Product Review / Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! Elizabeth Arden — Fleet St. Plum (Nail Lacquer) Swatch & Review

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Brand: Elizabeth Arden

It may surprise some of you to know that Elizabeth Arden once carried an excellent line of nail polish! I can’t say for sure when it was launched, but around perhaps 2007, I found them being clearanced at a local beauty supply and bought up a metric buttload. I may have purchased some additional ones online, as well.

I can only assume that the line was produced for their Red Door beauty salons, because I never saw them at Elizabeth Arden cosmetic counters in department stores.

The bottle’s label doesn’t actually have a product name on it, so I’m just calling it “Nail Lacquer”, since whenever Elizabeth Arden releases a couple of random nail polishes (I have a super old GWP bottle and also found that they released two polishes last year, for some reason), that’s what they’re called.

The first one I’m swatching for this blog under Throwback Thursday is Fleet St. Plum (5600-54). Elizabeth Arden’s polishes from this product line all seemed to be named after streets or cities. I initially thought that they were named for New York City streets, since that’s the city in which the company was based, but they also have some polishes called La Jolla Cream and Verona True Love, so who knows. I’m not familiar enough with NYC to know whether La Jolla and Verona happen to be places there.

Anyway, Fleet St. Plum is a deep plum cream with the slightest touch of russet to warm it up a little. It’s on the muted side, and makes a fine choice for cool weather. It’s dark but not quite vampy, so it still looks like a purple in dimmer light.

Elizabeth Arden Nail Lacquer in Fleet St. Plum, swatch

Application is very nice and smooth, although I did need to use three thin coats to get it perfectly even. Two thick coats would do the trick, as well.

The polish dries to a nice gloss, and quality-wise, I’d say it is on par with the other salon brands like China Glaze, Essie, OPI, and Orly.

The bottle is also one of the nicest ones, in my opinion. The square glass bottle has a great heft and feels very luxe. The cap is perhaps a little on the slippy side; a little ridging or rubberizing would have gone a long way. Still, it’s a minor quibble. The brush is slim and Essie-ish, but a bit longer.

If you happen to come across one of these older Elizabeth Arden polishes, and the color appeals to you, I’d definitely recommend that you jump on it!

Elizabeth Arden Nail Lacquer in Fleet St. Plum, label

Elizabeth Arden Nail Lacquer retailed for around US$10. The bottle was 0.5 fl oz / 14.7 mL.

Elizabeth Arden was the business name of Canadian-born Florence Nightigale Graham. She founded the Red Door salon on Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1910; the company eventually became the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics company. After being owned by Eli Lilly and then Unilever, Elizabeth Arden was purchased in 2001 by FFI Fragrances, which also assumed the name Elizabeth Arden Inc. The company is now based in Miramar, Florida, USA.

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20 thoughts on “Throwback Thursday! Elizabeth Arden — Fleet St. Plum (Nail Lacquer) Swatch & Review”

  3. EA is one of those brands that I’m starting to pay more and more attention to – perhaps I’m just getting older and approaching their target age group?!! 😛
    I LOVE this bottle design – LOVE! It’s got that perfect thick glass surrounding the colour, square shape, and a nice handle too.
    When you say “metric buttload”, how many bottles are we talking about here?
    I hope I cross paths with these nail polishes one day…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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