Well well. Remember the other day when I was saying how much I loved Diamond Cosmetics Canyon Sunrise and I was wondering if there was a dupe for it? It appears that there is something very similar indeed. Just a shame that it costs £12, when the Diamond was only about £3.00.
Surreal Violet is a limited edition polish from Estee Lauder’s latest release. I hunted high and low in my little backwater town for this and wasn’t able to find it – collections come to my home town beauty counters even later than it takes them to appear on this site! But thankfully London Make-Up Girl took pity on me and managed to procure it for me from a shop in Cambridge that still had some in stock. Thankyou!!
This is my first experience of using an Estee Lauder nail varnish. At £12, they are obviously high end, and whilst I like the packaging (the shape of the bottle is really cool, and it comes in a nice box), you don’t
get all that much actual product.
I found the application to be really rather difficult. I experienced a lot of pooling at the cuticle and dragging at the tip. This was three coats in the end. I should have stopped at two, but I needed to do a third just to cover up and even out the dragging I had. Hmmm. I finished it off with a layer of Ciate’s Speed Coat and it was touch dry in the usual time. Yet I felt that I wasn’t able to do anything or use my hands as it took hours to harden. Hours….
By the way, I know these pictures look totally different. That’s how unique this polish is. Sometimes it appears grey, sometimes pink, depnding on the light. Surreal, eh?
I do think though that the waiting around might be a small price to pay for a nail varnish that really does wear like iron. A friend of a friend who attended a hen party I was at earlier in the year told me that she wears nothing but Lauder nail varnishes. (I mean, she wears clothes and stuff, but Lauder is her one and only nail varnish choice). She’s just had a baby and doesnt have time to do her nails all the time, and told me she can get at least 10 days wear out of an Estee Lauder polish. I didn’t believe her at the time, but I took these photos on the 5th day of wear and it still looks amazing.
I don’t mind paying £12 for something when I get a weeks worth of wear out of something. Not that I often wear something for an entire week, but when a colour is this gorgeous, I just couldn’t bring myself to change it.
So what do you think? I’m genuinely impressed. For a brand that has a bit of an “old lady” reputation, this is a really lovely colour. I warn you now though that it is limited edition, so if you like it, you need to track it down now, before it sells out…
Helen
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