KnockOut Cosmetics Hedwig and the Angry Inch Nailpolish in Midnight Review, Photos and Swatches

"I rose from off of the doctor's slab

Like Lazarus from the pit

Now everyone wants to take a stab

And decorate me with blood, graffiti and spit"

- Tear Me Down - Hedwig and the Angry Inch

In February I got to see a performance of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in New York City, with the one and only John Cameron Mitchell, Hedwig's creator. 

What's Hedwig and the Angry Inch you say, apart from a Broadway production? Well, it was first staged Off-Broadway in 1998, created by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask. It became a cult hit, winning awards and travelling to other US cities before hitting London's West End in 2000. In 2001 the film version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch came out, and that's when I was introduced to it. 

Here's the film trailer and I HIGHLY recommend tracking down the movie. I've seen it more times than I can remember and will watch it many many many many more times in the future. 

Seeing the man himself as Hedwig was a dream come true. Despite having an injured knee and unable to dance and perform as he normally would have, JCM's Hedwig was as sassy, energetic and wonderful as can be. I expected nothing less.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the lead photo for this post and the Hurt Locker: The Musical playbill - don't worry that's not a real production. It's part of the new reincarnation of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. She and her Angry Inch were using the set and stage of a recently closed (because it's terrible) Hurt Locker: The Musical. The audience got up and left midway through the opening night, leaving playbills on the floor. I was lucky enough to grab one as a souvenir. It's a real playbill, apart from being for an entirely fictional production. 

Among all of the great stuff you could buy as souvenirs at the show (the Shroud of Hedwig, t-shirts, etc) were three nailpolishes. I saw two Broadway shows when I was in New York this trip and both had nailpolish as souvenirs - how perfect! (You can see my post on the Cabaret nailpolish here).

The nailpolishes are by KnockOut Cosmetics which is the line founded by Mike Potter who is the genius behind the iconic hair and makeup of Hedwig. They were created specifically for Hedwig's Broadway run and were available in four shades, one matte and three glittery - a pastel yellow matte called Bombshell, a bright glittery red called Hedwig, a clear base with iridescent glitter called Sugar and a deep blue with teal glitter called Midnight. They were $20 each.

I picked up only one, the Midnight shade. 

I've never seen or tried KnockOut Cosmetics nail polish before, and the packaging is very notable, with it's extra long cap, and art deco inspired frosted bottle. I like it a lot!

The KO on the bottle isn't frosted and you can see the glittery polish peeking through.

Midnight is a deep royal blue with large teal glitter. You can see the first Broadway Hedwig, Neil Patrick Harris, wearing it here.

I don't wear glitter nailpolish a whole lot for a few reasons - it can look messy and can be a real pain to remove. And unfortunately that was the case with Midnight for me. The brush is longer than I'm used to and that made it tougher to control the product. The glitter can get onto your cuticles, looking raggedy and when you try to clean it up, it can pull some of the product on your nail off with it. 

Other than that, the polish applied fairly well apart from the challenges due to the glitter and the length of the brush. The photos below show two coats and a top coat. 

The glitter is quite chunky so the texture of your nails after applying is not smooth but this may not bother you. I think that with the dark colour of this polish, it's further emphasized. It was distracting for me. 

I do like the effect of the dark blue with the shimmery teal glitter though. I just wish the texture wasn't so emphasized. 

I found too that the texture of my nails got scratchier and scratchier as the days went on and they'd drag on fabric which is a pet peeve of mine. 

Perhaps there are tricks to applying glitter nail polish that I'm not aware of to make it more wearable? Please share if you know of any!

I am sad that I don't love this polish as much as I want to. Of course, Hedwig wouldn't give a shit that her nails were scratchy and raggedy looking so I'll try it again and channel her. Maybe that'll help. 

I'll give this a fair grade with the assumption that it's more my inexperience with glitter polishes than the quality of this polish.

Grade B