Illamasqua Baptiste, Collide, Rampage

I've been updating my spreadsheet and Pinterest nail polish stash board and just realized I don't think I ever posted swatches of Illamasqua Baptiste or Collide, and didn't post a re-swatch of Rampage.

Unfortunately, since Illamasqua backed out of the North American market, I don't know where you can buy Illamasqua in person anymore. You should still be able to purchase from their website online, but I'm not sure if there are shipping restrictions on nail polish still out of the UK.

That's OK, though. The bottle/cap annoyance I whined about before is enough to deter me from new colours, so I'm happy with the 5 bottles of Illamasqua I now still own (Baptiste, Collide, MILF, Raindrops, and Rampage).

Illamasqua Baptiste

Illamasqua Collide

Illamasqua Rampage

Reswatch: Illamasqua Milf

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Illamasqua Fern

*staggers in* These last two weeks have been super busy for me! Trying to get as much work as possible done before we leave for our vacation this weekend, and we had to attend a wedding in Nevada last weekend!

First, I'll show you a polish, then I will bore you with details of the wedding trip.

Illamasqua Fern - 2 coats. I ordered this from the 5GBP Illamasqua sale. I love this much more than expected! I think it's what I wished Essie Coat Azure would be - they are completely different though. Sorry I did not do any comparisons yet :( Any suggestions? I don't have a lot of blues like this!



Here's a pic With a snack I had a couple weekends ago. Mmmm.


Ok, boring details from my weekend: flying out of EWR was a huge hassle, since "Hurricane" Irene was about to blow through the tri-state area. As far as I can tell, there was no immediate damage from the storm, but now a lot of NJ is flooded! Thankfully, my area is okay, but I know a lot of people at work who are not so lucky. Anyway, our flight out of EWR was delayed for around 2 hours, causing us to miss our connection. We got to our hotel 7 hours later than initially planned, and had to drive through a mountain pass area in the dark. Yay! Our flight back was also delayed, since there were 150 people on standby to get back to NYC. Insane.

My huge annoyance of the trip was that prior to returning our rental car to the airport, we filled up the tank, but it turns out there were still 2 gallons unfilled when we pulled into the return area. The gas nozzle definitely 'clicked' though, so I don't know what happened. We should have double checked before returning the car (we filled up at the airport gas station, about 10 seconds from the return area), but we were both really tired and forgot. Hertz charged us about $10 per GALLON as a fuel surcharge! Can you believe it?! Man, I was livid. Has this ever happened to you?

Anyways, we had a couple hours before the wedding to walk around the area. Here's a little lake we went to (near Lake Tahoe, but not actually Lake Tahoe).



The wedding was for our friend from college (actually, DBF's classmate) who we lived with for a semester. He is the most easy going guy I know! I found a stray cat in our neighbourhood that semester we lived together, and he offered to drive me to the local vet to see if it was microchipped, and then later drove me to the Humane Society about 40 minutes away! He met his wife after we graduated, so it was the first time I met her... she seems very nice :) DBF and I were disappointed in his other friends from college... we were the only two (other than the groom's 2 friends from school who were in the wedding party) that flew out for his wedding! And he invited around 20 people from our college... I mean, what the heck?? I hope people come to my wedding :/!!

This is my NOTWedding: Illamasqua Raindrops



Ok, we fly out on Saturday! Supposedly, there is some kind of storm going over Japan right now... which is kind of bad timing... but hopefully it will have passed by the time we land. We're going to Tokyo, Kyoto, Miyajima Island (near Hiroshima), Nikko (outside of Tokyo), then Seoul. Hopefully I can post a bit while I'm gone! They will be haul posts, though, since I am actually going NAKED ON MY TIPS!!! :D

Hope you guys have a great long weekend (Labour Day)!

Illamasqua Raindrops

Hi hi, guys!

About two and a half weeks ago, I pounced on the Illamasqua UK site's sale... because they had Raindrops for 5 GBP! I placed an order for 6 bottles of polish (they had a couple other colours on the 5GBP sale) and it came to about $63 USD, shipped. Shipping was 8.50 GBP (that seems to be the minimum for 1 bottle; I ordered 6 to make it a better deal) and it arrived from the UK in about 2 weeks. Some girls on NB got them in just over a week!

They surprisingly still have Raindrops in stock! Here's the link to the 5GBP sale, if you're interested. They have other makeup ... stuff, but I am a dunce when it comes to makeup, so I can't help you there.

I had always admired this shade, but since it was a UK exclusive, I never really allowed myself to seriously lem after it. I actually almost purchased it last month when Illamasqua UK had a free international shipping code promo for orders over 40 GBP, but Raindrops was still full priced (13.50 GBP, about $20-22 USD depending on the exchange rate these days). That was way too pricey for me, so I reluctantly passed. When I got the 5 GBP sale notice, my heart skipped a beat and I checked the list of polishes and was floored to see Raindrops there. So I ordered. Yay! Patience paid off for once! :)

So long story short, I have this beautiful polish in my possession now! And I'm going to show you pictures of it... now.

Illamasqua Raindrops - 2 coats. I had read that this polish was notoriously sheer (nature of the beast, otherwise the glitter-flakes would not be visible on the nail), so I was pleasantly surprised to find that 2 coats on my little nubs seemed fine! I could have used a third coat on my thumb, but since my thumb is not pictured... you would not know that. Formula was a little thick, but not difficult to work with.



Here's a shoddy comparison with the two closest things I have in my stash. Totally worth having all three, bwahahahaha. I am a slave to light bluish greys.


Before I took it off, I wanted to see how DL Glitter in the Air would pair with it. Here's 2 coats of GitA over Illamasqua Raindrops:



Yay, I'm so happy! :D

Still planning our Japan/Korea trip, and of course, work is getting insanely busy these few weeks. Why is it always feast or famine in consulting? It is hard to keep a work-life balance, yo! So I will be working from home for part of the weekend... booooo.

Anyway, let me ask you, since I am out of the makeup loop these days, are there any Japanese or Korean "wonder" products I should keep an eye out for? Anything from face wash to mascara to lip gloss. Is there something I should keep my eyes peeled for?

Hope you guys have a better weekend than me... :')

Illamasqua Phallic and New Additions to my blog sale!

I decided to amp up my purging and added about 70-80 polishes to my blog sale. OPI month will be coming to a pre-mature end since I made a lot of quick decisions, lol! I hope you guys can forgive me!

I ordered a few Illamasquas a couple weeks ago and am wearing this for the weekend:

Illamasqua Phallic - 2 coats and lovely formula! It is rather dark indoors, but I'm hoping it'll knock my socks off in the sun tomorrow! I will edit this tomorrow and let you know! :) It is still darkened, even in the sun. But... I still like it.



Have a good weekend, guys! Stay cool!

Illamasqua Rampage

I'm interrupting my re-swatch posts for this amazing polish!

Since I am on a no-buy, I gave DBF my Sephora VIB coupon (he needed some tweezers, since he keeps stealing my Tweezerman and leaving it around the apt!!) and told him about the launch "party" last Thurs evening.

I hinted that I wish I had Illamasqua Rampage, and he delivered! He also brought home the free totebag too, lol. :) He is a good boy!

Jellies tend to freak out when I take a picture using diffused flash (what I generally use), see? It doesn't look like this in person at all!


So I pulled up the blinds and took two pics in sunlight (which I rarely do!):




The application... my god... now I understand why it's called "The Jeebus" on NB.

I have Muse and Milf, but the application of this one is just amazing.

Please tell me which other Illamasquas have such amahhhzing formulas!! Please :)

Illamasqua Milf (and French Macarons!)

I tried to deny myself this lemming for a long time, but eventually caved. So glad I did!

Illamasqua Milf



I think it's one of the few mints that works with my skintone! The other mint I was interested in trying was DR1968, but I try not to let myself have HTF lemmings. In any case, this Illamasqua is terrific!

I've read that a good franken recipe for Milf it is half OPI Banana Bandana and half American Apparel Office.

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And, not to start a trend of posting about baking here, but I am too excited to keep my mouth shut. I had success with making macarons this weekend!

Green tea macarons w/ white chocolate ganache filling.







I'm so thrilled they have macaron feet :) I used the following recipe/tutorial: Demystifing Macarons by Tartelette.

Illamasqua Muse

I picked up my first Illamasqua polish during the Sephora F&F sale a couple weeks ago. I didn't think I would care for it that much, but I am in LOVE!



My only gripe is that the fake cap (the square one) does not sit straight on the bottle :/

I feel like I need more Illamasquas now, though!