Magical Polish for a Magical World - Alanna Renee Review

I've actually had these polishes for a while but I've been holding off on showing you because I know how much it annoys me when I see something I want on a blog, only to find the store is currently closed. Alanna Renee first released her Harry Potter themed polish collection Magical World about a month ago, but it turned out a couple of the polishes had some formula issues. Being the awesome indie maker she is, Alanna Renee shut up shop and went to work on resolving the problems, and now the whole collection is back and completely up to the enormously high standards I've come to expect from her polishes.

I'm going to start by saying I know next to nothing about Harry Potter - I was a huge fan of Dianna Wynn Jones's Chrestomanci series growing up, so when I picked up something much less morally nuanced and well, duller that was also about a boy wizard who doesn't know he's a wizard but then finds out and it changes his life, I got bored very quickly. I didn't mind the movies, but haven't made it through the last two entirely. So you know that all the praise I'm going to lavish on these polishes is entirely about the polish.



And such praise there is to heap! All the photos are two coats of each polish alone - just two coats, with nothing underneath. They all covered BEAUTIFULLY, with just the right amount of pigment to make a solid base and still let the glitter shine through. I have NO idea how she manages to get her formula so perfect, but it's astonishingly consist - no matter how much or how little glitter she puts in, her polishes always apply perfectly.

Anyway, on to the pictures!

First up is Chocolate Frog, named for the popular confectionery in the Harry Potter world.There is apparently brown glitter in it as well as the gold and blue, but I didn't really see it. I was too distracted by the large goldish green hex glitters, that actually have a lovely holographic shine in the right light.

This next one is called Horcrux - a reference even a muggle like me gets! It's a gorgeous steely black base with tons of green colour shifting flakies in it as well as real sterling silver flakes. I'll admit it, I was going to buy this one just for the real silver in it. REAL SILVER! That's SO freaking COOL! But it also turns out it's a beautiful vampy colour - dark and dramatic, but quite different to a lot of the other dark colours I have.Unfortunately the day I wore this there was no sunshine whatsoever, so you'll have to be satisfied with just the one picture under artificial light. 

Next are two that have been reformulated since I got my bottles, so the ones you get might look a TINY bit different. This one is Fawkes, and is full of beautiful gold holo hex glitter in a bright red base. It shows how little I know about Harry Potter that I thought this was named after some sort of Guy Fawkes day event, when apparently it's actually the name of Dumbledore's phoenix.

In sunlight, to really make the sparkle flash

Artificial light, which makes the base glow

If you're concerned the new version might be too different from this one, Alanna Renee actually put up comparison swatches on Instagram. The new formula is on the top, and does seem to be a bit heavier on the glitter, but I don't see how that's any bad thing.

Photo courtesy of Alanna Renee

Lastly we have Drink of Despair. The Drink of Despair is, unsurprisingly, a potion from the books, which is apparently drunk by Dumbledore for some plot based reasons. The polish is an absolutely stunning primary green, with tons of green glitter crammed in.

Outside to show off the sparkle

Artificial light to show off the colour

This is the comparison swatch for Drink of Despair. Once again, the new formula is on the top, and the only difference seems to be a heavier serving of glitter. I don't think I would actually be able to tell these two apart without looking really really closely.

Photo courtesy of Alanna Renee

There are twelve polishes in the Magical World collection, so this is just a very small sample of what's available. A lot of the other polishes are on the lighter side, which I know some of you dig - I've heard great things about Patronus in particular. Whether you're the sort of person who has joined the local Quidditch team, or a total muggle like myself, I'd be shocked if you couldn't find ANY of these polishes that you need to add to your collection.

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