Saturday, December 24, 2011

StrangeBeautiful Colours For Anthropolgie



Last year Anthropologie got these duos exclusive to their store. By the time I found out about these, it was too late to get them, though I did manage to get one duo which was previously reviewed and swatched. So this year, I was thrilled to actually find out in time to get my hands on the exclusive polishes for THIS YEAR!


Now before I go any further, you have all heard my bitch before about the lack of any kind of naming or numbering system to these polishes. Now these ones ARE named. And I am still going to bitch. Firstly, because though they are named on the website, the names are NOWHERE on the bottles. And secondly because the names are so messed up. I got a greeny-yellowy, brownish green and reddish brown. The names are pink, taupe purple and black. It took me 20 minutes to figure out which shade was which!!! BAH!!!!!!!!

The other thing that kills me, and drives me up a wall is that each collection is so drastically different in shape and size. It seriously drives me up a wall. I am so OCD about my polish and like nice neat rows and sorted by number and colour. Strangebeautiful does NOT allow me to do that. Not in any way shape or form. But enough bitching. Here comes the fun part. The colours in THIS collection!!

Strangebeautiful creator Jane Schub took her inspiration for this moody set of semi-opaque, fluid shades from the intricate details of her surroundings. The polish is highly saturated with pigment - a single coat will do for most shades - and extremely long wearing. Each intensely curated color is housed in a heavy Italian glass bottle and topped with a bespoke, hand-engraved acrylic cap. 

Black: a dark carbon shade inspired by the wet shale that lines the Hudson River
Purple: an almost brown shade of wet earth, inspired by the Hudson River estuary
Pink: a deep brown-rose inspired by a rush of color to the skin
Taupe: yellowy-brown, inspired by a painting by the artist Hieronymous Bosch

Now it seems to me I got Purple, Pink and Taupe. They retail for 19.00 each and by the time I knew that Anthropologie had these 4 colours, they were already on clearance for 3.95 each!!! Not surprising then that 1 of them was already sold out!!







Now I am about 75% sure I got the names right, and matched up!

Purple: an almost brown shade of wet earth, inspired by the Hudson River estuary - This one is a lot of things. But purple it is NOT. A muddy brown with a tinge of green it. The formula was super hard to judge as the brush is a nightmare to work with. But the swatches below are of three coats. I would really need one more coat to even out the patchiness. This problem with the brush I will not mention when describing the other two colours, but it was the same issue with all three of them.


Pink: a deep brown-rose inspired by a rush of color to the skin. This colour is a pinkish/brownish tinged burgundy. Very much the colour of brick.


Taupe: yellowy-brown, inspired by a painting by the artist Hieronymous Bosch. This one is a yellowy mossy greenish brown colour.


Now as you can see, the square lid comes off like most square shaped lids do. The first problem with this is that the round cap underneath is far too short to actually comfortably hold. It is the same size as my thumb nail.



Now to compare, these Strangebeautiful bottles are 9mls. Yet they are the same height as these Girly Bits polishes that are 5ml. But the Girly Bits have not only a much longer handle to grab making them comfortable to use, but the brush is actually a few mm longer, and thicker. The Girly Bits one splays out to cover much more of the nail whereas the Strangebeautiful one is firm and holds little polish, making it very tricky to use.



All in all, the colours are gorgeous, thought the naming system is bizarre, the bottle shape keeps changing, and they are a pain in the you-know-what to actually use. I do love the colours though and will get much joy in all three of these polishes!

1 comment:

  1. Gorgeous!!! Maybe this post will get me to use mine, I have sooo many untrieds, but your pics of these make them look so pretty!

    ReplyDelete

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