Femme Fatale's first full collection of 2016 is almost here and it's a cornucopia of gorgeous colours to suit everyone's tastes. Seriously - there are a whopping ten shades to choose from! The collection is called The Afterlight Gala and it's inspired by 'daydreams of evening masquerades and moonlit carnivals in rolling fields. Strings of lanterns above masked party-goers in velvet and lace finery; the tinkling of voices and clinking glasses, soft music from carousels, and glass mazes rolling across the fields as dawn creeps across the sky.' As usual, Sophie has interpreted her theme perfectly and the colours and textures certainly evoke a sense of wonder in me.
The polishes all come in Femme Fatale's standard white boxes (which you can see here) and contain 9ml. Prices start from $8.50AUD (plus GST for Australian customers) with a few of the more complex shades being priced a little higher to reflect the cost of ingredients.
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Maze of Mirrors
Femme Fatale - Maze of Mirrors, 3 coats + top coat
Maze of Mirrors ($8.50AUD) is a metallic seafoam with strong golden shimmer and multiple sizes of holographic glitter. Although they're not dupes at all, the metallic sparkly base colour paired with the glitter reminds me of Deborah Lippmann Mermaid's Dream, so if you like the effect of that polish I think you'll definitely love Maze of Mirrors. It does dry with a little texture, as you might expect from such a glitzy lacquer, so I added top coat for shine.
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Sunrise Funfair
Femme Fatale - Sunrise Funfair, 3 coats
Sunrise Funfair ($8.50AUD) is a vibrant pop of colour and perfectly encapsulates a sunrise with gold sheen running through the coral-orange base. It builds up to perfect opacity in three coats but was slightly prone to pulling and creating bald patches if I didn't leave it a couple of minutes between coats. Sunrise Funfair dries nice and glossy on its own. I really this one, as it catches the light it appears a darker orange at the edges, and then other times as a flat neon coral.
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Whispers of Velvet
Femme Fatale - Whispers of Velvet, 3 coats + top coat
Whispers of Velvet ($10.50AUD) is the first of three thermals in this collection, a rich magenta which shifts to a grape purple when cold. It's further complimented by contrasting green shimmer that appears pink at extreme angles. The colour change was sensitive and instantaneous, even under my hot studio lights.
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Fields of Treasure
Femme Fatale - Fields of Treasure, 3 coats + top coat
Fields of Treasure ($8.50AUD) will have you tilting your nails this way and that pondering - is it a really green yellow, or is it a very yellow green? Oh chartreuse, you wily trickster. Fields of Treasure is fresh and springy with a pretty pinky-violet duochrome and holographic sparkle. I was really pleased with how easy it was to work with for such a light shade, building up to smooth opacity effortlessly in three coats.
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Crown of Ribbons
Femme Fatale - Crown of Ribbons, 3 coats
Grab the bath salts, because Crown of Ribbons ($9.50AUD) will have pink lovers swooning over its beauty. It's a saturated bubblegum pink with golden green shimmer and blue to green flakies - basically, hnnngggggh. You stay here and drool, I'll grab the mop.
Crown of Ribbons still had some visible nail line after three coats although it was very faint and not enough to bother me, and the flakies give it very slight texture. I didn't add top coat for this mani but I would for a full mani.
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Dripped in Diamonds
Femme Fatale - Dripped in Diamonds, 3 coats (middle & pinky)
Nail Juice - Ariel, 2 coats + Dripped in Diamonds, 2 coats (index)
Kleancolor Black + Dripped in Diamonds, 1 coat (ring)
All top coated
Dripped in Diamonds ($8.50AUD) is a beautiful, delicate glitter polish with fuchsia glass fleck shimmer throughout the base. You'll want to layer this over every polish you own, so to get you started I've shown it over Nail Juice Jasmine (don't the pink and mint go together so well?) and classic black. It's perfectly lovely worn alone too though (especially since my nails are surprisingly and pleasantly stain free currently!).
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Glass Carousel
Femme Fatale - Glass Carousel, 3 coats + top coat
Glass Carousel ($8.50AUD) is an ethereal, sheer opalescent polish with holographic and larger gold glitters strewn through it. It's semi-opaque, even and really pretty by itself but will be amazing layered too. Once again, top coat was added for gloss.
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A Fortune Teller's Charm
Femme Fatale - A Fortune Teller's Charm, 3 coats + top coat
A Fortune Teller's Charm ($9.50AUD) is easily my favourite polish in this collection and maybe from Femme Fatale. That's a big statement, but I think I'm ready to make that commitment. A Fortune Teller's Charm - will you marry me?
Starting as a soft seafoam greeen, A Fortune Teller's Charm shifts to a vivid turquoise when cold and is speckled with bronze glitter and golden shimmer. The colour change works really well and makes for a perfect gradient.
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Lantern Lights
Femme Fatale - Lantern Lights, 3 coats + top coat
Lantern Lights ($9AUD) is a the lovechild of a multichrome flakie and a glitter bomb, and what splendid spawn it is. It's mostly opaque in three coats and very easy to apply; there's no clumping of glitter and it doesn't dry too dull either, although I still chose to add top coat.
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Lace Masquerade
Femme Fatale - Lace Masquerade, 4 coats + topcoat
Lace Masquerade ($10AUD) instantly made me think of my friend Dani as soon as I started applying it (check her out on Instagram @delindeldani for lots of cute manis and tramping pics!). It's a sheer nude imbued with a multitude of shimmering golden flecks and holographic sparkle but that's not all - it also shifts to a bright coral when cold! I swatched this at the end of a swatching session when it was hideously muggy, plus my husband and I had both of our computers going and the studio lights on in the office so it was HOT. Lace Masquerade struggled to show much colour change under those conditions, but quickly started to change when I touched cold things, like a drink or frozen bananas (the things I do for blogging!).
One for the the #awkwardnails feed :D
- Shiro Cosmetics (USA)
- Color4Nails (USA)
- Live Love Polish (USA)
- Beautometry (USA)
- Rainbow Connection (UK) (Use this link to get 10% off your first purchase at Rainbow Connection)
- Beauty So Fly (SNG)
- Dope Nails (Russia)
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Lani
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