Wednesday 5 May 2010

NOTD - Illamasqua "Snap"


As mentioned in an earlier post I bought "Snap" which I had been looking forward to trying. "Glory" had got off to a promising start in getting Illamasqua nail polish into my good books so with much trepidation I picked Snap as my nail polish of choice for the bank holiday weekend.

It too got off to a promising start. I'm all for giving my nails as many coats as it take to build up a solid colour but with one coat of this stuff it looked like the one would be enough! Alas this unheard of event wasn't to be and I went for a second coat (better safe than sorry and all that). I didn't have time to apply a final coat of clear straight away so went for a day or so without. The colour of Snap isn't bad on, though looks darker than the bottle. There is a subtle metallic shimmer from it but it doesn't catch the light as much as the in bottle sheen would suggest. As earlier attempts with Illamasqua polish would suggest, it didn't hold up particularly well without the clear topcoat. It chipped pretty badly and wore noticeably at the edges. A clear top coat didn't help much if I'm honest. This photo was taken about 3 days in so I suppose it isn't terrible but it isn't great either.

The colour itself is... nice. But nice isn't spectacular. And in my opinion it isn't really worth spending £13 on. I found it difficult to capture the shimmer on camera as it requires the light to hit it a certain way and you need to look pretty close to see the full effect. I will definitely use it again (well I have it now, and wear a lot of grey in general) but I doubt if I'd buy it again. Surprisingly I prefer Glory and can't help feeling a bit let down by Snap.

What are your experiences of Illamasqua nail polish? Do you find them as hit and miss as me?