An Illamasqua day out!

Nomad + precision ink in Scribe, Lament

I consider myself a fairly fussy and discriminating person when it comes to things I like, but I am undeniably a bit obsessive when I get my teeth into something. I never ever watch TV, for example. Instead, if there's a programme I'm interested in, I will avoid it like the plague until the series is over and a boxset is available, and then spend a weekend gorging myself in one go. (It was Game of Thrones last week, which I really enjoyed, not least for the costuming).

This full-on mentality extends itself to my nails and makeup. I own products by relatively few brands, but the few I do regularly re-purchase I tend to be pretty passionate about. Fortunately I have been quite poor this last year, otherwise I think I'd be running out of space to store all the China Glazes that have come out in the last few months (I wanted, like, ALL of the Hunger Games collection). So, one of the things I am grateful to Illamasqua for is the fact that they put out relatively few new products, but they put a lot of thought and backstory into each collection, so I find myself actively coveting and valuing a small number of products rather than greedily devouring twelve polishes I'll maybe wear once. Sad but true.

This is all a rather roundabout way of saying that I was really excited for my long-planned trip to the Illamasqua flagship store in London, and was filled with even more childish glee when I realised it coincided with the launch of the new Human Fundamentalism collection. Even more nail varnish porn! Awesome!

Lots more under the jump...


I tried out Nomad nail polish first, which I was massively overexcited about. It was out of stock but I am planning to pick up a bottle at the earliest opportunity. The other colour, Stance, is a super neon purple (like if Collide and Poke had a baby) which I'll be swatching next week. They are both really nice. I also had a bit of an impromptu go drawing on Nomad with the white ink liner. Mine's not as nice as theirs but it was really easy to do and good fun. It also lasted really well under top coat (as well as normal nail polish) which surprised me.

Nails aside, my friend and I also had a bit of a makeover (we were treated like Gods - would really recommend the MUAs in the London store!) which let us try out the skin base foundation. I normally wear a BB cream but I loved trying this stuff and will definitely be saving up. The coverage was much more variable than my regular BB cream and the match was perfect (I wore 03, my friend had 02).

This is Hayley, their media editor, and the artist who did our makeup. She's got Static pure pigment in her hair! It looked amazing - if I wasn't so protective of the lovely, lovely product I'd put it in my hair too. All in all we had an amazing time and stayed for almost an hour without any hassle. The artists were really helpful when we had questions and really generous with their time, but didn't ump down my throat, which is pretty important to me. I ended up walking out with a medium pencil but with a very, very long wishlist, so I'm sure it won't be long before I'm back.

Quite!

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