Alessandro - Midnight Violet

Mid purple creme  

Here's Midnight Violet from Alessandro's Summer of Love collection.

Midnight Violet is a mid-toned purple creme.  It's a mini sized bottle at only 5ml but actually this seems to be the most common Alessandro size so I don't know if they'd call it mini.

Application was good and these swatches are 2 coats, no top coat as usual.

Alessandro is a German brand, I have bought some on trips to Germany but pretty sure this one came from an internet order from a French private sale site!   I really like Alessandro products, their hand creams in particular are excellent, but they can be a little expensive at full retail. Thankfully thanks to the sale site this only cost me £1.20!

Vintage Valentines - Hard Candy - Violet?

Pastel pink/lilac creme  

Another collectable vintage brand is Hard Candy, first produced in 1995.  I have a couple of first edition Hard Candy polishes and one from the second edition when they changed the bottle shape to be rectangular.

Hard Candy were all about unusual colours (for the time), the free rubber ring with every bottle and provocative advertising.  Again Pretty Random has a great reference guide if you want to see more.

The very secret shimmer

I *think* this is Violet.  As you can see my bottle is pretty worn and has no labels left at all so I am guessing the name based on peering at some old shade pics on the internet!

I do have the ring that goes with this, or to be more accurate, I have a selection of rings that might match this!  Somehow I have 4 rings but only 2 polishes!

And unfortunately this polish is not a win from me.  Pastel cremes are notorious for  being tricky and this one certainly lives up to that.  You can see in the swatch photos that it really didn't self level and looks very uneven.  I even added top coat but it didn't help much.

Swatches are 2 coats with top coat.

The bottle close up in the sun shows a pretty secret shimmer but I couldn't spot a hint of it on the nail.

So this will always have a place in my stash for its originality and rarity but not a lot of love....

Avon Nailwear Pro - Night Violet

Purple/plum with gold shimmer

The nights are drawing in and the heating is on, it's time to go vampy!

Night Violet (love that name) is a deep purple/plum with a swirly fine gold shimmer running through it.

Unusually for a deep shimmer this was a little streaky - so swatches shown are 3 coats.  This is definitely one I had pegged at 2 coats!

These are old swatches and I have a rather random collection of nail lengths here!

American Apparel - African Violet

Mid Purple Creme

I pulled this one out as I needed a fast drying opaque purple as the underwear for some layering of a Max Factor mini polish (coming soon).

I'm not going to comment too much on the politics of American Apparel, I know lots of folk are very uncomfortable about their owner and culture and some won't buy them,  but they do make mighty fine polishes, which is a bit shallow I know...

American Violet is a gorgeous mid purple creme.  Easily opaque in 2 coats and look how shiny it is...

Swatch shown is 2 coats, no top coat.