Illamasqua Vice Nail Polish

I'm being lazy today with a nail polish post. I'm going to blame my laziness on my lack of sleep. I'm also somewhat distracted this morning trying to decide whether a trip to Henley to look at the SpaceNK sale is a good idea. Henley is a lovely place to visit but my trips to SpaceNK are often brief as makeup shopping with three small children and my husband looking on isn't the most enjoyable experience. But shopping sounds a lot more appealing than staying at home and finding new homes for all the new toys and Christmas presents. Anyway, I digress....

Vice nail polish was released with the Illamasqua Theatre of the Nameless collection and has an unusual rubberised finish. This rubberised texture was inspired by the Boots girls of Berlin who wore different coloured rubber boots to advertise their specialty. I quite like the unusual finish, the only issue I had is that, unless you don't mind spoiling the effect, you cannot use a top coat and for me this led to a few dents in the polish as I was waiting for it to dry.

Vice is my favourite colour of the four Theatre of the Nameless polishes. This kind of reddy plum/wine colour is quite vampy and I think the rubberised finish adds a little interest. It makes a nice change from shimmer too. You can see the other three nail colours in my original post about the collection here.

The Illamasqua nail polishes cost £13.50 and all four nail colours from the collection are still available. As an aside, Illamasqua has a sale on at the moment with quite a lot of items reduced in price so it's worth a little browse if you're in the mood for a bargain.

Disclosure: PR Sample.

Illamasqua Theatre of the Nameless Collection

I went along to the Illamasqua Beak Street store on Sunday to take a look at their new collection, Theatre of the Nameless. The collection is available online already and will be released in store tomorrow (8th September). I'm sure many of you will have already seen pictures of the various pieces but I wanted to throw my pictures and thoughts out there.

Again this is a collection very much inspired by the club scene of 1920's Berlin. The colours are dark and decadent and the imagery for the collection is inspired by characters like Anita Berber and the unique advertising system of the Boot girls! The description of a nocturnal den fits this collection perfectly. Although the collection and imagery is dark, there's plenty to excite this (mostly) pedestrian Mum for everyday wear.

I shall start with the lipglosses. There are two Intense Lipglosses;  Façade, a grey pink that can also be used as a glossy eye colour and Belladonna, a deep pink. Violate is a Sheer Lipgloss and is a beautiful dark, shimmery green. You can see this colour worn over a base of black liner in the image of Clare further down this post.

I was very taken with the new Precision Liner in Havoc, a deep aubergine. In fact, this is one of the items that I purchased from the collection. I think a dark coloured liner is a lovely way to inject a bit of colour into a mostly neutral look.

The nail varnishes released with this collection all have a rubberised finish. I swatched each of the colours and was impressed with how opaque they were with just one coat. My apologies for the smudges, they take a little longer to dry because of the finish and I obviously wasn't careful enough before they had dried. My favourite of these colours is Vice, the deep cerise shade. The bottles have a special edition rubber lid which actually makes them a little easier to grip.

The lipstick in Kontrol is not for the faint hearted. It's an intense blue violet colour. It's actually darker than it appears in the pictures below. I was really pleased with the texture when I swatched this shade. I have some older Illamasqua lipsticks and I have to take care when applying as they're quite stiff and prone to movement at the base. Kontrol is very creamy and smooth to apply but still maintains the intensity and pigmentation of the original formula.

I fell a bit in love with the Pure Pigments. There are three shade; Zeitgeist, a deeply pigmented black with shimmer, Berber, a bright auburn shimmer and Beguile, a light, shimmery highlighter. They are all shot with complementary shimmer particles. Beguile was used in a number of the promotional images all over the face and body. It has the most amazing sea green shimmer to it which I failed to pick on camera. I received Zeitgeist in my event bag and can't wait to have a play with it. I intend to combine it with sealing gel to use as a liner.

The blushers in this collection are Illamasqua's first venture into a shimmery finish. Morale, the bright rosy pink is stunning and I think the more nudey peach shade, Ambition, will be very popular. These blushers give a beautiful sheen rather than being all out chunky glitter. You can see Ambition modelled on the lovely Clare from Illamasqua below.

There are two sets of false lashes in the collection and I was immediately taken with lashes in Weimar that Clare was wearing. Obviously they are very dramatic but they suited her look perfectly and I actually thought they looked soft and feminine whilst still making a statement. The other thing that Clare had applied that I wanted to mention is the new brow cake in Stark. A perfect brow shade for redheads.

There are two new Cream Pigments, Androgen, a pretty coral and Depravity, a stunning magenta. Like the other cream pigments, these are multi-purpose. I think Androgen would make a lovely cheek colour and Depravity would look great on the lips. Also new is their latest mascara formula, the cheekily titled Masquara.

So, what do you think to this collection? Is there anything you have your eye on? I'm looking forward seeing how people interpret this collection, especially in their everyday makeup.