Wednesday 21 April 2010

Rimmel - Black Pearl

It seems strange that I haven't shown you any Rimmel before. Rimmel along with Cutex, are probably the brands I've associated with nail polish (and removal) the longest.

I can remember as a young girl, probably about 10 or 11, pouring over the adverts Rimmel used to run in Woman and Woman's Own (weekly housewife type mags).

Back then they'd run a double page spread with swatches of all the nail colours, bliss! Of course this was when it was plain old Rimmel, not the Rimmel London it is today.

Unfortunately of all the magazines I kept (you don't wanna know!) , I didn't keep any of those and so I'm still searching for a copy of that original advert. I did find a fragment on the web which I'll share with you


Just imagine a whole page of this... The prices ranged from 15p to a heady 34p each

Enough of the reminiscing here's a swatch of a very modern Rimmel polish - they did have pale green and blue but definitely no charcoal!

This is from the Rimmel - Lycra Pro range and goes by the evocative name of Black Pearl

 
Shade


Sun

It's a charcoal with very fine silver/multi shimmery fine glitter.

This is 2 coats with no top coat and it's not the shiniest of polishes

Application was ok but it had one of those weird pro brushes like Sally Hansen which I don't have much experience of and I have teeny nails.

Overall I like it... Anyone else have fond memories of vintage nail polishes?

2 comments:

  1. OMG, YES!!!!!
    And the magazines. I'd love old copies of 19 or Honey from 1969 to 1973 but they are very expensive on ebay! Sad. What do you have? Do tell.
    My memory is Mary Quant in the round bottles c. 1972. I had a wonderful yellow. Probably called Banana. I loved those round bottles. And I adored Biba. Biba and Quant. Bliss. There was a fruit-scented range from someone or others. Miners? Boots 17?
    But I wore lime green and black and never never ever pink or red.
    Golden days......

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  2. @jaljen - so glad someone shared the memory. I don't have anything that old (apart from an odd copy of Family Circle, from early 70s I think, that I should scan and share, it's a classic!) I'm 10 years younger than you so started buying Cosmo, She, Company in the late 70s I think. Used to have every issue of Cosmopolitan I'd ever bought, but I ran out of space so most got recycled. I'm also a first issue junkie so lots of those from 90s onwards I'd guess, Red, Loaded etc Some old issues (early 80s) of SHE magazine, when it was much more feminist and radical and good!
    Still have subscriptions to a lot of women's monthlies but finally said goodbye to Cosmo a few years back - it made me feel too old!
    And a fellow Mary Quant lover, I have a post in draft that I should finish off. Think you could be right on the fruity Miners - they're still going and have great priced nail polish.

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