Lancome Le Vernis in Pure Gold: Leaves Me Cold

It's ages since I caved to a real spur of the moment beauty purchase - so long that a little slip-up was well overdue. Walking past the Lancôme stand in Debenhams last week, I spotted a wee bottle of what looked like molten gold, and since I've been keeping an eye out for something to ape the look of a gold Minx mani I shimmied over to take a closer look. Well, this bottle of golden goodness shimmered sexily in its little glass enclosure and I swear I think it whispered my name.

I think it goes without saying that a talking nail varnish should not be left to its own devices. So, reasoning that the €20.50 downpayment was a sensible one given that I'd get tons and tons of manicures out of it compared to the few days I'd get out of a €25 Minx mani, I handed over my hard-earned.

Things started to go downhill pretty quickly: despite lightly buffing nails and using a ridge-filling base coat (metallics are notorious for showing up every little ridge), even after two coats of colour things were still not looking particularly smooth. And while the finish was certainly shimmery in all its micro-sparkly goodness, it wasn't near as mirror-shine metallic as I'd hoped. As for the colour... well, it didn't look quite so fabulous on my very pale hands as it did in the bottle. It's a real yella gold.

In fairness, while it wore pretty well - no chips at the end of day 2 - I had to take it off before I could really put it through its paces because I couldn't bear the sight of nails that looked liked they were stained by nicotine for another minute!