Femme Fatale Empire of Dirt

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Sometimes, you just gotta go all matchy-matchy, and these new El Corazon stamping crèmes staring right at me had me digging through mount untried looking for a neutral to coordinate.  Voilà!

Femme Fatale Empire of Dirt
overcast morning daylight
I started with two smooth coats of Femme Fatale Empire of Dirt, an "oops" polish from May 2017.  I'm not at all sure what polish it was originally intended to be, but the way I understand things is that if a batch goes awry, Sophie keeps adding things here and there until the batch has become sale-ably lovely, so they can be pretty far off the original mark.

Femme Fatale Empire of Dirt
indoor, CF lighting
Oops batches typically have few swatch pics, and Empire of Dirt was no exception.  I was expecting a warm, chestnut brown with a prominent gold flash, but instead we have here a softer and less saturated warm, pink-taupe with a rose gold flash.  It's utterly unique in my stash, and a neutral that was pretty perfect for my skintone. 

Femme Fatale Empire of Dirt
indoor, office fluorescent lighting
The holo, both linear and microglitters, was nicely sparkly in bright sunlight, and then toned down to a hammered-foil finish indoor and in lower lighting.  Without the bold geometric patterning I've added, this would absolutely be an office-appropriate color.

Femme Fatale Empire of Dirt
outdoor, bright direct sunlight
Speaking of which, the intersecting geometric line design is yet another easy to work with motif from XXL-4.  Man, I thought I was nutso to shell out 20 bucks for a stamping plate when I got this big boy & his halloween-themed brother (XXL-03).  I've since seen many of the designs from XXL-4 reprinted on more standard-sized plates, but these two have great image pick up every time, and this one single plate is ideal for "I just don't know what I want" because it has a little bit of everything.  I haven't seen them on Ali Express for quite a while now, but next time I do, I'll be picking up the others in the set.  The triangles on my accent nails are the same image from ZJoy-014 layered up, first in El Corazon Vinous, then Emily de Molly Rose Gold.

Femme Fatale Empire of Dirt
bright afternoon sunlight
Rating:  while this color looked great on me, and I thoroughly loved this mani, Empire of Dirt was sadly chippy as all get-out.  The formula was smooth, totally opaque in 2 coats, and very easy to control... and then I had to completely redo a nail on my left (non-dominant, non-hard working) hand the very next day because of chipping.  I don't at all consider oops batches to be representative of any brand, and I love the color, so I'm keeping this but bumping down to 3 out of 5 stars.

Where to buy:  though this is sold out on Femme Fatale's site at this time, check her list of stockists to see if there's any still floating around.

~Michelle

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