Femme Fatale Megapost!

The lovely people at Femme Fatale Cosmetics were kind enough to send me some polishes to review, and surprising absolutely no-one, my "Must Buy" list from Femme Fatale is now twice as long. I've almost exclusively bought their amazing glitterbomb polishes in the past, because absolutely no-one does mega sparkly gorgeousness like Femme Fatale. However, the samples I was sent included a refreshing change of pace as three out of the four were creamy, girly glitters.

Out of the three creamier polishes, Sparkleshell is my favourite. It looks like the quieter, politer little sister of Veil of the Siren, which I reviewed here. It's surprisingly complex on the nail, with lots of different sizes and shapes of glitter as well as a smattering of tiny golden iridescent particles, and reminds me perfectly of seashells. These pictures are two coats over Illamasqua Scorch - you could possibly build this up on it's own, but the base is quite sheer, so if you're impatient like me I would recommend putting it over your favourite neutral.

It's interesting to compare this to Illamasqua's much lauded Speckle polishes that have come out very recently - they're basically the same concept, but I think Femme Fatale has done a much better job of creating something complex and interesting, while still quite delicate. It's also interesting to note that Sparkleshell has been out for quite some time - which just going to show that indies tend to be way ahead of the trend curve when compared to mainstream brands.

While Sparkleshell evokes deserted beaches and clambering over rocks, A Tisket A Tasket reminds me really strongly of the smell of fresh grass, and sun through leaves. There is something indefinably summery about this polish, and it's a lovely change to have something so light on my nails. Like Sparkleshell, the base for a Tisket A Tasket is also quite sheer, so I would recommend layering it over a light colour. I used Illamasqua Scorch for these ones, but I think it would also look amazing over a light blue, or green.

I swatched the next polish Spring Fling as three layers on it's own, but in hindsight I would probably layer it over a matching light turquoise polish. The size of some of the glitters (particularly the diamonds) made it a bit tricky to get the base colour even while also avoiding clumps of glitter. However, the base for this one is much more opaque than the other two, so if you're patient and careful you can layer it on it's own just fine.

I was SUPER excited to pull this next polish out of the sample package, because I've been eyeballing it since it came out. Coldwraith is a stunning dark blue glitterbomb, one of those polishes that is so complex you keep noticing new things about every time you look at it. The site says to layer it over a dark base colour, but I think that's nonsense. This polish is absolutely dense enough to build up on it's own, and if I have the choice of more glitter or less, I'm ALWAYS going to take more. These pictures are three layers of Coldwraith on it's own.

A couple of people have mentioned to me that these amazing glitterbombs from Femme Fatale can be difficult to get even, due to the intense glitter to base ratio, and I think that's a fair observation. It does take practice and patience to get these just right - you definitely can't just slop them on like you can with some other polishes. If you try and put it on in a hurry, you're going to get shit results - these are polishes that take careful maneuvering to get it to sit nicely. However, I do have a way of putting them on that seems to get me good results more often than not.

Start by putting on a very thin, very careful layer, just to kind of mark out where you want the polish to go. Don't stress about getting enough glitter out on this layer, just make a nice neat template you can go over with the next layer. Once that's had a couple of minutes to dry, fish out a great big dollop of polish and dab it carefully over the template layer, pushing the glitter around and patting it with the brush until it sits as evenly as possible. Give that layer a good five, ten minutes to dry because it's going to be dense. Then go over that dabbed layer with another thin layer, to try and fill in any divots or dents that have formed between the glitters. Give THAT layer another five minutes or so to dry, then just go to town with topcoat - sufficient topcoat is what gives my manis the glassy depth that shows off glitter so well.

Finally, I wanted to sneak in another polish that wasn't actually in my sample pack, I just really like it. I also noticed it's being discontinued, so I wanted to bring it to your attention before it's gone and you're all sorry you didn't give it more love. This one is called Chocoholic, and is one of those polishes that  looks so much better in person than on paper. When I read the description of a brown glitter, I'll admit I scrinched my nose up. But I ordered it anyway, because I've never seen anything quite like it and I figured if anyone could pull it off, Femme Fatale could.

The first picture is three coats on it's own, using the thin-thick-thin technique I used for Coldwraith. The second picture is an older swatch I did when I first got the polish (you can tell by the nubbiness of my nails), that is two coats over OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest. As you can see, you can absolutely build Chocoholic to opacity because of the density of the glitter, but the base is a little sheer, so if super crisp edges are important to you you're probably better off layering it.

Phew! That certainly was a megapost, but so many pretties! If you haven't been to the Femme Fatale Cosmetics site in a little while (lord knows I've been avoiding it so I can actually pay my rent) you might have missed that they're not stocking a HUGE array of international and Australian indies, as well as their amazing core line. If they keep it up, I'm going to just have to arrange to have my paycheck deposited to them directly, because that's where it's all going to end up anyway!

What do you think of this selection? Are you liking the trend towards creamy glitters, or are you all about the jelly glitters?