SpaRitual in Sacred Ground

Direct sunlight - sunset

Today I'm showing you SpaRitual in Sacred Ground. Sacred Ground was released with the Fall 2011 "Wilde" collection and is one of the most beautiful, unique colors in my stash.

It is also one of the most unflattering polishes I've ever worn. Seriously, these macro pictures can't truly portray how much like death warmed over this polish makes me look. I can't even describe it - it's not that it makes me look washed out or sallow, it just makes my hands look like a reanimated corpse with good nail hygiene! The lover of unique, beautiful colors in me wants to keep this, but the 1,000+ polish owner is telling me to give it up. I'm going to give it another try in the summer when I have a tan, but I have a sinking feeling that won't help. I've read Sacred Ground described multiple times as having a brown-grey base. I don't know if there are batch discrepancies, but the bottle I own has a cool, dusty purple-blue-leaning grey base - like a lighter, more greyed, dustier version of Zoya in Kelly. The base is  a creme, but it is packed with shimmer - purple, pink, blue, silver, gold, so that it looks like a smooth pebble speckled with mica. Most of the shimmer is uniform in size, like a traditional shimmer pigment, but the gold shimmer is small flake-type shimmer.

Application of this polish was wonderful. I used 2 thin coats that went exactly where I wanted them to. SpaRituals have a rather thin brush, but I think it really works with the formula.

SpaRitual is a totally underrated brand in my opinion. Their bottles are beautiful, despite my preference for angular bottles since they line up so nicely. The cap is rubberized but doesn't attract dust like Nars's caps. It has grippy ridges and is ergonomic. SpaRitual does retail for $10, which doesn't make me particularly happy, but they have some gorgeous colors. There are two downsides to the brand; one, they are owned by Orly, so you have to be careful as they do have dupes between brands, and two, they aren't readily available in brick-and-mortar stores (the only place I know of that carries SpaRitual is Aveda/Juut salons, and they have a limited selection).

My camera really wanted to make Sacred Ground look more grey than it is, so I took these over about a week to get color-accurate shots, and some of these pictures have a bit of tipwear because they were taken at 5 days of wear. 

Worn November 1 - 5, 2012.

Indirect natural light

Direct flash

Direct sunlight - sunset

Indirect natural light

This last picture isn't really color accurate but shows off the shimmer particularly well:

Indirect natural light

Most blog pictures I've seen make this polish look much warmer or, alternatively, more grey than it is on me. The most color-accurate swatches I've seen are from The Crystal Files and The PolishAholic. Scrangie, Polish Wasteland (second photo), and Polish or Perish. Nails and Noms shows the color accurately, but makes the polish look like an all flake-particle polish, instead of a creme-based shimmer-packed polish. Actually, most pictures show this more shimmery than it is. In real life, the polish is filled with shimmer, but it is clear that it's in a creme base.

So what do you think of Sacred Ground? Are you a fan of SpaRitual?