Face of Australia Carnivale Nail Enamel in My Island Home

So I may be biased but seriously, Face of Australia have smashed it out of the ball park this past year or two, with some of their limited edition releases. Beginning with the ridiculously affordable lip crayons that started my all time obsession for all things similar,the gorgeous illuminators, then the nail polishes that soon followed with their pastel and glitterati range and more recently their Carnivale collection, they haven't stepped a foot wrong.

When I saw that they had come out with a textured nail polish collection, I knew I had to give it a try even though I wasn't all that keen on the idea. A beauty blogger has to be brave every now and again right?

When I went to invest in my first ever textured polish I wasn't sure which of the stunning shades I wanted to get. The range wasn't short on beautiful polishes so it was a real struggle deciding what I would go for. In the end I picked the shade 'My Island Home' as it was the most gorgeous neutral shade that I knew I had to own.

First up, on a little side note, is it me or is it a little strange that the shade name doesn't match the Carnival theme? I mean, 'My Island Home' hardly conjures up the images of scary clowns, pink fairy floss and Ferris wheels, does it?

The best way to describe the texture of this is simply by imagining that you've poured sand into your favourite polish and then applied it as normal. At first I was not at all a fan, in fact, I was almost repulsed by it. I hated how it looked, how it felt on my nails and I knew it would be horrendous to take off. However, after a week of wear I am shocked to say that it has grown on me and I am almost at the stage of saying that I like it. What?! I went from hating how it felt so rough and awful on my nails to actually liking the texture (although it does soften due to natural wear and tear).

Yep, so perhaps time really does fix everything - it certainly did no harm in this case! I went from really despising the strange polish to looking at the photographs fondly. I will mention that 3 or 4 people have commented on my nails saying "oh dear, what happened when you were putting on your nail polish?" and "how did you manage to mess it up SO much?" which I'm not sure I really like hearing!

The wear time was actually quite poor, with it chipping within a day, however the chips were not as noticeable as usual which I blame on both the texture and shade of the polish. I found that the grainy texture would wear off in small patches and become smooth (like a normal polish) after three or four days.

Overall I have to say that I liked the change from the stock standard nail polish, but think ill stick to traditional polishes in the future (especially around the non-beauty obsessed folk who kept thinking it was my poor application skills that made it all textured!).

What do you think of textured polishes, particularly Face of Australia's Carnivale collection?