Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily with Pirate Polish Lovandula

After my disappointment with Rescue Beauty Lounge's Piu Mosso, I'm happy to report that Aqua Lily rather makes up for it. It's a gorgeous turquoise blue with lovely purple/pink shimmer. The formula was quite dense, covering easily in two coats. I found this shade to be really flattering on me, and I'm definitely happy I was able to snag this when it was re-released last fall. 

Aqua Lily was also the perfect base for Pirate Polish's Lovandula (a lovely lavender glitter from the Valentine's Day collection); I love the contrast between the pink and lavender glitters and the vibrant turquoise of Aqua Lily.

What do you think of Rescue Beauty Lounge's Aqua Lily? Does it make a good base for Lovandula? There are still a couple bottles on sale in the Pirate Polish Etsy store, if Lovandula is catching your eye!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso with Max Factor Fantasy Fire

Rescue Beauty Lounge's Piu Mosso is a deep navy blue with barely-perceptable golden shimmer (easy to see in the bottle, very hard to see on the nail). I've tried my best to catch the shimmer in these photos, but in reality, it mostly looks like a deep navy blue creme. 

Directly under artificial lighting- the most shimmer I could coax out of this polish:

Piu Mosso is the very first Rescue Beauty Lounge lacquer I've ever tried- and I have to admit, it didn't quite live up to expectations. While gorgeous in the bottle, that pretty golden shimmer doesn't really translate on the nail. And it certainly didn't look anything like it does in these swatches. Formula-wise, it can't be faulted (practically a one-coater, easy to control), but it was something of a let down. Especially with the high price tag (even higher once you factor in international shipping). 

Thankfully, I have a super awesome friend who is also into lacquer, and presented me with Max Factor's fabled Fantasy Fire for my birthday back in November! Amazing, right? Even better, she gifted me TWO bottles of Fantasy Fire. It's like she could see the dilemma coming- if you've only got one small bottle, you can only use it sparingly. But with a back-up, I can awesome-ize any boring manicure I want. Case in point: Piu Mosso gets taken from "meh" to "zomg!!1".

In the sun:

In the shade:

Utterly drool-worthy. And to think, I'd never expected to get my hands on this one. Fantastic birthday present, from an amazing friend. You know who you are!