Rescue Beauty Lounge Fan Collection Spring 2012 Swatches and Review

Rescue Beauty Lounge's highly-anticipated fan-created collection is finally here, and it's a good one. The fans that created these colors have some seriously good taste. This might be my favorite Rescue Beauty Lounge collection to date and I'm sure I won't be the only one who feels that way. Here's the official press release that talks about the inspiration behind the colors:

We’ve Made Their Dream Colors Come True, Finally! Introducing, The Fan Collection.

It has been a long haul in making The Fan Collection. Our fans submitted the first ideas almost 13 months ago. The nail-biting voting event ended February 15th, 2011. The path to creating our four winners’ dream colors was engrossing; it was a year full of nail polish connoisseurship, coupled with our mutual love for these colors. During this robotic back-and-forth dance of color submissions, rejections, numerous tweaking, corrections and one technical disaster, these creations are worthy of every droplet of my sweat and tears.

The hilarity of our loquacious email exchanges have been a novel-worthy read and their iron wills for not settling for less than their vision and not caving into my seductive, alternate baits turned me into their humble servant. Any wonder why they’re our fans? I must thank Danielle, Kay-Di Kat, and Nora for their generous time and keen participation, and I especially thank Neeta, for teaching me all about copper.


Halcyon: Danielle's dream color is a soft, sage green with a pink glimmer of brilliant reflective shine, just like when the morning dew tenderly kisses a succulent plant. The beauty of succulents keeps her calm and serene.


Aqua Lilly: A few years ago, I was lucky enough to visit the Kuda Huraa Island of the Maldives. The turquoise water is a crystal-clear sea green and what really had me spellbound was that it reflected a shimmery-pink hue from the shedding scales of the colorful, vivid, and exotic tropical fish. This color is Kay-Di Kat’s homage to her beloved mom, Lily, an Aquarius who swims like an enchanting mermaid. I imagine Lily swimming in this paradise with its mesmerizing water in the Island of the Maldives.


Cuprum (Cu): The metamorphic moment when the presence of ammonia meets copper (II) transforms into a radiant blue. Cuprum is Latin for copper, and the dual nature of this element is what Neeta wanted to capture in a bottle.


IKB: 2012: A bright, vibrant, electric blue with blurple (blue-purple) in a jelly finish, hence, the creation of the most densely pigmented jelly-like finish I’ve ever made. Nora’s endless search for that Yves Klein signature blue (International Klein Blue) is finally over.

Available: End of April 2012.

Rescue Beauty Lounge nail polishes are exclusively available at www.rescuebeauty.com, the polish sells for $20.00 per bottle.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Nail polishes are created with resin and high molecular polymers to improve flexibility, durability and high shine. They contain no harmful Toluene, Formaldehyde, DBP, Formaldehyde Resin and we do not test on animals.

Aqua Lily - Cuprum - Halcyon - IKB:2012

Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily (by Kaydi-Kat). Aqua Lily is a light turquoise creme base with a very fine-textured, subtle pink and purple shimmer throughout. The shimmer comes out beautifully in sunlight, but is only barely visible in low light. I know that this was inspired by an aquatic theme, but to me this is reminiscent of amazing, retro, 1950s-style pink and turquoise fashion and home decor.


Rescue Beauty Lounge Cuprum (by Neeta). This is a medium blue shimmer with very tiny pink and copper microglitter particles. I love the inspiration behind this one. While I do think this color is very pretty, it seems like the shimmer base of the blue drowns out the copper. The copper is visible if you look closely, but it's not obvious at first glance and it doesn't stand out as much as it does in the bottle.


Rescue Beauty Lounge Halcyon (by Danielle). This is a faded-looking medium sage green with color-shifting pink/copper/gold/green shimmer. Straight on, the shimmer looks mostly pink, but when you angle your nails, you can see that it shifts to many different colors. The shimmer is subtle but always visible.



Rescue Beauty Lounge IKB:2012 (by Nora). This is the bluest blue ever. Subtle jelly finish, but not sheer. This is so blue that I can't even believe how blue it is. So blue it's almost purple. It looks a little lighter here than it appears in real life, but it's so vibrant and vivid that may camera had a hard time focusing on it. I also can't help but think that this may be the best TARDIS blue I've seen so far. Amazing, amazing color.

The formula on these was varied, but generally good. Aqua Lily and Halcyon were the usual buttery-smooth Rescue formula. IKB:2012 had an odd rubbery texture that wouldn't self-level, but I've been assured that the formula is still being tweaked and will be different when it's finally released. Cuprum actually gave me the most trouble with application as it was thicker than average and didn't flow smoothly. I needed to wait a few minutes in between each coat on IKB:2012 and Cuprum in order to get a smooth, flat coat. Drying time is longer than average, but allowing each coat to set for a couple minutes helps speed things up. I did two coats of each plus topcoat and all shades were opaque in two.

The fans did a really fantastic job imagining and designing their colors. Each is beautiful and unique in its own way. Aqua Lily is both tropical and retro looking to me, Cuprum has one of the most fascinating color combinations ever (Blue and copper together? Perfection.), Halcyon is so misty and hazy looking but has that little electric shock of duochrome shimmer to balance it, and IKB:2012 is the most insane and wonderful blue ever. I do wish that the formula on Cuprum and IKB:2012 were smoother and thinner, and I think Cuprum could use some more copper to help it stand out against the blue shimmer, but those are my only criticisms.

The Rescue Beauty Lounge Fan Collection will be available at the end of April.

(This was sent for review.)