Alessandro - Queen Berry Go Magic! Twist Spring 2011

I wanted to post this for months. But since I knew it's going to be a long one, with rant included, I didn't even start writing it until I knew I'll have the time to write it down.

It's been months since Alessandro put out another magnetic polish LE. Surprisingly, there wasn't much noise about it on blogsphere, if Parokeets wouldn't post it, I wouldn't have no idea about it. I'm pretty sure you've seen the promo pictures on their blog too. I waited like a maniac for them. I refused to buy the awesome blue magnetic polish in their LE for NY because of the price and I regret it to this day. It's such a gorgeous blue, come on! And on promo pictures for spring the orange one called for me and I was certain i'll buy at least that one. 

When they've finally hit the stores, I was on my way to vacation with my BF. I was sure that after one week I won't get them anymore, especially since they were sold only in like two stores in Ljubljana. Tevta called me from the store, telling me the colours are quite disappointing. Blank. Chalky. That the brown one was actually the best and the orange is actually this hospital beige colour. So I wasn't upset about the whole deal anymore. 

When we got back, my BF kindly drove me to the store, I wanted to check them out myself. Of course Tevta was right. My most expected one, the orange one, was the colour of our neighbour's peachy-pastel house that I hate. The silvery-grey looked like chalk. I was so disappointed. So I decided I'd take the purple one. One slot was completly empty, but next to it was a purplish polish and since the colour and the name "Queen Berry" suggested it was the purple one (at that point I didn't connect the promo colour with what I saw anymore, since it was appearantly pointless), I took it, but checked with the shop assistant too, asking her if the colour was the purple of the LE or the brown. She didn't reply straight, only tried it on a piece of scotch tape and said, that yes, it did have a purple hue to it. I loved the colour, so I took two, for my swap buddy too. 

When I got hope and googled the polish, expecting at least German blogs to be filled with swatches, I only found the old LE and after a while I saw the bottle of the purple one in the LE, so I actually bought the brown one. I got the feeling that they sold the purple one of the LE and, wanting to sell the brown one too, stuck the "purple" name on it. I might be wrong, but I felt cheated. I didn't think about it much, since it's a gorgeous colour, but I don't like the feeling of it, even if it did turn out ok. 

Oh, do you see how I only use the expressions like "the orange one", "the purple one"? It seems like Alessandro didn't give out any names at all, and all in all it feels like the entire collection went past us because of the poor advertising. Almost like they knew they screw up 2 out of 4 colours and didn't want to make a big deal about it.  

So, anyway. After the disappointment from promo pictures and weird feeling from the store, I give you Queen Berry Go Magic! Twist with my observation and advices added below. 

I guess I can bitch about everything that happened until the point of applying the polish, but after that I was a happy hobbit. The colour is divine and the pattern rocks. Here are my observations, like I wrote them down right after doing the mani.

• The instructions say you should put your magnetic polish on white base. I did that, just for fun, I have the white base on middle and ring finger, index & pinky without it. The base sucks because you have to apply the magnetic polish more carefully in order to avoid the white line in the beginning of the nails, also uneven spots are much more visible. The extra carefulness factor doesn't help one bit, since you already have to be very quick with the polish and have to make sure you have the right amount of polish on your brush, otherwise it screws up the pattern. 
• I shook the bottle a few times during applying, no bubbles, i blame the bubbles on white base - I strongly suggest you shake the bottle often, the pattern is much nicer then. 
• The brush is awesome, just remember to keep enough polish on it, otherwise the pattern won't be so intense or even non existant. You can always redo it though, i have two coats on some fingers, on one even three. I agree at this point with ALU, she suggests you do one coat of polish without the pattern and pattern on the second coat. It's much more intense. Look at my ring finger, having three coats on it! 
• Always try every nail separately for the magnet, otherwise you can touch it with fresh polish or you have it too far and it won't do the pattern. It's hard to centralize it for me, as you can see, too. If you ever saw the Alessandro magnet, you know the magnet is on a fork, and you can move it up and down the fork. That's what I'm talking about. I need the magnet higher for my middle finger than for my pinky. 
• There is a learning curve, at least for me it was. My right hand was an utter disgrace, luckily i went with it first, since it's not my swatching hand. 
• A LOT of clean up, i don't remember I ever had so much clean up before. 
• Don't be ashamed to curse like a sailor, I sure did. 
• The pattern is totally worth it. It takes a bit longer, but since it's my first time of trying this type of polish with this type of magnet, I expected it to take longer, with redoal of some nails, since i touched the magnet etc. If you like the magnetic polishes I suggest investing in one Alessandro so you have the strong and lovely magnet to work with, then you can buy cheaper polishes too and still have a nice pattern on your nails. Since Essence magnet is total crap. 
• The colour I love. It's not berry really, ti's brown leaning to purple, but it's very rich and i love it. The orange-actually-rosy-beige one was the disappointment of this collection for me.
• The price (13 eur) is a bit high. But I see it as an investment in good magnet. I like magnetic polish, so I suspect I'll buy more of them.

All in all I have no complaints about the polish I got and I do not regret buying it. It's everything else that bothered me. Still, I love magnetic polish, and I trully hope this will be the trend for 2012, so we'll get more! There are still many bottles left in Nama, for my Slovene readers, if you decide to grab one. The beige and the grey are practicaly all there (I wonder why ...) but I saw the brown one too.

What do you think about magnetic polish? Do you like it? Did you get any? Oh, do you think this will be the trend of next year? I think and hope so!

Thank you for reading!