Illamasqua - Unnatural

Illamasqua Unnatural was one of those colors that lingered on my lemming list for a long time before I finally added it to an order. I believe I got it half price from Illamasqua.com during their big New Year's sale. It's a dark wine plum red that I had seen somewhere, probably another blog, and liked. I don't wear a lot of reds, they're just kind meh to me with all the other colors of the rainbow being available and it takes something different for a red to catch my eye.

This is one coat. Streaky icky mess, and I got it all over me.

Two coats. With a good base coat under it this is probably fine. Three coats would not have hurt it, though. The application was easy and no problems. I believe I nearly spilled the bottle, which is why I got it all over me. It's been awhile since I swatched this. I got distracted by the Spring butterLONDON's and a bunch of swatches fell off into the middle. I'm revisiting those!

There is a lot of blue in this red and you can see, it's roughly the color of a really ripe red plum. I like these kinds of colors. They're classy, complex and there is something indefinably dangerous about it.

The label, and a bit different lighting. See all that shine? Nice. And of the polish. There is no top coat on this at all.

Different angle, slightly different lighting....It's very vampy! Rowerr!

So pretty. But you can see there on the index and middle nails that a third coat is desirable. Probably not necessary with a good semi-opaque base coat, but definitely...I think I would. I'm surprised I didn't. This will never be mistaken for black. The color is very prominent and it's highly pigmented. I suspect this would stain so definitely do a base coat of some kind. You should always anyways.

Last one! The shine is like a mirror. That's the window I was getting my natural light from!

Lovely vampy dark red. If you like reds and are looking for something that screams 40s movie icon, this might be the one.

Happy Talons!