Illamasqua Fern - $14 at sephora.com

Illamasqua is becoming my "splurge" nail polish. It used to be Chanel, and I do still enjoy the occasional Chanel, but Illamasqua is almost half the price and every bit as luxurious, and most importantly; it's accessible. Sephora has nearly the full line of nail colors from this British brand, so it's easy to collect your favorites one at a time. $14 seems to me a little much to pay for nail polish sometimes, even being a nail junkie, but it's not much more expensive than OPI or Essie in all reality. So I buy only the ones I absolutely have to have and call it a splurge. This time it wasn't even that big of a splurge; I bought it on ebay at $12 and had a $10 coupon! I'd been eyeing Fern up for a while since blue is my favorite color, and finally snapped it up.

I was suprised in a couple ways by this polish; I was surprised by the gorgeousness of the icy silver microglitter shards, and I was also slightly dismayed by the texture which is thicker than any Illamasqua I've tried and it dried somewhat dull. I'll reserve judgement on it since I did get it from eBay (BNIB) but it's always possible it was tampered with. It sort of behaves as if it had a little remover added to it. Anyone have Fern and can tell me what the texture of theirs is like? I topped it with a coat of a fairly old and thick bottle of Seche so it took a while to dry and shrank up like mad. I've cracked open a new bottle of Seche Vite and will try it again some other time. Overall, I love the color, and while the application was a bit yucky and thick, I like the end result; a vibrant blue with a winter wonderland of microglitter.