Dive Bar by Essie

Dive Bar from Essie is pretty much the polish that I had hoped Illamasqua's Viridian would be but it turned out to be such a dud.  Although it's a bluer polish than Viridian, Dive Bar is its superior in every other way in finish and durability.  I couldn't wear it for more than two days (can' wear blue to work at an accounting firm) but I did take that picture two days after application and it looks great. I could never say that about the quality of Illamasqua's pretty but crummy polish.  DB applied smoothly, dried evenly and actually wasn't that much of a chore to remove.  Lovey colour and a good choice if you don't already have a dark teal shimmer in  your collection.

Viridian by Illamasqua

When I first saw Illamasqua's Viridian, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this peacock green from a brand that many nail bloggers seemed to be crazy about.  This is my second experience with the London based brand and I have to say that I'm just not wild about this line of polish.  Granted, the polish experience wasn't anywhere near as bad as it was with Scarab (no human hair in the bottle and no dripping).  The large square brush handle is still unwieldy but to add to the disappointment, the formula of Viridian was just not that great.  The brush dragged across nails, got goopy quickly, the polish bubbled in some places and worst of all: it chipped in less that 8 hours and that's a deal breaker as far as I'm concerned with a polish.  Illamasqua's quality has just  been too inconsistant for me to spend anymore money on them.

That being said, I still wouldn't say no to trying out the other types of makeup from the brand.  Just because the nail polish was a dud doesn't mean that their lipsticks would be too.

Scarab by Illamasqua

I was excited a few weeks back when I found that Sephora was now carrying Illamasqua nail polish in Canada.  I couldn't wait to try out this imported brand that so many bloggers were raving about.  Scarab was one of the colours I picked up because I can't resist any makeup that's bug related.  Well, my excitement turned to excrement soon enough as this was the single most horrible experience I have ever had with a nail polish!  It was so awful, I hardly know where to start...No, wait!!! I know!  How about I start with the GIANT HUMAN HAIR THAT WAS IN THE BOTTLE!

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!!!

At first I thought that it was just a defective brush but as I pulled it across my nail it just got longer and longer and worse and worse.  This is how long the hair ended up being...

WTF!!!!

That in itself is bad enough but then something happened that has never happened to me before even after 30 years of polishing my nails:

MOTHERF@$(&#%!!!

It dripped! The polish dripped all over my nightstand and ruined my spiffy little place mat/decor.  I tried to rub it out but now it just looks like dried blood.  And on top of that, the bottle cap was excruciatingly difficult to hold. I nearly dropped it several times, so it's a miracle that my application turned out neat and even but after that massive hair in the bottle, I'm not even sure why I continued to use this accursed cosmetic.  Sure, it's a nice colour and it had good wear but after all this crap, so what!  I have another colour from this line that I haven't used yet but at this rate, I don't think I want to anymore.