Femme Fatale The Secret of Secrets

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I thought I'd already scooped up my picks from this year's Femme Fatale White Witch/Narnia collection, but swatches of The Secret of Secrets convinced me I wasn't quite done...

Femme Fatale The Secret of Secrets
indoor, indirect filtered sunlight
Secret is packed with enough warm, fiery glitters that I filed it as "gold/bronze" when looking solely at the bottle.  On the nail, though, it's instead a cooler taupe or nude, studded richly with a rainbow of chrome flakes and bronze & pink/red microglitters.

indoor, bright CF lighting
In some lighting, this actually looked like a shade or two darker than a "mannequin hands" color for me, other than the sparkling flakies.  I picked this color to match a gold and turquoise dress with big peacock feathers printed on it, so I stamped the accent nail with the large single peacock feather image from Born Pretty plate BP-75, using the perfectly pigmented a England Saint George.

indoor, window-filtered sunlight
After being warned to not expect much with the bargain option, I'm totally loving these BP plates - check out the fine detail of the feather fronds!

In brighter sunlight, the microglitters flashed much more prominently than they did in shady light, warming up the overall look of the base color a whole lot.  This may ultimately be one of those neutral shades that is wearable by both cool and warm toned folks because of the shifts, and it's definitely the sort of subversive neutral that you could get away with at the office if you need to stick to more traditional colors.

outdoor, bright sunlight
At arm's length, the flakies & glitter are a sparkling of light that adds dimension to the more restrained base color, but up close, wow.  A gorgeous rainbow.

outdoor, bright sunlight
Rating:  4 out of 5 stars.  Easily one of the prettiest nude/taupe colors in my stash.  The formula is smooth and easy to work with, and gave nice coverage in 2 coats.

Where to buy:  Femme Fatale lists their stockists at the bottom of their home page; my usual source is Color4Nails.

~Michelle

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