Max Factor - Fantasy Fire

I love this polish and I've read online that Revlon Royal which I wore yesterday is a great base for it.  I wasn't blown away by Royal on it's own so I was hoping the addition of Fantasy Fire might make me more of a fan.

 

 

Unfortunately I don't think FF looks any better over Royal than it does over various other colours I've tried it with so it wasn't really a win on that front and the tip wear of the Royal was still very evident which is annoying.

 

I so still adore Fantasy Fire though, it's definitely in my top 5 polishes of all time, just look at it's shimmery duochrome gorgeousness!



Fantastic Fantasy Fire

Somehow I manage to forget how much I love this polish so I don't wear it half as much as I should.  When it was released Fantasy Fire sold out pretty much everywhere as it was considered to be a pretty good dupe for the mythical Clarins 230 (you can Google it if you don't already know what it is but if you're reading a nail blog I suspect you do).

While it's not an exact copy of 230 it's close enough for me and an utterly gorgeous colour shifting duochrome polish.  These pictures are two coats over Barry M Gelly Hi Shine in Blackberry (which I believe is now called Plum, the dark purple from the initial collection either way).

Outdoors in natural light it's a pretty dark purple colour with a bit of reddish sparkle to it.

But where it really comes into it's own is under bright artificial lights where you can really see the bronze ad gold tones.

Or under dimmer artificial light where it shifts through red, orange, gold to green and back.

This, to me, is where you get the real wow factor of the polish

In very bright artificial light you can see the really bright purple of the base colour, you could probably get this effect by layering it up on it's own but who has time for enough coats of a sheer polish like Fantasy Fire to dry?  Not me, so I generally use a base (it's also gorgeous over black, dark blue or dark green, and I want to try red too)

I really love this polish, it's hard to show in pictures how much it glows and sparkles in real life and the best thing is that it looks good, and different, in all sorts of lights so you'll never get bored with it.  For me it's definitely a desert island polish.



Max Factor Fantasy Fire

I love this polish, I don't think I could ever choose one favourite polish but without a doubt this one is in my top 10.  It's different in every single light and rarely looks the same on your nails for more than a minute at a time.  It reminds me of Nfu Oh 51 without the flakies and with a bit more colour shift.

 

 

It's a purple-ish jelly base filled with colour shifting glitter particles which change from pink to bronze to purple to green to gold and back again under different lighting conditions.

 

 

In low light it's a subtle grapey pink shade.

 

 

But under artificial light it really comes into it's own.

 

 

 

 

I'm sure it'a also amazing in bright, direct sunlight but since it's November in Glasgow I have no way of backing this claim up. ;)

 

 

 

There isn't much more to be said about this polish, I love it, these photos are two coats over a dark base, again I seem to have quite a bit of tip wear which I think is down to my top coat, hopefully I'll get it sorted soon, on the plus side my cuticles are looking slightly better. ;)

 

Have you tried Fantasy Fire yet, what do you think?

No7 Dollar & Max Factor Fantasy Fire

No7 Dollar with Max Factor's Fantasy Fire on top, this is so gorgeous and glowy in person but impossible to photograph.

I've previously worn this over a blue or purple base but last night I decided to try and bring out the green shimmer in the colour shift by applying it over a green polish, i don't think it really worked but I do still love the result, despite it being impossible to catch on camera! 

So, instead of one or two good photographs of it you can all have loads of not very good ones instead. ;)

Max Factor Lipfinity Lasting Lip Tint

I'd seen these on a couple of blogs and advertised in a magazine and since I love my MAC ones I had to give them a go.



The added bonus was that Superdrug have them on 3 for 2 at the moment (£7.99 each), so it seemed a good time to try out a few of the colours.

I went for 03 Pink Princess, 05 Marshmallow and 08 Nice n Nude.



So far I've only tried Nice n Nude but I am impressed with the applicator which is firm but not sharp and lets lots of colour flood your lips. The colour is a warm browny orange shade, nowhere near nude on me but very wearable. I'm looking forward to trying out the two pinker colours as they are closer to the shades I normally wear.

Application was good, probably better than the MAC ones I have, the colour seemed to flow better and there was more of it, meaning no scrubbing and going over to try and get a decent coverage.



The only downside with these tints is that you have to be sure where you want to apply them, one slip and you've painted yourself a nice, and lasting, moustache. They also work best on smooth, soft lips, dry skin tends to pool the colour and leave an uneven finish.