8/8/2020 0 Comments femme fatale devil's wheel swatch & review (polish pickup august 2019/july 2020)Hi, everyone! Today, I'll be talking about the nail polish Devil's Wheel by indie nail polish brand Femme Fatale. This polish was originally released for Polish Pickup -- a sort of "collective" where indie makers (mostly nail polish) release a product based on a community-voted theme that's exclusive to just PPU for that month. Devil's Wheel, inspired by a carnival spinning ride, was originally released for Polish Pickup in August 2019 for the theme "At the Carnival." Later, it was re-released for the July 2020 "Rewind" theme: an exception to PPU's typical monthly exclusivity where makers can bring back 2 polishes from past Polish Pickups. However, I actually bought it from a Facebook destash sale. I've been eyeing Femme Fatale polishes for a bit because they do a lot of really beautiful special finishes, so this seemed like a great opportunity to try out the brand. Devil's Wheel, as per the official description from July's PPU, was described as "a smouldering red-toned purple packed with red-green aurora and red-green shifting iridescent flakes," which I think is an accurate description. In dim light, it appears as a very warm-toned, blackened plum; in other types of lighting, it seems not as intensely warm-toned, with some of the warmth of the overall visual effect coming from the shimmer and flakes rather than the purple base color itself. As expected, the base color is relatively sheer to let the shimmer and flakes shine through. This polish actually kind of reminds me of the polish Cirque Colors Coronation, which was a limited edition polish from a few years ago that I was really drawn to when I saw a swatch last year -- long after it had been discontinued. Since then, I've kinda been searching for a polish to fill that Coronation-sized hole in my heart, and I think Devil's Wheel fills that role. In fact, I actually like Devil's Wheel more because it has a warmer-toned base (which is just my personal aesthetic preference), and the flakies add extra ~pizzazz~. Swatch in window-filtered light; you can ignore the stamping experiment on my ring finger haha Swatches outside: in direct sunlight vs. in shade For this swatch, I used 1 coat of Cuccio Base Coat + 3 coats of Devil's Wheel + 1 thick coat of Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat. A thick coat of top coat did the trick for smoothing it out, though because my Seche Vite has been getting goopy and stringy and hard to work with lately, any weird texture you may notice was due to those problems with my top coat (or the reflection of my windows) -- and not the polish itself. A glossy top coat also helps with the finish, since the base color dries somewhat dull on its own. The flakes and shimmer are more apparent/intense in-person than they show in these photos. The aurora shimmer is so beautiful; it makes the polish look like it's glowing from inside. And, if you read my post about Pahlish Glass Cabinet, you already know that I also love the look of iridescent flakies! In a dark base like Devil's Wheel, they are especially prominent. Both the shimmer and flakes do shift red-to-yellow-to-green as the official description says, but they mostly show as red, which makes the mani look holistically warmer. The green shift is -- for the most part -- more apparent at more extreme angles. When it comes to the shimmer/flakes in the formula, they didn't give me any trouble. I didn't find myself having to place anything or getting any sparseness. The flakes were a tad difficult to remove, but nothing terrible (not as bad as glitters, for example). I would describe the Femme Fatale brush as being in the realm of a "thin round" brush. For me, there was a bit of a learning curve with using this brush. With how I normally wipe off excess polish from the brush before applying the polish onto my nail, I was getting really bad streaky, patchy, excessively thin coats with the base color (not the shimmer/flakes); I feel like the Femme Fatale bottle brush picks up less polish than other brushes I've used in the past, regardless of the type of brush. So, in order to not get streaking/patchiness, it's better to barely wipe off any excess polish and leave more polish than I would think is necessary. If you do this for all coats, then you might be able to get away with just 2 coats for full coverage, though 3 not-as-thick coats do give more dimension to a special effect polish like this. However, a good thing about this brush is that I feel like it was easier than usual to be cleaner around my cuticles. Femme Fatale is based in Australia, meaning their polishes have a tendency to be more expensive to get to the United States (where I live). This is true of their Polish Pickup releases since PPU is based in the US; Femme Fatale's nail polishes for Polish Pickup -- including Devil's Wheel -- tend to be 14 USD (+$3 for PPU's flat rate shipping to the US). However, since I got it from a destash sale, I got it for a small discount for a virtually brand new polish -- great for someone like me who's a full-time student and doesn't really have any income. A warm-toned purple base + glowing shimmer + iridescent flakes is pretty much my number one favorite combination in an indie, so overall, I'm really happy with this polish! Thanks for reading!
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about @glowyminoI have dry skin and very dry and textured lips. I also have a medium-light skintone (somewhere in the realm of NC25-30) with strong warm yellow/olive undertones. I have a tendency to prefer a glowy, lightweight base and color cosmetics in shades of a warm undertone. Read more about me in the about page! Archives
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