Illamasqua Raindrops nail varnish review

I read about Raindrops towards the end of 2011 on Temptalia’s website but as I continued to read I felt rather disappointed to find out that it wasn’t being made another and had sadly discontinued. I accepted I’d been a little too late to get my hands on this polish and said to myself I would look for something similar.

However luck came my way a year later (end of 2012) when I found out that Illamasqua were due to re-release Raindrops as part of their Broken Heart collection so as soon as I had the chance to try it on, I did!

After having a look at the new Archie’s Girls Collection for MAC I wandered over to Illamasqua to try on a few coats of this and I fell in love with it, but I knew I wanted to have a think about it before I decided to buy. At the end of the day I’m not allowed to wear polish to work, so I wanted to see if this was as sheer as I’d been hearing from reviews online.

I went back on Saturday gone with my friend Poppy and after much thought I decided to purchase. it’s light enough that I can get away with it at work and it’ll be perfect throughout all the seasons. I’ve never owned a grey polish before, so this is something that had to be in my collection!

Illamasqua describe Raindrops as a sheer light grey nail polish with a jelly finish. The packaging for Illamasqua has always been simple and I rather like that. The polish is definitely sheer and even with two coats doesn’t show up as much as I’d like it to, however this is a good thing for me due to work but I’m super excited to wear plenty of coats of this when I’m on my next holiday from work, excited!

I tried my best to get a good picture of what the glitter throughout the polish looks like, as personally I’ve never seen anything like this. The glitter isn’t chunky or huge, but rather delicate and of a silver colour to go hand in hand with the grey. Usually with glitter polishes they’re either full of glitter, which is usually rather chunky or they hardly have any glitter and you need to ensure you get at least one nail covered in glitter. This polish is very different as whilst most glitter sits on the top of the polish, this sits underneath the polish, which is great and looks beautiful.

As well as that, it makes removing this polish a doddle! No more sitting there scrubbing away with the remover soaked cotton  pads, or your fingers wrapped in tin foil! Perfect!

Of course for me whilst it doesn’t matter as much as it might for others, I do keep my eye out on how well it wears and things like that. This doesn’t chip very easily at all and after a busy couple of days at work this lasted really well and I didn’t feel the  need to remove and re apply, even though I have since writing this post as I’m a fussy bugger and have to paint my nails on a Sunday, remove Wednesday to re apply and then remove Sunday to start all over again. Weird yes, but that’s just how I am.

The sad news is that this has sold out online, however I picked this up in Selfridges when I went shopping with Poppy so if you check your local Illamasqua counter, you may be able to pick up a bottle! As this polish is so popular right now, I’m sure Illamasqua won’t be out of stock too much longer. These do retail for £13.50, which I think is a great price!

Some fun and exciting news to do with Raindrops is that Illamasqua are holding a fun event over on their Facebook than when they reach 100,000 likes on their page that they’ll be making a pink version of Raindrops. They’ve even released photos of what it’ll look like!

Doesn’t it look gorgeous?! The page is currently at 97,824 (21/2/13) so I hope those numbers hurry up and grow as I want to hurry up and get my paws on this polish! I wonder if it’ll get a new name, or just something simple like ‘Raindrops Limited Edition Pink Version’?

Who knows eh? I hope you enjoyed this review. Do you own Raindrops? If so do you like it? If you don’t own it, do you want it? Let me know in the comments below!

P.S. Sorry I haven’t posted any swatches of this on my nails, but my nails aren’t exactly the best at the moment but I’m going to be posting swatches in future!