Mrs Mia Wallace - LE "Pulp Fiction" polish from Urban Decay

"Trying to forget something as intriguing as this would be an exercise in futility."

Hello ladies! After a long hiatus I have a very special polish to share with you today - "Mrs Mia Wallace" by Urban Decay.  This Limited Edition polish was part of their collection celebrating the 20th anniversary of Tarantino's legendary "Pulp Fiction" (20 years! Bloody hell that makes me feel old!).  Not only was this an iconic movie, but it was a pivotal moment in the history of nail polish...the blackened vampy red (Chanel Rouge Noir, or Vamp as it was called at that time) worn by Uma Thurman's character Mrs Mia Wallace sparked a trend that continues to this day and earned Chanel over $1m in its first year of sale.  In 2000 it was still in the top 5 biggest selling nail polishes of all time. You can read more about the Chanel "Vamp" trilogy of polishes here and on Wikipedia. 



Mrs Mia Wallace - LE Urban Decay

It's been a long time since I was this excited by a single polish.  I first saw it on the lovely Ommorphia's blog and went straight to the shops the very next morning to grab a bottle.  I was lucky - I got the last bottle (and in the sale too! *swoon*).  Pictured here I'm wearing two coats with Essie 'Good to Go' on top.



Mrs Mia Wallace...and the sad sad stained cuticles (sorry)

I'm a big fan of the movie, and I'm old enough to remember when it came out (although I wasn't old enough to legally see it I hasten to add).  Back then I was unaware of the impact that this film had on the nail polish trends of the time, but now realise I inadvertently jumped on that bandwagon too...Reading about Rouge Noir brought back my memories of the very first nail polish that I can remember falling in love with.  It was a shade called "Cruella" (by the Body Shop?). It was a dark burgundy/oxblood crelly that looked to me like congealed blood on my fingernails.  I adored it, and spent a lot of my teenage years wearing that shade.  My mum hated it with a passion, so of course that made me love it all the more.  I now realise that it was a Rouge Noir knock-off.  Enough reminiscing...onto the polish of the day!

"Mrs Mia Wallace" (MMW) is an intriguing shade, and interestingly bears little resemblance to Rouge Noir.  It is a blood red shimmer with ultrafine gold and bronze particles that give it an stunningly intense fire and depth that you can see here.  The gold is quite apparent in the bottle, but not at all on the nail (and in this case I think that's a good thing).  The shimmer serves to give a warm tone to the cold leaning red, and gives it that 'lit from within' finish.  Interestingly, in indirect light/shade this polish looks more to me like an oxblood crelly, which is what Rouge Noir is, and then the light hits it and you get the amazing glow.  UD have packed a lot of complexity into this one little bottle.

I'm also completely in love the packaging too...the cap comes with the little Day of the Dead skull icon that Urban Decay have on all their polishes and the box is a delight - inside the box on a blood red background is printed an excerpt from Samuel L Jackson's famous speech from the movie...The whole thing just screams cool and has obviously been made with a lot of love.  Hats off to UD for a triumph of marketing!  I would have bought this shade just for the polish, but these extra touches make this feel really special.

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides....

But...and there's always a but isn't there?  I must admit that I found the formula to be pretty crappy on this polish.  On some nails it flowed as smooth as butter, but on others I had a strange lumpy effect with the first coat that was tricky to even out.  There were also little bubbles at the 'set down' point near the cuticle that I couldn't get rid of.  But by far the biggest problem was how much of a stainer this is! My cuticles look like I've been doing some axe-murdering in-between coats.  Even with pure acetone and my nifty cleanup brush, and even going over them twice, I just couldn't remove all the staining.  In future I will have to me much more careful with the application to minimise the amount of cleanup needed, because even though it was a b*tch to apply this is a shade I can tell I'll be wearing often.

This is my first Urban Decay polish.  I know that this is meant to be a very trendy brand, but honestly this is what I think of when I hear the name...

I'm absolutely delighted with my bottle of MMW, but unless they make something equally awesome I don't think that I'll be rushing back for more UD shades.  MMW has been a trip down memory lane, has reminded me of my first love, and despite the tricky formula is a stonking hot red shade to boot...really what more can a girl ask for?  If you fancy a bottle of your very own you'd best act fast, this LE won't be around for much longer.

I picked up my bottle for £9 (RRP £10) from my local Debenhams UD beauty counter.