Rescue Beauty Lounge Fan Collection Swatches!

Morning Everyone!!

Oh. Em. Gee.

When Ji Baek contacted me and asked if I would like to help her debut the long-awaited Rescue Beauty Lounge Fan Collection I just about fell out of my seat! I was at the salon when I got the email and I got so worked up that I had to go outside because I was overheating. ಠ_ಠ You guys, this is a big day for me and I’m WAY pumped to be able to share this with you. I’ll also be including Ji’s press release in snippets throughout this post. She has a way with words that makes my heart sing. So hold onto your hats folks, this post is a doozy! ^_^

We’ve Made Their Dream Colors Come True, Finally! Introducing, The Fan Collection.

It has been a long haul in making The Fan Collection. Our fans submitted the first ideas almost 13 months ago. The nail-biting voting event ended February 15th, 2011. The path to creating our four winners’ dream colors was engrossing; it was a year full of nail polish connoisseurship, coupled with our mutual love for these colors. During this robotic back-and-forth dance of color submissions, rejections, numerous tweaking, corrections and one technical disaster, these creations are worthy of every droplet of my sweat and tears.

The hilarity of our loquacious email exchanges have been a novel-worthy read and their iron wills for not settling for less than their vision and not caving into my seductive, alternate baits turned me into their humble servant. Any wonder why they’re our fans? I must thank Danielle, Kay-Di Kat, and Nora for their generous time and keen participation, and I especially thank Neeta, for teaching me all about copper.

I used my usual combo, Sally Hansen Nail Quencher Base Coat and Seche Vite Top Coat, for all my swatches today.

Aqua Lily

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to visit the Kuda Huraa Island of the Maldives. The turquoise water is a crystal-clear sea green and what really had me spellbound was that it reflected a shimmery-pink hue from the shedding scales of the colorful, vivid, and exotic tropical fish. This color is Kay-Di Kat’s homage to her beloved mom, Lily, an Aquarius who swims like an enchanting mermaid. I imagine Lily swimming in this paradise with its mesmerizing water in the Island of the Maldives.

Aqua Lily is an absolutely GORGEOUS turquoise polish with a fine fuchsia pink subtle shimmer. It’s hard to capture on photo but trust me when I say it’s there and much more prominent in person. The formula for Aqua Lily was medium thick and was an absolute dream to apply! All I needed was 2 easy coats that practically painted itself onto my nails. Honestly, it’s so pigmented that this one could have easily been a 1-coater if I’d been extra careful.

Here’s a macro shot for you so you can get a better look at the fine shimmer. This polish is such a beauty! Do I even need to say that you should be clicking on Every. Single. Picture in this post for the original sized shots? Didn’t think so.

Here’s Aqua Lily in the bottle, I do wish that the shimmer was as strong on the nail as it is in the bottle!

IKB: 2012

A bright, vibrant, electric blue with blurple (blue-purple) in a jelly finish, hence, the creation of the most densely pigmented jelly-like finish I’ve ever made. Nora’s endless search for that Yves Klein signature blue (International Klein Blue) is finally over.

Holy COW, Ji is not kidding when she says this baby is pigmented. This might be the best jelly polish that I have seen in my entire life. This is 2 coats people! The pigmentation in IKB: 2012 is ridiculous, slap-you-in-the-face, strong! Remember when I said that Revlon’s Royal was my favorite blue jelly finish polish? JK, because this one just replaced it. ♥

IKB: 2012 is such a stunning shade of blue. I cannot WAIT to pair this one with my Max Factor Fantasy Fire. I’ve been waiting for the perfect polish to layer that over and I think this might be it! The first coat is a little scary looking because it’s a thicker formula, but the 2nd coat evened everything out nicely. Did I mention that IKB: 2012 is self leveling too? *le swoon*

IKB: 2012 in the bottle. I ended up wearing this one as my NOTD once I finished swatching this collection. I can’t stop staring at my nails.

Halcyon

Danielle’s dream color is a soft, sage green with a pink glimmer of brilliant reflective shine, just like when the morning dew tenderly kisses a succulent plant. The beauty of succulents keeps her calm and serene.

Halcyon really surprised me. At first glance I thought it just had pink shimmer in it like Aqua Lily, but upon closer examination I realized that the shimmer was duo-chromatic! It goes from a delicate dusty pink shimmer to a rusty golden orange. I’m in love. This polish reminds me of spring so much! Maybe if I wear it each day then all our snow will melt. A girl can dream.

You can really see the color transition perfectly in this macro shot of Halcyon. It had a thinner formula than IKB: 2012 and Aqua Lily, but it was still easy to control and I hardly needed to do any clean-up. This is 2 coats.

And here’s Halcyon in the bottle. I can totally see myself sporting this polish A LOT. Methinks I may need a backup for this one.

Cuprum

The metamorphic moment when the presence of ammonia meets
copper (II) transforms into a radiant blue. Cuprum is Latin for copper, and the dual nature of this element is what Neeta wanted to capture in a bottle.

Cuprum was another one that surprised me. I didn’t expect to see a metallic in the collection, and the sparse copper shimmer is so neat! It’s a little hard to see in the above pictures at their current size, but you can get a better glimpse of the shimmer when you click the photos.

And here’s a macro of Cuprum, you can really see the shimmer here. I thought I would need 3 coats for this once since it has the thinnest formula, but I ended up being just fine with 2 coats. Since Cuprum is a metallic it can be just a tad brush stroke-y (I may have made that word up…). You can avoid that by painting your 1st and 2nd stroke down the left and right sides of your nail bed, and then finish up with your final brush stroke dead down the center of each nail.

And last but certainly not least, a bottle shot of Cuprum. These polishes were such a delight to photograph. ^_^

☻

Final Thoughts:

I’m so excited to finally see this collection in person! I remember voting for my favorites during the contest last year and trying to imagine how each of the finalist’s selections would look in polish form based on their descriptions on Ji’s blog. When I opened my package and saw that all 4 winning polishes were blues and greens I think my eyes damn near popped out of my head! Each polish had near, if not perfect application and pigmentation. I’m hard pressed to name a favorite because I love them all!

If you’re a fan of blues, greens, shimmers and metallic polishes there is something for nearly everyone in this collection. Which ones are your favorites?

And I want to give Ji Baek a HUGE E-Hug for letting me be a part of this experience. ^_^

Purchase Info:

The Rescue Beauty Lounge Fan Collection will be available exclusively at www.rescuebeauty.com at the end of April 2012. From there you can also join the RBL VIP email list to be notified of pre-sale dates. The polishes retail at $20 per 0.4 fl oz bottle of polish. They contain no harmful Toluene, Formaldehyde, DBP, or Formaldehyde Resin and they do not test on animals.

* The product(s) in this post were sent to me for unbiased review consideration.