Tag Archives: Rescue Beauty Lounge

Rescue Beauty Lounge – Stormy: or why I now get what the fuss is all about

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In my post about Orly’s Royal Navy here I said I was unsure about whether or not to order any polishes from Rescue Beauty Lounge (RBL). So with the benefit of some of the comments I got on that post I now understand the RBL limited edition thing and the Bring it Back etc. Anyway, I caved in to the RBL temptation.  A girlfriend and I went in together on an order to share the postal cost. As it turned out we needn’t have worried about postal cost as between us we easily ordered enough to qualify for free international shipping. Erm, in deed my order alone would have qualified for free shipping…yes, I got a wee bit carried away.

I’ve heard mention of the quality issues associated with IKB: 2012 but that ordinarily you can expect great things of RBL polish. So on receiving my RBL nail mail the other day I was only too happy to put that expectation to the test. Thus far I’ve worn Catherine and Stormy. Catherine was a last minute purchase of the ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ variety. And I’m so glad I did because it is so much more complex and lovely in real life than it appears on the RBL website. Unfortunately though I didn’t get around to taking any photos so I’ll have to share that one with you another day. However, here is Stormy.

Rescue Beauty Lounge - Stormy

Stormy was a last minute purchase. I’ve got half a dozen grey cremes of slightly different hues and I didn’t really think I needed another one but my inner Lacquerhead got the better of me and I put Stormy into my cart. I can tell you I’m very glad I did.

Rescue Beauty Lounge - Stormy

Rescue Beauty Lounge - Stormy

I wore Stormy for two and a half days and for much of that time I was completely distracted by my nails. It’s medium grey creme with a fair amount of blue as far as I can tell. In low light, it looks almost dusty blue. I couldn’t stop looking at my nails. The formula was just lovely. It was very easy to apply, very pigmented and you could almost get away with a single coat if you were careful.

I can safely say that I entirely get the ‘hype’ around RBL. Like Cult Nails, it’s entirely apparent that it is devised by people who actually love and wear nail polish. So on the strength of Stormy and Catherine, which was also gorgeous to apply and wear, I ordered four colours from the pre-sale event for RBL’s new Georgia On My Mind Collection last Friday and I can’t wait to receive and wear those.

xx

 

Orly Royal Navy: how to cure a lemming

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Hullo. Noosa Heads turned out to have pretty unreliable 3G network coverage. Well, our apartment was literally across the road from the entrance to the national park so I really shouldn’t have been surprised. Anyway, upshot of that was no blogging for the week. But otherwise lots of reading, walking, swimming, shopping and relaxing so a pretty lovely time all up.

Got home Friday night to a pile of nail mail. My poor partner was worried he was going to get investigated for polish trafficking there were so many wee packages:) I’ll bore you with the details later but one of the wee packages was Orly Royal Navy.

 

Orly Royal Navy

 

Now being very new to polish obsession, the hype of the Rescue Beauty Lounge Fan Collection launch kind of passed me by. I was still wandering about in the online nail bloggersphere completely distracted by a succession of shiny, pretty things. A while later I started seeing all these swatches of IKB 2012 and slowly came round to the view that maybe wearing bright blue on one’s fingernails wasn’t such a frightfully ‘out there’ thing to do after all. But of course by that stage IKB 2012, being limited edition and all (how better to generate hype?), was done and dusted, sold out. So I casted about for something approximating a dupe. Queue Orly Royal Navy.

 

Orly Royal Navy

Orly Royal Navy

Orly Royal Navy

Apologies for the dodgy cuticles and clean up – colours like this are so difficult to clean up completely when even a tiny bit of polish gets into the cuticle. All pics are 2 coats of Royal Navy on top of NailTek II base and with a coat of Poshe top coat (man I love that stuff!). Royal Navy dries to a matte finish which was interesting but I prefer it with a shiny top coat.

Royal Navy has fine sparkles of course, whereas IKB 2012 appears, from the swatches I’ve seen, to be flat creme. But Royal Navy will more than do me. Today was yet another day when I found myself staring at my nails. Yes, I really am that shallow at times:) It was a good thing I wasn’t driving! I got quite a few comments on it, including from a sales person in a tea shop. Yet another win for Orly. I’m yet to come across dodgy formula in an Orly polish.

As for Rescue Beauty Lounge, as much as I’m fond of exploring new (to me) brands I’m undecided as to whether or not to go there with RBL. At about $20 USD a pop plus a hefty shipping cost given there’s no free international shipping until you spend $200 or more, I’m still perched firmly on the fence. There are so many out of stock colours on their site. I gather that a number of them are limited edition and so wont be restocked or re-released. Presumably though not everything on their site that is out of stock is limited edition? Anyone know? I’ve not had the time or inclination to search through the forum attached to their site. Maybe I’m odd or something but if a polish is a limited edition and you have exhausted all stock then why keep the polish on your site? Please, can someone explain? Perhaps I’m just not sufficiently glamoured by the hype yet? Or perhaps it’s my first day back at work after a week’s leave and I’m being a grumpy arse? Jury’s out.

But for now, I’m more than happy with my wee bottle of Orly Royal Navy:). Love and warm fuzzy feelings abound.

xx