, though it dries darker than the cement grey it appears in the bottle. I don't think this is a bad thing, though, as the colour it ends up is a nice rich dark grey that manages to look a little bit vampy. 

(Please excuse the odd skin tone in this picture. The gold bauble freaked my camera out - apparently, even this is too much glitter for its precious little brain -sigh-)

The only fault I can find in this polish is it is ever so slightly chip-prone: you can see there's a small chip on my ring finger nail in these pictures, which happened after only a couple of hours. It also showed tip wear after one day. On a regular polish, that wouldn't bother me too much (I change my mani every couple of days anyway), but this is SUPPOSED to be a lasting finish polish!

Overall, I liked this polish a lot. It's a smart, classy colour that works really well for work, but unusual enough that it looks edgy instead of just boring. It's a good choice when you want something just a bit vampy, but you want a change from black/plum/navy shades. 

SpaRitual: Sacred Ground

Hey, lovelies... so I still don't have my new camera,, but I've managed to borrow one so that I can get back to blogging, hurrah! Sorry for the long wait!

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 :)