Best Things in Beauty : Deborah Lippmann Waking Up in Vegas. and about great expectations.

the infamous Waking Up In Vegas by Deborah Lippmann.

waked my interest since it was spotted on miss Gaga's nails on the cover of last september's Vanity Fair issue and kicked the trend from mud to greige. but due to availability, price and hype i haven't bought it back then.

it still was in the back of my mind, and from time to time when i stumbled across a light grey with yellow hints which looked suspiciously similar to what Waking Up In Vegas looked like in my imagination, i would have picked it up just for the sake of the look.

i never really wore a light yellowish grey cream over the whole time though, i found it quite unflattering on my nails...

now, almost exactly one year later, i have finally bought the original. it's a consuming-pattern of mine. interest in something - no purchase - still interested - buying many possible dupes - in the end still buy the original... (some more examples are listed here).

of course the expectations about the original have grown ad infinitum in the mean time, and unfortunately sometimes, also this time, the original can't live up to them.

here the blunt facts: i bought this polish on ebay, i paid ~16 AU$ which are about 12.50€, a good price. the packaging is great, i like the bottle design and it contains 15ml, which is a good amount. it does not contain toluene, formaldehyde or DBP.

it has a round brush that lacquers very well, covers my nails easily and evenly with a coat of good textured polish. the consistency is rather thin but this shade is very opaque and only needs 1 coat, so it dries quickly. it sets to a rather dull finish and i surely prefer to use a top coat over it. it wears for 3 days with minimal tip wear (but i would change the colour then ;)).

now the problem i have with this is it's consistency. i find it to be too opaque, to the point that it remembers me of grey tipp-ex (you would call it whiteout). it looks powdery and chalky on my nails and i miss the hint of transparency and gloss of a real lacquer.

and it's a lot darker than what i thought it would be...

of course the yellowish, warm light greys look a lot better on me than the true light greys since they blend into the skin better, but i doubt this will find it's way on my nails very often.

i will keep it and appreciate it the same way i appreciate all the big lemmings that eventually didn't meet my expectations but made me buy a bunch of maybe-dupes for them: i will remain thankful that they opened the door to a path of my experimental make up journey, enabled me to find other interesting products and to find myself and my preferences.