Deborah Lippmann Mermaid’s Dream nail polish review

Over time, you may have learnt a couple of my nail polish weaknesses on this blog. Turquoise. Deborah Lippmann. Glitter. So imagine what would happen if all three got rolled into one… well, it did. Helloooo Deborah Lippmann Mermaid’s Dream!

Even from bottle shots, I knew this was going to be one of my favourite polishes ever. Mermaid tail nails has been a long-held obsession of mine and, well, this one even had it in the name. Mermaid in the name and mermaid in the bottle – it was always going to be a winner in my book!

Mermaid’s Dream is an enchantingly intoxicating mix of very very fine aqua, seafoam, silver and gold glitter in a clear base, with larger round pieces of ocean teal-blue glitter mixed in. It’s like the crest of a wave in fairy tales and it is all-out GORGEOUS.

It’s also not your typical Lippmann glitter. Usually, Lippmann glitters are big blingy pieces of glitter mixed with smaller ones in a coloured jelly base; Mermaid’s Dream is made up of this much finer fairy dust in a clear base, but with a stunning super-shimmery iridescent quality too. It is, needless to say, utterly unique.

The very fine dense glitter makes this rather easier to work with than your average Lippmann too, as it means you don’t get big flakes of glitter lodging themselves halfway off the tip of your nail, halfway onto your cuticle or settling at weird angles. The thin consistency of the polish also means it’s easy to apply neatly and flatly, and you get opaque coverage in a quick two coats.

The downside is that this is HELLISH to clean off. I think I was still picking off bits of it around a month later. The foil method (where you soak pieces of cotton in polish remover, wrap them round your nail, then wrap foil around them and wait for the varnish… and half of your skin… to dissolve) is the only solution; honestly, I wouldn’t even bother with any other attempts at scrubbing or rubbing this off, as it would require more elbow grease than a thousand Cinderellas and you’re probably more likely to draw blood before actually removing much.

But it is so SO worth it. This colour is absolute pure mermaid through and through. The gleaming gold glimmer really comes through in real-life, giving the whole thing a fairy-tale shimmer. The careful blend of glitters mixed together to create Mermaid’s Dream is truly mesmerising and just utterly irresistibly perfect. And the bigger pieces of blue glitter floating above it all are just the icing on the (fairy) cake.

It’s a long time since a nail polish this special came into my life and Mermaid’s Dream truly is a treasure from the deep, with a definite sprinkling of that Lippmann magic. If mermaid’s tails were really this beautiful, I find it impossible to believe that Ariel would ever have wanted to grow legs!

Looks good with: beaches, believing in magic, not wanting to grow legs
Drying time required: <2mins
Coats required: 2-3
Chips: 3-5 days

Deborah Lippmann, Mermaid’s Dream, Spring 2012 Collection, $190, JOYCE Beauty

This nail polish was provided for me to review for my day job at Sassy!