Showing posts with label Special Edition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Special Edition. Show all posts

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Picture Polish Illusionist

Hello Ladies!  Well it's a little late, but here's the final instalment from the Picture Polish LE multi-chrome set - the fabulous "Illusionist". (previous posts on its collection mates: Aurora, Borealis, Gravity, Altered State, Solar Flare).  To think I almost didn't buy this one! I thought it would be too similar to Aurora but for me, its different enough to justify having them both.  I've put some comparisons in this post, in a similar vein to the ones I did for Borealis and Altered State.  But first, here's some pure swatch porn...

Picture Polish "Illusionist" - artificial light
Picture Polish "Illusionist" - artificial light
Illusionist is a Teal Green-Purple-Magneta multi-chrome polish with silver scatterchrome particles.  This is a similar colour shift range to Aurora (see below), the dominant colour is a lovely teal green and under shallow angles this shifts to purple, and magenta at large angles.  The scatterchrome particles give this a gorgeous silvery shimmer, and 'dusty' look.

Picture Polish "Illusionist" - artificial light
Picture Polish "Illusionist" - artificial light
Pictured here I'm wearing a couple of coats on top of a single coat of black 'undies' with NE base coat and HK girl topcoat to sandwich it all together.  As with the other polishes in this collection, the formula is as smooth as melted butter. Its very sheer, so you definitely need undies with this, but you don't need to use black....I had a major lemming for this beauty ever since I saw these swatches from Emma at Imagination in Colour where she layered this over paler colours to great effect.  I'll definitely be trying this next.

Picture Polish "Illusionist" - artificial light
Picture Polish "Illusionist" - artificial light
Here is a comparison to Aurora...as you can see the colour range is identical, its the finish that is different.  Aurora has a densely glittered finish and is packed with multichrome glitter particles.  This intensifies the colour shift (see below, upper right).  The silvery finish of Illusionist, from the scatterchrome particles, is a more subtle muted effect but really sophisticated.  Its basically identical to the relationship between Borealis and Altered State(comparison on Borealis page).

Picture Polish "Illusionist"vs. "Aurora" - artificial light
Picture Polish "Illusionist" vs. "Aurora" - artificial light
I picked up my bottle of Illusionist from the lovely Sally at Sally Magpies (link in the suppliers page) for £13.50.  I highly recommend it, especially if you missed out on Aurora

I did notice that the new Dance Legend Galaxy series look a lot like the PP Limited Edition series! So there might be an option out there if you missed out on these.  The link above is to a blog that's in Russian, heaven knows what it says, but I'm guessing its something along the lines of 'bloody hell look at these stonkingly awesome polishes'....if anyone has any of these I'd love to hear what you think of them!

Thursday, 4 July 2013

Wimbledon Glam Slam


OPI Glam Slam Wimbledon set - Direct Sunlight
OPI Glam Slam Wimbledon set - Direct Sunlight
In 2011 Tennis Champion Serena Williams teamed up with OPI to produce a series of two-polish sets, with one set released to coincide with each Grand Slam tournament of that year.  From this "Glam Slam" collection this is the Wimbledon set.  My birthday is really close to Wimbledon, and I love the colour purple, so this set was one of my birthday treats in 2011.  I've worn it for every Wimbledon since!  It's gorgeous....
The set consists of a super sparkly purple shade - "Grape, Set and Match" and a sparkly holo glitter topper called "Servin' Up Sparkle" which contains a mix of tiny circular glitters and larger hex pieces.  The formula on both is really good -  "Grape, Set and Match" has that slightly gritty, dry textured finish that's typical of shades with this amount of sparkle but it goes on really smoothly and dry time is good.  The glitter topcoat is fantastic - really dense, easy to apply, and no fishing for big particles required.

 

OPI Glam Slam Wimbledon set - Artificial Light
OPI Glam Slam Wimbledon set - Artificial Light
Shown here I'm wearing two coats of "Grape...", one coat of "Servin'...", with one coat each of Nail Envy base and Seche Vite on top.


OPI Glam Slam Wimbledon set - Indirect Sunlight
OPI Glam Slam Wimbledon set - Indirect Sunlight
This is such a fun combination, and great to use individually too.  I find them pretty durable for sparkly polishes...I can easily get through the whole second week of Wimbledon before I feel the need to change it :)

If you're watching the tennis, enjoy! Here's hoping it's Andy's year.....(sparkly fingers crossed)

[for all swatches, click to embiggen]....