Illamasqua releases Sephora exclusives stateside!
As you may possibly know, I adore Illamasqua and everything they stand for. Their colors are stunning and their collections innovative. So it is no surprise that I like this set of nail polishes with a rubber-like finish they’ve come out with. There are 6 new colors and 4 from a previous collection that are now being sold via the American Sephora site as online exclusives. That means it’s not easy to obtain these colors for everyone outside the USA, which makes me a bit sad, but what can you do, right?
Like I already wrote, 4 colors aren’t new. Faux Pas, Kink, Taint and Vice are all part of the Theatre of the Nameless collection that they released a while ago. I own both Vice and Taint from this collection and they are absolutely beautiful. The finish sits in between gloss and matte and the polish stays on for a long time without any chipping, which can often be a problem when they have a different finish. The other six colors listed alongside these four colors below are all brand new.
Let’s take a look at them all now, shall we?
- Aorta *- scarlet red
- Devotee *- candy pink
- Faux Pas – blue violet
- Kink – bottle green
- Nurture* – vivid green
- Optimist *- warm yellow
- Prosperity *- rich purple
- Serenity *- bright turquoise
- Taint – stone brown
- Vice – deep cerise
And this is the description of the colors on the Sephora site:
What it is:
A highly pigmented matte nail varnish with an innovative rubber-like finish.What it does:
Go beyond ordinary nails with this chip-resistant rubber-finish nail color that contains the finest high-grade color suspension materials for creating a fast and buildable waxy rubber finish.What it is formulated WITHOUT:
- Parabens
- Sulfates
- Synthetic Fragrances
- Petrochemicals
- Phthalates
- GMOs
- Triclosan
Man I so want that Prosperity one, I mean you can’t ever go wrong with a royal purple! And I also would love to complete my Theatre of the Nameless set with the other two polishes I’m still missing. Hopefully someday…
What do you think of Illamasqua? Have you tried their products before?
Illamasqua: A Journey – part 1; The History.
Recently I was invited to a bloggers event in Amsterdam by the lovely Alex Cummins who is Junior Brand Manager for Illamasqua. I soon found out there were a lot of other great blogging ladies who were going to attend the presentation and I found myself anxiously looking forward to September 3rd. This was the day it was all going to happen; the presentation of their third Autumn/Winter collection to date: Theatre of the Nameless.
First let me give you some details about this great brand before I tell you about the collection and of course the event. Illamasqua is a British brand that launched in 2008 in Selfridges in London. It was founded byJulian Kynaston, who was just bored by the industry at that time as they were all just bringing out the same look – a nude lip and a smokey eye or a variation of it over and over again. He wanted to bring back the artistry in make up. He approached Alex Box - she was one of the make up artists that was really pushing the boundaries at the time. She was experimenting with make up – using it as an artform and she came in and is still with the brand as their creative director. She’s very hands on with all the products and she is the one that brings in the creative teams to work on everything. She works closely with them so she’s not just the face of the brand, a name they can drop to impress. The brand went global after 6 months, launching at Sephora and they soon became the fastest growing make-up brand in the past 20 years, which is, of course, incredible. Their mission is to provide high-performance, professional make-up to anyone who wants to self-express and accentuate their look beyond the norm. Illamasqua is for the bolder person hiding inside all of us. Their tagline after all is ‘Make Up for your Alter Ego’ and this shows in every product they’ve released so far.
The Theatre of the Nameless 2011 autumn/winter collection was heavily influenced by Anita Berber. Anita was a young firey red haired dancer, actress, writer, and prostitute from the 1920′s Berlin. A period in time when Berlin was rethinking art, politics and life itself. One of its inhabitants; Anita; was pushing it further than anyone else. She was the original wild child. She lived life fast, partied hard and people either loved or hated her for it. She could often be seen in hotel lobbies, nightclubs and casinos; she would walk around naked except for a sable fur, carrying a pet monkey and a silver brooch full of cocaine while flaunting her lesbian lovers—removing the barrier between performance and normal life. She died when she was only 29 from severe tuberculosis, a year after she had given up alcohol and cocaine, but she had already touched many lives on her way to that early grave. She was once the actress who had Leni Riefenstahl as her understudy and she had influenced Marlene Dietrich (one of her many lovers for a while) to wear a tuxedo, something women of that era wouldn’t dare to before. And now she has touched us all again through this beautiful, dark, sexy, new collection.
Stay tuned to Illamasqua: A Journey. You have two more adventures to follow in this beautiful tale.
Posted in 2011, Brown, Collection, Controversial, Cream, Event, Fall, Fuchsia, Green, Illamasqua, Links, Nail Polish, Nailpolish, Nude, Opaque, Purple, Rubber, Sephora, September, Set, Style, Trend, Vinyl, Webshop, Winter | 
4 CommentsDid I just really find a dupe for Chanel Peridot?!
Almost everybody loves a quality brand like Chanel with their beautiful make up, clothes and not to forget their nailpolish collections. I follow those releases even closer because every year they seem to release one of the it-colors when it comes to nailpolishes.
We’ve seen it before many years ago with their Rouge Noir, a color that had not really been seen in nail polish fashion before at that time. And in this current collection there is Paradoxal, a beautiful mauve tint with purple shimmer. This upcoming fall collection it seems that Peridot will be one of the crowd favorites as it has created quite a buzz in Fashion- & Beauty blogland already. It is a beautiful golden green that even seems to have some copper and bronze tones and teal hues here and there as you can see in the picture in the gallery below and I fell in love with it the moment I saw it online.
Since it has yet to be released here in the Netherlands I am still waiting to see it with my own eyes and I honestly can’t wait. Even more so, because a few days ago when I went on a little shopping spree in Utrecht I ran into a gorgeous dupe of this shade! I suspect it has a hint of a copper tone to it sometimes, but it is barely noticable.
Now are you ready – and are you writing this down, because you might regret it if you don’t!
The nailpolish I found is called ‘Diving in Malaysia’ and it’s by Sephora. It only costs one third of the price of Peridot (!!!) and I now have it in my ever growing nailpolish collection. The price seems cheap but not if you compare the size and amount of product, but more on that later when I break it down in the ratings.
It is an absolute jewel on your nails. In direct sunlight the golden shimmer really comes through. Even in the evening in artificial light it’s still quite a joy to behold as it takes on a more toned down bronze shade. This polish is such a beautiful chameleon.
The staying power so far is good. I’ve had it on my nails for two full days now and as you can see there hasn’t been a single chip yet.
I’ve used Orly Bonder basecoat and O.P.I. Start to finish topcoat to of course protect it from early tipwear. I have often read that Chanel polishes aren’t the best when it comes to staying power so I do think this polish by Sephora has another point over the Chanel one.
All in all I give this polish the following rating:
– For staying power so far, I can’t say much of it yet of course but so far, so good!
- For color, it’s just a near perfect dupe, so a near perfect score for that.
- For coverage, one layer is enough really but I used two for a bit more depth in the color.
- For price, a little less than 6 euro’s ($9) compared to Chanel’s 22 euro’s ($29,99 on Amazon)
- For amount. It is only 0.16 fl. oz. (5ml) compared to Chanel’s whopping .4 fl. oz. (13ml)
So it kind of balances out really. The color and the staying power are fabulous, but the amount of product and the price kind of make me sad. It is the perfect size though if you are not sold completely on Peridot yet and want to give it a test run without having to pay almost 30 dollars for it.
When Peridot finally does go on sale here in the Netherlands I will still be checking it out to see what the coverage is and, of course, how the staying power is with that one. When I know more I’ll make an update so be sure to check back!
Now, enough talk and on to the pictures as they will hopefully convince you how amazing this color is, even when they barely do it justice.
Let me know what you think and if you’ll be checking your local Sephora for this color or if you’d rather pay for the Chanel color instead.
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