Femme Fatale Vaporous Flowers

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 Time for a palate cleanser after all that dramatic nail art!

indoor, bright CF lighting

But of course even a "palate cleanser" can't be a plain boring neutral, and just as of course I have a pile of untried things needing my attention, and the intersection of those two is Vaporous Flowers, released as an "oops batch" by Femme Fatale back in 2017.  I don't believe anyone hypothesized what this was originally going to be, but the result is gorgeous. 

outdoor, shady daylight

Vaporous Flowers starts with a sandy nude base that somehow manages to be unusually shifty for a neutral shade.  It looks quite different in different lighting - sometimes a warmer pink (in low or angled lighting when the shimmer isn't at its boldest) and other times cool-toned not-quite-beige sandy. 

indoor, bright CF lighting

That contrasting shimmer + holographic microglitter is pure classic Femme Fatale, and as always if you like this finish nobody does it better,  As you can see in the bottle shot above, the shimmer is somehow a magically translucent overlay, bold and jade green when the light hits it, but transparently allowing the base color to show through when the light is indirect.

outdoor, bright sunlight

I'm showing 2 and a half coats here; 2 was mostly opaque but just a couple of spots needed a thin 3rd pass.  As typical for this finish, the holo microglitters are a touch thirsty, so a thick layer of topcoat was needed to smooth them out. 

indoor, bright CF lighting

Rating:  4 out of 5 stars, this is such a fantastic subversively office-appropriate neutral.  In office lighting, it's a modern sorta greige neutral with a subtle sparkle.  Outside, though, that otherworldly jade/aqua overlay and the holo bling spice it up plenty.  This wore decently well on me, and I had no issues with application or removal (fortunately these tiny glitters give up pretty easily to acetone and don't need lots of scrubbing).

Where to buy:  a long-gone one-and-done, you'll need to keep an eye on destashes to score this one.

~Michelle 


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