Glitterati Pursuit

When I first saw images of the Face of Australia Glitterati nail polish collection, my eyes were drawn immediately to the three milky glitters, Funky Town, Heart of Glass and Boogie Wonderland. The other 5 multicoloured glitter polishes in a clear base I could probably do without, or already had in some variation (Ulta3 Over the Rainbow, Sportsgirl Glitter Bug, OPI Rainbow Connection, and Studio 54 = Sportsgirl Rose Gold). But the pastel-based glitter polishes were unlike anything I'd seen an Australian brand release, with the exception of Australis Milky Way. At just $4.95 each, I knew I had to hunt them down. There was quite the saga of how that happened (especially with the frenzy over Kmart recently having $4 off Face of Australia products, making these polishes 75 cents a pop), but I'll spare you the details.

From most reviews I've read, the consensus on Funky Town is that it's lacking in execution. The blue base is too opaque for the glitter to show through, especially if you apply more than one layer. I did three, and when I scrubbed away the colour with nail polish remover, I unearthed multiple pieces of glitter stuck to my nail that had previously been completely covered up by the blue. I guess if you were only going to do one coat, it wouldn't be too much of a problem. The dusty cornflower blue is nice enough as a standalone creme, even without the addition of tiny bright blue and black hexagonal glitter and larger, pale copper hexagonal pieces.

My hands down favourite Heart of Glass is the must-have in this collection. There's so much going on glitter-wise in this polish that it's hard to register all at once. I can see small and large magenta hex glitter, tiny purple squares, large red squares, small, sparse iridescent bar glitter pieces, small holo hex glitter, and red hearts (mainly at the base of my bottle — I've yet to fish one out with my brush). All in a beautiful, pale pink base. Which applied opaque in two coats, the formula was that spot on. I convinced a friend to buy a bottle of Heart of Glass when we were at Priceline together and she texted me the next day saying, "loving my new nail polish!" Ditto.

Boogie Wonderland was my second most coveted polish in the collection. When it's time for Heart of Glass to come off my nails, Boogie Wonderland is going straight on. The glitter is much more dense and pronounced than in Funky Town and Heart of Glass. There's small orange, blue, purple and magenta hex glitter with blue and green curls, iridescent bars and huge holographic hexagonal pieces in a whitish blue base. My only gripe with this polish is that the blue and green curls don't lie flat on the nail and also have a tendency to hang off the edge. You need to manoeuvre those pieces carefully and finish off with a fairly thick layer of top coat to achieve a smooth surface.

l-r: Funky Town, Heart of Glass, Boogie Wonderland

Overall, I'm pretty thrilled with these new additions to my nail polish collection. I'm tiring somewhat of brightly coloured, chunky glitter in a clear base (or those polishes require a bit more creativity that I'm lacking in terms of how to best utilise them), but milky glitters are something I don't see around very much and don't have a lot of (only Revlon Popular, my beloved Revlon Whimsical and China Glaze It's a Trap-eze!). Best of all, they're so affordable that you could buy the whole collection of 8 polishes for the same price as 2 OPI polishes in Australia. Or just stockpile Heart of Glass. It's limited edition, after all.