Hey everyone! Happy Memorial Day if you're in the US!

Today I have a new polish from one of my all-time favorite brands, Illamasqua! This polish is Illamasqua- Prismatic, and it was just released with the new To Be Alive collection. However, as I'm posting this, the Illamasqua website now lists this shade as discontinued. I'm stymied as to why and a bit disappointed in the brand since it hasn't even been out very long! And now I feel bad for showing it!

At any rate, if you're interested in this shade, it may show up on Illamasqua's distributors, and maybe one day on Hautelook.com, if you're in the US where the brand is harder to get now.  I did purchase this directly from the Illamasqua website, along with four other shades, for my Birthday this month, since you do get a 15% discount on your birthday. That essentially negated the high international shipping cost, and so made it a little bit more worth it for me! (I will have a mail-time post coming up for that order, as well.)




Prismatic is a baby blue (slightly green-leaning) base filled with dense, bright pink-purple glassfleck shimmer. The shimmer is very apparent both in the bottle and on the nail.

As far as similar polishes go, Model's Own- Indian Ocean is sort of close, but has pink glassfleck shimmer that is a lot warmer toned; in comparison, Illamasqua's looks almost fuchsia or purple. Indian Ocean is also much sheerer overall, and shows more shift into gold/yellow territory at the edges.


Artificial light, three coats (one coat over white on accent nails):



I wish I'd had the foresight to swatch this over a blue instead of white on the accent nails, but oh well!

Outside, shade:


I had really poor natural light the day I swatched this, and I'm not happy with these photos at all, to be honest. But, I think you can still get an idea of the color and finish.

Up close:



Formula: It's a little sheer, but it's got a medium-thick viscosity with a good texture. It's workable and self-levels- fairly easy to apply.

It's really going to depend on nail length + application style whether you'll need two or three coats with this one. On my shorter, right-hand nails, I'm getting away with two coats with slight VNL, but needed three for these swatches on my longer swatching-hand-nails. At two coats, it's like 90% opaque on me (although not streaky), and definitely looks better with the third coat.