Illamasqua Smash with Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily Gradient

Illamasqua Smash and Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily

I don't often do gradients, I'm never satisfied my efforts are smooth enough! This was an attempt from a couple of weeks ago when I was on holiday, to while away half an hour on a rainy evening.

This was the mani I started with - Illamasqua Smash; one of my favourite green creams. This is two coats with Seche Vite quick drying top coat. Please excuse the sloppy edges, I didn't take my clean-up brush away with me!

Illamasqua Smash

Then I added the gradient with Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily, one of my favourite polishes. You can see my pictures of Aqua Lily on it's own in this post  here. For the gradient, I used a corner cut off a washing up sponge (all I had available) and finished the mani off with a coat of basecoat followed by a coat of SV. I used the basecoat to try to prevent the SV causing shrinkage, as if I'd just put it straight over the gradient, I think it would have been sure to shrink. As it was, there was still a bit of shrinkage, but not so much I couldn't live with it.

Illamasqua Smash and Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily

Overall I was pleased with the end result and I like the two colours together.

I bought Illamasqua Smash from the Illamasqua website a couple of years ago but unfortunately this colour now seems to be discontinued. Illamasqua do sometimes reinstate discontined colours though, Raindrops being a good example. Outside the UK, Sephora stores carry Illamasqua products; I suppose it's possible they may still have Smash in stock.  I bought Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily from Rescue Beauty Lounge; this is a very popular colour and sold out very quickly, although again RBL often reinstate retired colours so if this is a colour you like it's worth keeping an eye out for an RBL 'Bring it Back' release. Aqua Lily has already been re-released like this in 2012.