Illamasqua: Raindrops

Today I have Illamasqua's Raindrops to review.  I wasn't in the scene of reading blogs while Raindrops was first out but I did eventually see it online and thought it was pretty.  Since Sephora didn't sell Illamasqua nail polishes at the time in Toronto, I always thought I could buy it when I went to the US.  Sadly when I went, it wasn't available (I'm not even sure if it was ever available in Sephora).

I ordered this online on the day it was available in January.  The same thing as A England happened to me where Royal Mail stopped shipping nail polish.  I had emailed Illamasqua first and they were able to locate my package, so they gave me a choice whether to receive a refund or have it reshipped.  I chose to have it reshipped.  I've been wanting Raindrops for a long time now.  I saw a few bids on eBay for ridiculous prices and I had the will power to not buy it but I still really wanted it.  As soon as I heard it was coming back, I was actually looking forward to it.  I thought it was somewhat funny the month I decided to order from the UK from two different companies was when Royal Mail made this change.

My package came last week.  Due to the shipping issue it took about over 1 month and a half for my package to come but I was happy that it did arrive.

This is my first time ordering from Illamasqua and I really like the packaging.

Thoughts
I own another Illamasqua nail polish that I bought in 2011 during my trip to New York City.  So immediately I noticed that the brush has changed.  Which is good, I didn't like the other brush.  Maybe this change was a longtime ago but I didn't know until now.

The polish is pretty easy to paint on.  It's like a gel finish.  It was opaque enough during the first coat but I wanted the flakes to really show up so I did two coats. On the website it's described as a jelly finish.

After I was finished painting my nails, I was unsure how I felt.  While I liked the colour, I guess my feeling of waiting this colour for so long and after buying it I had to wait a long time to receive it, my feeling was, oh so this is it?  This was my initial feeling.  I did have a rough week last week, so I guess I over hyped it myself since I was really looking forward to it.

Right now, I've worn it for three days I do love this colour.  It's cute and different.  I like looking at the silver flakes.  I could have added another coat to make it really stand out, but I decided not to.  My friend commented on how from her angle it looks like I have a greyish blue on, and she said it was a cute colour.  I think what I like about this colour the most is, when I look at my hand from a far it just looks like a grey but when you look closer, it's very delicate.  The silver flakes are really fine and subtle.  It makes the colour look very subtle.

Breakdown:
Base Coat: butter LONDON Nail Foundation Flawless Basecoat
Colour coat: Illamasqua Raindrops 2 coats
Top Coat: butter LONDON Hardwear P.D. Quick Top Coat

Size of the bottle: 15mL

Top Box

Box

Raindrops.  I guess I should try 3 coats since I had a heavier hand on my ring finger than the other fingers. 

I think I painted my ring finger with a little more on the brush even though it was two coats.

Bottle shot 

What I do like about Illamasqua's bottle is that it has the ingredients listed on the box and on the polish.

Brush shot 

Comparison between my older Illamasqua brush with the current size.  Before I had no problems with the formula itself, I did find it very hard to use the long brush to paint my nails.  So I'm very happy that the brush has changed.

I ordered Raindrops on the Illamasqua website in January for £13.50.  There's also £8.50 for shipping to North America.

UPDATE: Raindrops with 3 coats