Pointless Cafe

Friday, April 12, 2013

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops - Swatches and Review

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It's FRIDAY!!! Today I have the latest polish from Illamasqua to show you. Pink Raindrops.

PINK, you say? Well, yes. If you recall the original Raindrops, it was very popular and discontinued and has recently been brought back, along with Pink Raindrops, which is being touted as the "pink version" of Raindrops. Well before you get your hopes up, it's NOT. The formula is much different. I don't have the "new" Raindrops to tell if they've changed the formula, but you can see my original post on Raindrops here - the old version. It was at the least a very crelly 3-coater, if not more. I layered it over Zoya Dove for that post actually, because it was so sheer. I wore it alone on shorter nails.

Pink Raindrops is very opaque - it might even be a one-coater for some but I used two light coats. The formula is quite a bit thicker and it's not self-leveling at all, so extra care has to be taken for application. It's not the same perfect formula I've grown so used to with Illamasqua polishes. It does have those lovely flakes though! It's more of a nude with pink shimmer rather than a pink in my opinion. Most of the photos are without top coat so you could see the true finish of the polish. The last photo shows it with one coat of Poshe top coat.

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops - natural light

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops - artificial light

With top coat...

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops - natural light (with top coat)

What do you think? Will you be getting it? Or do you have it already?

Illamasqua polishes can be purchased at the Illamasqua website here and some select shades are available in the US at Sephora stores. Pink Raindrops wasn't to come to Sephora however I have heard news that it probably will be now, so keep checking with them.

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*Products purchased by me

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Sunday, July 1, 2012

Illamasqua Raindrops - Swatches and Review

We've been having thunderstorms here for the last few mornings, which is RARE here and very much needed. I was in Heaven! So what's more appropriate than a polish called Raindrops?

Illamasqua Raindrops

Illamasqua Raindrops was a contest winner back in 2010. Illamasqua hosted a world-wide Nail Varnish Competition and AnnieDollFace was the one who envisioned Raindrops! Click her name to see her inspiration. Raindrops is my favorite of the 3 polishes that resulted. The other two were Shrapnel and Eclipse. This is now a discontinued polish and very hard to find - and expensive if you do find it. But it's really so pretty and since I LOVE the rain, naturally I gravitated toward it.

Raindrops is a light grey jelly with a slight slate blue hue and irregular silver flakes. It truly does remind me of raindrops!

This is the 2nd time I wore it - short nails. Raining like mad. Crappy iPhone pic from the car, but the raindrops are so pretty I had to show you.

Illamasqua Raindrops

The first time I wore it, I wore it alone and I wasn't really in love with the formula. Mainly because I am not a huge fan of jellies. I love full opacity and jellies just don't always give you that. So I usually only wear them when I have short nails so there won't be any VNL (visible nail line.) I used 4 coats and it was "okay."

But this time, I found the PERFECT "underwear" for it. I layered one coat over Zoya Dove and I LOVE IT! The formula was great in that one coat and it gives the same look as messing with all those coats.

My base color, Zoya Dove...

Zoya Dove

And Raindrops! Showing in natural lighting (cloudy, overcast) direct artificial light and a combo of indirect natural lighting and artificial lighting. You can see it has 3 different "looks" depending on the lighting.