Raindrops for a Hurricane

This was going to be posted yesterday, but we lost power AGAIN. Anyway... Only fitting that the day after a hurricane I finally wear Illamasqua Raindrops. I snagged this on Illamasqua’s website on clearance for £5 (which works out to just over $8). The unfortunately thing was shipping was still high. But still, this was a polish I never thought I’d own because it was a UK exclusive and the regular cost of polish and shipping was OUTRAGEOUS. I totally fell in love with this as I watched the progression of the winners of this collection. The promo pic and description totally drew me in, but I got a little nervous when swatch photos started appearing and reviews said Shrapnel and Eclipse (the other two in the collection) were not really like the promo pics had shown. Seems Raindrops eluded that. It was just as gorgeous as I imagined from the initial promo photo.













Closeups




3 coats Illamasqua Raindrops
1 coat Poshe

This is a blue-based light grey JELLY with the most interesting white/clear irregular pieces/flecks of… glitter? But it doesn’t sparkle, so I can’t quite call it glitter, that seems wrong. Illamasqua describes it as “sheer silver sparkle”. Eh. I guess. Lol.

The formula was that of a jelly. Squishy, took 3 coats to be opaque - sheer but buildable - but easy to apply. Wish I could talk more about the application, but I also want to mention that I applied this 4 days ago and haven’t had the technology to write my mini review (thank you, hurricane), and was too preoccupied whining about having no power to just write it on paper.





Direct Sunlight steals away the jelly-ness of it and makes it look more crème.

You might see little tinges of green on the sides of one or two nails. No, that isn’t mold or dirt or other nastiness. That was Zoya Shawn from this HORRIBLE fail the day before:


Don’t worry. I never wore this in public. I’m never that messy with painting, either. I think I knew it was going bad so I just said screw it and slapped the polish where ev with no regard.

Gettin' Loaded Again

Since purchasing Load at Sephora in NYC back in April, it has been ALL of my friend's favorite polish. It's the one that gets brought up everytime my obsession with my nails is discussed, it's the first polish they think of, and it's the first polish that's mentioned when they explain my hobby to someone else. I think this happens for obvious reasons. It's an off white creme called Load. I mean c'mon. I love my friends :)

So today I asked a friend what color polish I should wear. Instead of a color, she just straight up says Load. Well, I haven't worn it in months and the darn thing did cost me $14 and a trip to NYC (granted that's not why I went), but still.

I wanted to do something besides wear it on its own because I had already posted about it. This is what I came up with.









2 coats Illamasqua Load
1 coat Poshe
Stamping with Bundle Monster plate BM01
Purple stamp is China Glaze VIII
Blue stamp is China Glaze Up All Night
1 coat Poshe

I sat around for a while with just Load on my nails (I am not mature enough to handle writing this). I figured I'd end up stamping over it, but I knew I didn't want a really heavy full nail stamp over it because I didn't want to hide Load. Then I was doing something and all of a sudden realized navy and dark purple would look gorgeous over it. So I flipped through my plates to find something that I could use for both.

I'm loving the color combination, don't know how much I love the stamp I chose. It's definitely not bad, but I wish it was less defined meaning it was more... swirly I guess? instead of it looking so much like a fern. I think it's cool and vintage-y, though. It reminds me of old china or something. Maybe not china, but old opaque glass like a lamp or something decorative.

I've already talked about Load's formula, but I want to redo my opinion of the formula and application. The first time I wore it, it was AWFUL to apply. It had cuticle drag, it wasn't very manageable, you get the idea. Well today, I was prepared for it... and it was a THOUSAND times better.

Tips For Applying Illamasqua Load
This polish requires babying, and so long as you're aware of that and prepared for it, it'll be a piece of cake. This is definitely not a slap-on-and-go polish. So here is what you can do to help.
♥ You need to paint one nail at a time. Duh. But what I mean is you need to paint one nail, and put the brush back in the bottle. Let it relax in the bottle for a few seconds. The polish dries very quickly on the brush and it makes it too thick when you apply it. So it needs to rest before you go to the next nail.
♥ Paint quickly. Do not spend a ton of time fixing the nail. As soon as it starts getting too thick or sticky, put it brush back in the bottle and let it rest. Letting it rest is the BIGGEST help.
♥ Use very few strokes. This just sorta goes along with the paint quickly. You should always use as few strokes as possible, but you HAVE to with this polish. And again, if it gets unmanageable, get the brush back in the bottle and let it rest.
♥ Use a very light touch. Balance your wrist on something so you're not digging the brush into your nail. You need to glide it gently over the nail. This is very important or you will get cuticle drag and streakiness like whoa.

This seems like common sense, but obviously it wasn't for me the first time I used this polish. I was apparently in a rush or something. So follow those steps, and it should help a ton!!

Dotted Load

I know the title is a little odd. I wanted to title it something besides "Illamasqua Load with Dots" or something similar. So I went with Dotted Load. Haha.

I finally received my new dotting tools on Monday, though I planned to use them on Mother's Day (which was Sunday). Obviously that didn't happen. Thanks USPS for driving my dotting tools up and down New England for 2 days. Anyway, I couldn't use them Monday because I was at work. And on Tuesday, I had really wanted to wear Load on its own. So naturally, Wednesday means dots added to Load!!

If you saw my post with just the swatch of Load, I'm sure you noticed how similar all of the photos were. I purposefully made sure I took photos from a bunch of different angles this time around!! What do ya think??











Closeup


3 coats Load
1 coat Poshe
Larger, outer dots China Glaze For Audrey
Smaller, inner dots Orly Ancient Jade

I've already talked about Load here if you're curious about my opinion of the polish. But as for the dotting, I had no idea what I wanted to do, I just picked up the dotting tool and went for it. Kept it simple but pretty. I just dipped the tool once in polish (for each nail), and did 5 dots, allowing it to become smaller as I went along. Then I used a smaller diameter tool for the inner dots, following the same steps.

Dotting tools are very easy to use. Just take a piece of paper or a notecard or anything like that, and put a dab of polish on it. Then just dip your dotting tool into the wet polish and dot away! If you wanted the dots all the same size, just keep redipping before you do each dot. Or you can do what I did and get a gradient effect after just dipping once and dotting several times after.

Here is a photo of the tools I used:


I bought them from eBay, and if you're curious, you can click here for the auction. I wish I could tell you more about their sizes, but I really don't know. There were 5 tools that came in that auction, but it looks like only 3 different sizes. I'm a little disappointed by that, so keep that in mind if you choose to buy from that auction or the like. It seems like there are other dotting tools out there that mention different sizes and how many different sizes you'll get. Now this is definitely my own fault, as I did not research that well enough. But ultimately, I'm still happy with the tools. They seems like very good quality and they clearly work well. And they were definitely the cheapest ones I came across.

Illamasqua Load... it's EXACTLY what you're thinking.

For Application Tips For This Polish, Please Click HERE And Scroll To The Bottom

Edit!!
Ok, so I went around to other blogs after I posted this to see if other people had the same application problems I did. I obviously came across Scrangie's pretty quickly and noticed she said almost the exact same thing I titled my post!!
"Load. Yep, it's exactly what you think it is." I totally swear I had not seen this (or maybe I had, but I had totally forgotten I had seen it) when I titled this post. My intention was NOT to steal that concept from Scrangie!! I'm leaving it, though, because it still makes me laugh when I see it. I guess there's only so much you can say about an off-white polish called "Load". Back to the original post:

Load. *snickers*. Ok, not gonna lie, a fairly good sized portion as to why I bought this polish was because of how hilariously inappropriate it is. It is from Illamasqua's collection from 2011 Valentine's Day called Throb. I love how the name of the collection makes this polish even MORE risqué.

I picked this up at Sephora in Time Square. Unfortunately, Illamasqua is sold at very few Sephora stores. It is sold online, though. But I had debated between Milf, Purity, and Load, so I wanted to see them in person. When I was in NYC for my friend's wedding, I figured I'd stop in to Sephora to see if they sold Illamasqua, and obviously they did. Prior to me being aware that not all Sephora's carry this brand, I had gone to Sephora in Providence, RI and asked if they sold it. Now, I KNOW I pronounced it correctly, but the sales associate looked at me like I was an idiot, asked me what it was (and I told her it was a brand), and she told me she had never heard of it and they definitely didn't carry it. How are these sales associates not trained on brands their company carries? I know it's not sold on stores, but it's certainly sold on Sephora.com and she was just rude about it.

Anyway, onto the polish. And I have a forewarning (I love giving forewarnings!). Apparently, this polish likes to be photographed from the index finger side. So most of the photos are from that side. I actually don't think I liked ANY that were the pinkie side. I didn't really take many from the pinkie side, anyway. I think because there is no label on the bottom I was trying to show. I wasn't going to put so many because they're so similar, but then I decided what the heck? I went through the trouble of taking them! Lol. Anyway, you'll see what I mean.











3 coats Load
1 coat Poshe

I actually LOVE this color, but I'm not thrilled about the formula. Ok, trying to stay mature through this... Load is an off white, yellow tinged creme. Yup. That's Load. It actually is a pretty unique color for a polish, and is quite lovely.

The problem was the application. You really needed 3 coats with this polish. The first coat went on sheer, with VNL, but buildable. It was the consequent coats that were troublesome. It seems as if you REALLY need to let each coat dry before you do another. I experienced cuticle drag and it was overall uneven. It's not terribly noticeable in real life, but my photos do a great job at showing the flaws.
Now, I am pretty darn good at shaping the polish by the cuticle. If you didn't know, I never do cleanup. I just paint neatly. This polish was a huge struggle due to the drag. You can see how the polish at my cuticle isn't very nice. And I tried REALLY hard. Again, in real life it's not that noticeable at all, but my macro photos sure do point it out.

Yucky cuticle drag!! (Seriously not noticeable in real life, though. Promise.)