A friend recently emailed me to ask if I knew of any dupes for Illamasqua's new speckled nail polishes, newly released with their I'mperfection collection. She loved the Cadbury's Mini Egg effect of the black speckles in the pastel creme base, but didn't have £15 to spend on a nail polish (or £60 to spend on the four shades she liked.)
I've been off the blogging radar for a few months, but this request pricked up my ears, as I'd noticed the Illamasqua speckled trend myself and really liked it. I told her we'd probably have to wait for the trend to filter down through to the drugstore end of the market, and the best bet in the meantime was probably DIY with a pastel polish and some matte glitter.
But to my surprise, I found an alternative solution in a branch of Superdrug... Accessorize Leopard Moth, costing a very reasonable £3.45 for 10ml. It's one of a handful of speckled polishes released by this brand in October last year - so not only has the drugstore kept up, it was actually ahead of the curve on this trend. (Nails Inc's speckly sprinkle polishes were even earlier, in summer 2012, but still impressive.)
Leopard Moth is a white creme with black speckle particles - they're matte, not glittery. The polish is thick enough to give a lovely embedded effect when layered up. You can see the speckles from the deeper coats of polish just showing up through the white. There are plenty of particles too.
Unlike Illamasqua's speckles, which have large and small black particles, there's only one size in this polish, the small size typical of glitter polishes.
I think the finished effect looks slightly blueish. It reminds me of willow pattern china.
This is 3 coats, and photos were taken on the third day of wear, topped with a layer of Mavala Mavadry topcoat. I'm very impressed with the wear given the price.
You can find these polishes at certain branches of Superdrug, although we tend to find that stock levels are patchy and not every store has this brand. Leopard Moth is also available via Superdrug's website
This will sounds random but thank you for this post! I have been lusting over the Illamasqua polishes since I first saw an image of them but I just don't want to drop that kind of cash on nail polish. I've had a quick nosey at the superdrug site and they seem to have some really interesting shades in this line. You've saved me a fortune!
ReplyDeleteNice dupe! Nubar dot glitter from BeautyBay.com works well on top of a blue pastel polish as well - though the effect is less subtle.Super drug online also has free delivery just now:-)
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