Illamasqua's Creator's Collection consists of two limited edition (space-themed?!) polishes custom-designed by influential UK bloggers Yinka from Vex In The City, and Suzi from Style Suzi (There are also two LE lip glosses in the collection.).
Let's take a look!
First, here is Illamasqua- Fusion:
Fusion is a metallic neutral: sometimes bronzey, and sometimes steely-brown. It has dense flecks of light-reflecting gold/ silver glitter (I honestly can't tell which). It's quite earthy.
Artificial light, two coats:
Window-filtered daylight:
Outside, shade:
Sun:
It's quite nice in the sun...and there are hints of multicolored glitter which I didn't notice until looking at my photos on the computer. Interesting!
Up close, artificial light:
Soemtimes the flecks look gold, and sometimes silver.
Formula: It's very thick, so I can see some people not liking that. However, it's just about a one coater, and very creamy, going on easily. My one gripe is that it doesn't self-level as nicely or as quickly as I'd prefer, but it wasn't bad by any means.
When you remove this, the glitter spreads everywhere...
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Finally, the polish most people are excited for, Illamasqua- Perseid:
Perseid is a galaxy in a bottle! It's got an uber-dark plum base with a dense amount of holographic hex glitter in a couple of sizes. It's also got the most gorgeous greeny-teal microshimmer running through the base!
Artificial light, two coats with four coats of Revlon- Quick Dry Top Coat:
Window-filtered daylight:
The base is extremely dark (in my opinion a little too opaque to properly showcase the glitters), and looks blackish indoors. There is a ton of hex glitter in this, but you can only see some of it because the base is so opaque, bummer.
Outside, shade:
Sun!
It looks totally magnificent in the sun, but sort of dull in all other conditions, unfortunately.
Up close, artificial light:
Formula: It's thick and bumpy because of all the glitter, but if you paint thin coats you'll have a better time. You don't have to fish for glitter, and there are no issues with cuticle drag.
You will need a couple layers of topcoat to smooth everything out- something thick like Gelous would be best. It's a hungry glitter, and kept absorbing my topcoat- it took me four coats of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat until I was satisfied.
I didn't have any major problems with Perseid, but I can see it being really frustrating for some people not used to working with thick, dense glitters. And, it does look awful without topcoat. The only other dense jelly/glitter combo I have from Illamasqua is Glitterati, and by comparison Perseid's formula is much worse, although still workable.
I'm not going to attempt to wear this one again until I have Gelous on hand- let's put it that way.
I'm a bit disappointed to read you had problems with Perseid, I was most excited for it because it *did* look like galaxy nails in a bottle. I also tried my hand at Galaxy nails, the old -sponging- way. I'm about to post it in my blog, if you want to check it out :) Thanks for sharing your wonderful swatches!
ReplyI think it still does look like a galaxy, but yea the formula is a bit of a pain! You know I have never done real, sponged galaxy nails...still...somehow. :)
I must say that Perseid seems to be one of those polishes where I really dont care about the formula, even though I will bitch about it; the end result just looks amazing!
ReplyI agree, I'm just not sure it's totally worth ALL the effort, although maybe I'll change my mind with Gelous.