I loved the idea of the StrangeBeautiful nail polish collections. The brand's creator, Jane Schub, was previously an illustrator and draws the inspiration for the colours from a diverse range of objects and memories: Joseph Albers Colour Theory, A Mid Century Modern Knoll Fabric, Oscar Wilde (what colour is Oscar Wilde? I wish I knew) and one of my favourite descriptions: the dull red colour of a lobster shell immediately after it has been removed from boiling water.
None of the polishes are labelled. Some you can recognise from the inspiration, some you can't. They are extremely pigmented indeed and a careful person could easily get away with one coat. I slopped on two for maximum colour punch (the brush is also very user-friendly, although you do need to be a little careful not to pick up too much polish at once on the first go).
StrangeBeautiful polishes are sold in colour libraries of eight 15ml bottles for £45, or duos of 7.4ml bottles for £17. The libraries represent better value for money, but only if you will wear all eight shades (or you have a friend you can split them with). I bought this duo because I absolutely loved the look of the blue in it and it is every bit as cobalt and rich in real life as it appears on the Cult Beauty website. Cinder is a good greige too - it's not too yellow and is flattering to my pale olive hands.
StrangeBeautiful polishes are 3 Free. I found they dry quite quickly, but do better with a top coat than without; with no top coat I did get tip wear very quickly (within a day). The Butter London top coat works well with these for me.
For a very good photo of another StrangeBeautiful colour (a green-winged teal, maybe) see this post over at the marvellous Worship at the House of Blues blog.
For pictures of the Camo Library (which I covet, and may well end up buying) see this post on The Non-Blonde.
I bought these from www.cultbeauty.co.uk. The libraries are also available at Liberty.
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These colours look good, I especially like Cinders on you.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the look of some of the duos when I visited the pop-up, but I seemed to like one end of the duo more then the other as some of the ones with the grey/cement type of shades looked too dull against my skin. A while back I did get a nice 4 polish set from Liberty although I have been displaying it rather like an ornament and forget to actually use it!
Gorgeous - I always admire these in Liberty but have not purchased any yet - the colours are so intriguing.
ReplyDeleteAmina x
HI Grace,
ReplyDeleteI love strangebeautiful too. I have one of the libraries, love it!!!, color and performance is great, but I still cannot use all of them...and none of my friends here use makeup (can yo believe that!? I am surrounded by hippies). Anyways, I am glad you like the polishes, I bought one duo last year when they come out and they were AWFUL. Warning: is the duo with the lime green and the fuchsia, it was bubbly, I could not make them work...and I could not return them either.
I had been eyeing this brand up since it was on Liberty, I did suggest to my mother about splitting up a library, she was all for it, until she saw the colours....
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post as I did wonder how well they would wear/apply x
I love the idea and that blue is stunning. It's everything I hoped Suzie says Feng Shui would be (but wasn't).
ReplyDeleteBoth these colours are lovely on you. Will you try more I wonder?
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link. I feel well and propa speshal! xx