Rimmel Velvet Matte Nail Colours: Sumptuous Red and Midnight Kiss

Being mad for all things matte I rushed out and bought these new Rimmel Velvet Matte polishes as soon as I saw them on the stand - the colours, the velvet matte finish...What's not to love, right?  It turns out there was plenty on this occasion unfortunately but let's start with the good...

 

What's good?  The colours themselves are exactly what I'd choose to wear as a matte mani - Sumptuous Red (which is actually a deep plum) and Midnight Kiss (deep midnight blue) are beautiful in the bottle and do look lovely and velvety once on the nails.  On this occasion I couldn't decide which colour to wear first so I opted for both.

 

What's disappointing? A few things actually. Firstly, I had major issues colouring within the lines because the brushes were unevenly cut so I was just about holding my breath trying to control the colour placement. Yep, unless it was just me being unlucky scoring bad brushes I'm warning you to be prepared for clean up!  And...these polishes are a one-day wonder when it comes to durability.  I experienced chipping within 24 hours, and the matte finish started to wear off after a few days so it evolved into a semi shiny finish.  For that reason this polish is for special occasions only...

 

All swatches taken in indirect daylight:

 

  

 

Have you tried these? I'd be interested to hear other impressions on these polishes.

OPI Fifty Shades of Grey Collection: Embrace The Gray (worn two ways)

Just in case you didn't know *wink*...

 

The Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon is about to hit with the Australian movie release due on the 12th of February - just before Valentine's Day - so of course OPI have just released their new Fifty Shades of Grey collection too...

 

I received three shades from the collection to review and I'm starting my little polish miniseries with Embrace The Gray which I picked as the most versatile of the trio (the spelling of 'Gray' drives me a little nutty but I'll calm myself with the knowledge that it's 'Christian Gray' the character we're referring to so I'll just shut up right there).  OPI describe Embrace The Gray as a "chic, moody grey crème" and I can't really elaborate more on that so I won't! I applied two coats and while coverage was very opaque and almost a one-coater, the formula does demand a top coat for a perfect lacquer finish. Here 'tis without a top coat because I had some other plans for this polish:

 

Shade

 

 

Sun

 

 

Being in the mood for a twist and as I'm currently obsessing over matte grey nails, I ended up using OPI Matte Top Coat this time - and this is the look I personally preferred:

 

 

Matte or glossy?  What's your preference?

 

 

 

(This product was provided for my consideration.  All comments and opinions are my own.)

 

Vintage MAC polish: Ice Tease

The weather's turned icy down here in Melbourne and we had one month's rainfall just last night!  That very nicely leads me into today's MAC polish post:  Ice Tease.

This colour is quite unique in my collection as it's a matte iridescent (or duochrome? or multichrome?) pearl with a green/pink flash depending on what angle the light hits it. 

Here are LOTS of pictures taken at different angles to give you the idea - please excuse the nubbins, I had a pretty bad tear on my index fingernail so they all had to go :( 

Bottle shots first - So it's pink in the bottle....

No, wait, it's green...

Hmm...

And on the nails - with flash:

In full sun...

And finally, in the shade...

It took three coats of colour to achieve this coverage.  So pretty!

That's all for now.

Vita :)