Illamasqua - Prosperity

I had to throw in something completely off the last 9 months of posts. An Illamasqua is always good for shaking things up.

Prosperity is a gorgeous deep amethyst purple from the rubber finish collection. I really liked these, the finish was fun, a bit more gloss than the standard matte, and the colors were super saturated.

I took a lot of shots of this, including solitary bottle shots. I don't know why, really...to show you the cap? Instead of the classic glossy black cap these had matte rubber feel caps, which was kind of nice as they gave you some grip to pull them off.

Here's the label side. I love these bottles. There is something monolithic about them. I've read some criticism of the Illamasqua packaging, but I like it.

About a year ago? Don't quote me. Illamasqua started doing this kind of lovely thing where the label sticker on the top of the box is in a color similar to the polish itself, probably in recognition of how we hoarders store our stuff in drawers of one kind of another, and how they're kind of packed in there. Mine tend to be really tidy and often I know exactly what they are by the names, but this is still nice. Saves us from having to pull out each bottle.

I also really appreciate the little view window in the box. While I appreciate that Lippmanns are in a clear box, those stupid clear boxes are manicure and nail killers, ironically. Considering Lippmann is a brand that should be good for your nails, the boxes will tear right through them. BMWWU uses her dental tool/cuticle pusher to open them. I often use an orange stick. I appreciate the classic card stock paper box. Rescue Beauty still uses those, Illamasqua, obviously...butters, if you buy them from butter and get several polishes will come packed three to a box in a little light weight cardboard box.
Why am I babbling about boxes? No idea.

As you can see, this is several days of wear. This is natural sunlight through the window and is exceptionally true to color. I had put a top coat on these, I was experimenting. I will put my old mechanics at the bottom of this post. This is the actual finish of the polish, though.
Some tip wear, nothing I couldn't have repaired, but as we know I have the attention span of a carrot, particularly with things like nail polish and sometimes I don't repair just because I'm ready for something new. It's interesting that this was also chipping on the cuticle side. I wonder what I did wrong there.

This is such a pretty color. I love these deep amethysts. There is a hint of the cobalt in this. It's highly pigmented and because of the finish it's rather thick, but not difficult to manage. It goes on really nicely.

A little close up. It shows the rubber finish nicely. The rubber finish does successfully look like shiny PVC or something of that nature. It's slightly soft and has a neat feel to it once it's dry. It doesn't catch on softer fabrics like it's name sake would so it's not uncomfortable to wear or anything, but it does have a softer feel than the hardness of a regular polish.

I get really nervous and pick at my fingers. It's a bad habit. I also need to get more lotion on! Yikes! But the color is the important thing! So lovely. It looks like you could dive into it. As you can see, this is my right hand. Similar wear on both.

The wear on the right is a little less and a little more even, interestingly. Not so much on the cuticle side. Odd.

The mechanics of this were:

1 coat Deborah Lippmann Coat of Arms Gel Labs base coat
2 coats Illamasqua prosperity
1 coat Deborah Lippmann Shining Armor Gel Labs top coat

Which didn't wear well at all. Maybe that's what is happening on those cuticles. It didn't work. They didn't play well together, I suspect because of that rubber finish. It wanted to peel right off. I repaired and then did a coat of Seche Vite over this. Then another coat of Prosperity to put the finish back. That wore for several days, maybe five? I'm thinking?

The Gel Labs products are nice, but I don't find they behave a lot differently from a standard base and top coat and my nails started peeling again badly under it. Not while I was wearing it...but when I would remove the polish, which does come off really nicely if you follow Miss Lipp's instructions, my nails would want to peel then. I've stopped using it for now. I really suspect some of the issues I had with this were the rubber finish not liking that Shining Armor. Once I sealed it all together with Seche, it worked out OK.

In a nut shell, great color, fun finish and decent wear. What's not to love?



Happy Talons!