I recently obtained a sizable lot of old, hard-to-find Sinful Colors polishes from a fellow collector. I cannot properly articulate the glee that I felt upon their receipt. I'd resigned myself to never owning many of these rare polishes, so getting to hold them in – and apply them to – my grubby little hands has been nothing short of exhilarating. (I realize how pathetic that sounds, but I can’t find it in me to care.)
It's also reignited a long-held desire of mine that I have verbalized many times on this blog: documenting polish with no online presence. Moving forward, I want to post mostly about polishes with little to no information about them on the web. Polishes with no swatch photos. Polishes that get no love, even among collectors. What can I say? I root for the underdogs, and I want to give them their moment in the sun.
The one I’m sharing with you today fits the bill perfectly. I was able to find one bottle photo on Pinterest, but little else. It’s from the early days of Sinful, a period shrouded in mystery. For the most part, it’s been lost to the sands of time. There couldn’t be a more perfect candidate for archival!
One last thing: I wanted to include that these photos were taken with my mom's old digital camera, a Canon PowerShot SD750. I found it while rummaging through a box of odds and ends and decided to give it a workout. Who would've thought that a 7.1 megapixel camera from 2007 would take better photos than the 12 MP camera on my 8-month-old iPhone? I don't know how it's possible, but it is.
This is Velvet Diamond (#51). Though it’s in the newer style bottle, the low number indicates that this is one of Sinful’s earliest shades, created sometime around the brand’s debut in 1991. I should note that the “new” bottle is not all that new anymore, considering it was introduced sometime around 2003. I can’t put a precise date on this particular specimen, but I’d estimate that it was produced on the earlier side. 2003-2007? Take that with a grain of salt… I’m only spitballing.
Velvet Diamond is a light purple glass fleck. Well… it’s undoubtedly purple in the bottle, but skews pink on the nails. That’s mostly due to its sheer, lightly pigmented base. It’s shown here in 3 coats. It’s hard to see in this pic, but there is a small amount of visible nail line. Please forgive the chip on my pointer finger… I'd been wearing this for a few days by the time this photo was taken.
This is a great color. It’s glittery and blingy in an understated way. Those glass flecks sparkle like no one’s business! In direct sunlight, it’s dazzling. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: why isn’t this finish common anymore?
The Sinful is a little more saturated. This may be down to better storage (kept away from light) or batch differences; however, it's worth noting that many colors had their formulas changed over the years, so one bottle may simply be older than the other. The difference IS noticeable on the nail, so I can't call it an exact match. As people often say about eyebrows: sisters, not twins. In any case, they are clearly cut from the same cloth.
