Illamasqua Toxic Nature Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

I think Illamasqua and other nail polish companies have very different ideas about creative inspiration. You know what I'm talking about, right? The other brands talk about their inspiration, "Oh, I went to the beach." or... "I took a road trip." or even worse, "I saw a celebrity." But Illamasqua doesn't just get inspired, they make their inspiration. They take an idea and build an entire world around it. They even give it a backstory! And that's what always makes me so excited to see what they're going to do next.

Toxic Nature is no exception. In fact, I think it's their most creative collection yet. I'm so behind in posting these, so I know you've all seen the amazing makeup artistry and fantasy world images surrounding this collection. When I first saw them, my eyes went like this: O_O

The nail lacquer portion of this collection consists of these five shades:

Bacterium. Doesn't this color make you a little uncomfortable? The name, the murky, stagnant, dirty look of it? This is a mousy taupe/light brown/warm grey base with some frosty duochrome greenish shimmer. It has a little bit of a yellow undertone to it. It's like a decomposing version of Zoya Pasha.

Gamma. Awesome, eye-burning neon orange. Since it's neon, it dries matte. You can wear it matte if you'd like, or add topcoat to make it glossy. Either way it will look loud!




Purity. A clean, sweet and natural shade that contrasts with the bizarre, mutated, toxic and dangerous colors in the collection. This is a soft creamy pale peach. For comparison, it's more warm and pale than MAC Seasonal Peach and not as pink as Essie Van d'Go.


Stagnate. Good name to go with this color. It's a murky purple-grey-brown creme. What was that word they use for this now? It's like "greige" but with purple... Grurple? I forget. As much as I do love these types of colors, I must say, it's so common now, there are so many of them, that it does look a little stagnant to me.



Radium. A bright yet dirty radioactive pea green. What makes this special is the blue-green subtle shimmer that lights up when the light hits it. You can't see as much of the blue shimmer indoors, but it looks great in sunlight.


The formula on these was different. It wasn't the same consistent, creamy, dense one-coat-opaque formula I'm used to from Illamasqua. Each color seemed to have a completely different texture. Stagnate was thin almost a little sheer, Gamma was thick and jelly-like, Radium was almost like normal Illamasqua formula, Purity was sticky feeling and Bacterium was a little runny. Despite the mixed bag of formulas, both wear time and dry time were excellent. Every shade except the neon Gamma dried very shiny even without topcoat. I was able to get nearly a week of wear out of Radium without chipping or tipwear.

I love the theme and artistry of this collection. I love how they intertwine beauty and poison, danger and glamour... Nature fighting back... Seriously, doesn't it make you a little uneasy but excited at the same time?

I do wish the colors were more uncommon, though. They're good colors, but shades like pea green, neon orange and grey/purple/brown have been really common lately, so you really have to put something extra intro them to make them stand out among the crowd. That being said, I am very fond of the unusual combination of colors in this collection, and I can rarely pass up a neon orange. The scary radioactive brightness of Gamma and Radium, the murky dirtiness of Bacterium and Stagnate and the clean and pretty Purity to return you to normal when it all becomes too much...

(These were sent to me for review.)