Illamasqua Facet and Melange Swatches & Review

Hi friends! Today I have a real treat for the eyes, two gorgeous Illamasqua polishes! I had to get creative to get my hands on these, as Illamasqua recently stopped being sold at Sephora. :( They are sold on their UK based website, but they would've cost mucho bucks with the included shipping. But lucky me, my lovely friend in Singapore offered to pick them up in her local stores and send them to me, so the price went down significantly! I am so happy I was able to purchase them, as these are two super stunning lacquers.

Facet is from the Sacred Hour collection from last year. I must've been snoozing when it came out because I had no idea I needed it until it popped up on Vampy Varnish's blog not too long ago. It's a grey taupey brown with gallons of gold and copper sparkle and shimmer. This had a great formula, creamy and smooth with great shimmer distribution. Opaque in two coats and dried shiny.

Melange came out most recently in the Once... collection for this fall. It's a stunning "dirty" green teal with bronzey copper and gold flecks and gold sparkle. I was scared that there wouldn't be that much sparkle pay off when I put it on, because a lot of the gold was stuck to the sides of the bottle when it arrived. I needn't have worried though because there was no shortage of shimmer! Applied effortlessly. Two coats here, but it was opaque in one! I love this color!

Also, I have to tell you that I had virtually no clean up on these swatches because the Illamasqua brush is SO GOOD! I don't know if I just haven't noticed until now, but it's fab. These are both so smooth and so self-leveling that I didn't even use top coat in these swatches! The folks over at Illamasqua say that Melange should dry matte, but honestly I didn't think it did for me, maybe a bit of a satin?

You can purchase these from the Illamasqua website or if you have a Bloomingdales near you they might be in stores *EDITED* I have just heard that Bloomingdales stopped selling the brand as well. I think Illamasqua is a really underrated polish brand and I'm sad they are not as readily available as they used to be. What do you think of these? Aren't they just heavenly? Let me know :)

❤ Kellie