China Glaze Strap on Your Moon Boots

Strap on Your Moon Boots is the other polish I picked up from the Chinga Glaze Hologlam collection. Well, I got Infra Red, but immediately shipped it off to Bestie. She's a pink fanatic and they'd sold out everywhere in Chicago.

This picture doesn't fully do this one justice. The holo was a bit more prominent in the sun, but it still wasn't blindingly holo. The formula was a bit tricksy on this one and the wear time wasn't that great on me. Overall, I don't hate it by any means, and it's definitely got a place in my holo collection for those times when I want a subtle holo. Ha ha!

China Glaze When Stars Collide

I had been incredibly underwhelmed at China Glaze's Hologlam collection. (I'm thinking Color Club's Halo Hues have ruined me for any other linear holos) But as swatch photos started popping up, A couple of them caught my eye. 

The holo particles in this collection are much finer than some of the in-your-face holos we've seen lately, lending to their more subtle appearance. When Starts Collide is a plum purple base packed with holo.

Application is tricky. Thin coats are key, as is waiting a couple of minutes between. I used a quick dry top coat and found that the effect diminished slightly at first, but came back strong when completely dry.

China Glaze Mani's Before Mimosa's

This is the second polish I picked up from China Glaze's Avant Garden collection. The swatch photos I saw online looked absolutely beautiful. However, this is an excellent example of why I need to read more closely. 

Why? Because the formula on this one was all kinds of awful. Thick, but runny, streaky, and not self-leveling at all. There are three coats to this mani, and it was still a bit of a struggle to get even. Luckily the color is an awesome light coral/peach with gold shimmer. Makes the application hurt less. :)

I cannot conclude without addressing those silly apostrophes. Or shall I say apostrophe's? Ugh. Did your naming people quit school before learning about apostrophes? Does anyone know if this is a reference to something that I'm unaware of? It drives me absolutely crazy. If I were an English teacher, kids would hate me.

China Glaze Fancy Pants

Today I've got one of the two polishes I picked up from China Glaze's Spring collection, called Avant Garden. 

Fancy Pants looks to be a blurple to me (blue/purple), but I've seen it described as both cobalt blue and purple. Either way, I love it. There is a smattering of pink/copper shimmer particles that I think are fairly visible indoors and blatantly obvious in the sun.

The formula was beautiful. Above is two easy coats. I probably could've gotten away with one, but I prefer the look of two. I'm super thrilled with this one. Not so much with the other polish from this set, but that's a post for another day!

China Glaze Holiday Joy 2012 - Select swatches and review

I visited my local Sally Beauty Supply this week and had the China Glaze Holiday Joy collection shoved in my face. :) (Hi Christy!) Seriously, she knows how much I love polish and gets just as excited about new collections as I do. I'll bet she's pretty amused watching me paw through boxes deciding what I "need." 

I only grabbed three from this collection of twelve polishes. As is typical of a holiday collection, there are reds, greens, silvers, golds, cremes, and glitters. Winter Holly, Glitter All The Way, and Pure Joy jumped out at me as polishes that are unique in my collection. I did something different on each nail, so I think I'll discuss that in captions under each photo. 

L-R: 2 coats Winter Holly, 3 coats WH, 3 coats WH over butter LONDON British Racing Green,  2 coats WH over bL BRG

L-R: 2 coats Glitter all the Way over Zoya Monica, 3 coats GatW over Monica, 3 coats GatW, 2 coats GatW

Same as above photo

Index - Pinky: 2 coats Pure Joy over red creme, 3 coats PJ over red, 3 coats PJ, 2 coats PJ

Same as above photo

 All polishes had excellent application for your typical glitter bomb in a clear base. I will definitely be using Elmer's Glue as a base coat when I use these for a regular mani. I also prefer the look of these with a solid color as "underwear."

China Glaze Jungle Queen - On Safari Collection, Fall 2012

Jungle Queen is from China Glaze's Fall collection, called On Safari. This polish was hyped up all over the blogosphere as a dupe/close-enough for Chanel Paradoxal (and the HTF Revlon Perplex). Jessica of The Polish Insomniac does a great comparison here. I'll direct you to her post as I do not own Paradoxal - and am fine with that.

This is a pretty color that changes depending on the lighting conditions. It sometimes looks grey, sometimes purple, sometimes an odd, dark purple-brown. It has an awesome pink shimmer that is pretty evident in real life, but hid from my camera until I gave up!

Formula-wise, this bottle was awful! I've yet to encounter one of those thick-and-runny-at-the-same-time polishes, but this one brought it in spades. Really yucky. Hopefully it was just my bottle and I'm not sweating it because I picked it up during Sally Beauty's 50% off clearance sales and it cost less than Wet n' Wild.

China Glaze Real Nail Polish Appliques - Cherry Blossoms

Today I've got the second set of China Glaze Nail Polish Appliques from my last trip to Sally Beauty. (See my previous post for an in-depth review of application, wear time, etc.) This set is called Cherry Blossoms, and features large red blossoms and dark branches on a creamy, yellow-white background. Very pretty and just as easy to apply as the Loop Hole set.

China Glaze First Mate & Black Poppy Gold Saran Wrap mani

I wore China Glaze First Mate for the Doctor Who season 7 premiere Saturday. I was going to do something more fancy-pants, but ran out of time. So, TARDIS blue it was! (If you want to see an awesome set of Doctor Who nails, check out Sarah's post at Samarium's Swatches!)

Two perfect coats of First Mate. Man, I love China Glaze's formula!

Last night, I was putting away dinner and decided to try the Saran Wrap mani I've been seeing everywhere. It's very simple! I cut off a few pieces of Saran Wrap and scrunched them down into loose balls. I added a coat of Black Poppy Gold to one nail, then immediately smooshed the Saran Wrap ball onto the nail. It lifts off some polish, and mars up what's left on the nail for a cool effect. 

Sorry about the blurriness of the photo, I was quickly snapping and didn't realize it wasn't clear. I;m shooting with the wrong hand as I've got a nasty hangnail on my left hand.

China Glaze Real Nail Polish Appliques in Loop Hole

Today I've got China Glaze's answer to the popular Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips. The mouthful of a name ChG has chosen is China Glaze Real Nail Polish Appliques. These strips are currently offered in twelve different designs. My friend at Sally Beauty Supply thinks they will be part of their permanent collection as they've reset their display to include them.

The pattern I'm showing today is called Loop Hole. It features overlapping grey and black squares with rounded edges over a plain white base. Very cool, very retro.

Application is pretty on-par with other polish strips. The set comes with 16 different sized strips, which seems to be standard. You choose a size that is close to the size of your nail and smooth it down. Once it is in place, gently file the extra off with the included nail file. The instructions recommend applying the strips to warm nails to improve adhesion, and it also suggests using topcoat. (I didn't because I didn't look at the instructions until after I was done. Rebel!)

I've only used the Sally Hansen's and China Glaze's versions of nail polish strips, so I'll share some similarities and differences. 

Both include sixteen strips, instructions, an orange stick, and a file. Application is very similar. Both have varied patterns available. Leopard spots, feathers, zebra stripes, net patterns, tile patters, etc. Wear time is excellent, and I think both are a good value if you are not good at nail art when you consider the cost of a comparable mani with nail art at the salon.

Differences are few, but I think they are significant. First is the cost. I am a Sally Beauty Club member, so my cost for the China Glaze set was $5.99. If you're not a member, cost is $6.99. I've gotten the Sally Hansen strips for anywhere between $6.80 and $9.99. I've seen them for more than $10, but I didn't buy those. 

Second are the strips themselves. SH strips are much thinner and more flexible. This makes them very easy to trim off the extra from around your cuticles. However, if you accidentally place a strip crooked, good luck getting it off without ripping it. ChG strips are much more substantial. This makes them easier to adjust the sticker if it's needed. I found that the ChG strips wore better on me as well. I had them on four days before any wear at all. I usually get three days out of SH strips before I start seeing tip wear.

Other differences are minor. SH claims up to ten days of wear on the package and ChG claims up to seven. ChG's instructions recommend using topcoat, which I did not do, and I don't believe SH instructions mention this.

After the first set, I do like the China Glaze strips better than Sally Hansen's. Both are great for when I want some easy nail art, and I can definitely still see myself picking up special edition Sally Hansen strips. I'm curious to see if China Glaze releases similar sets.

China Glaze Splish Splash and Liquid Crystal

School is starting, and all of a sudden I've gone from craving fall colors to needing one last summer hurrah! I was fishing though my China Glaze Summer Neons and realized I hadn't done a full mani with Splish Splash. At the last minute I grabbed Liquid Crystal from the Prismatics collection as well.

One of the biggest complaints I've seen about the Summer Neons is the horrid formula. Thick and thin, runny and goopy at the same time. Luckily, Splish Splash was nice and even and applied really nicely. Above is 2 coats of the bright blue with silvery blue shimmer over a coat of Duri Rejuvacote, topped with Seche Vite. I have discovered that this combo absolutely does. not. work. I had pretty significant shrinkage less than 12 hours after application. I'll need to do some experimenting because so far, I love Rejuvacote!

My index finger has only 1 coat of Liquid Crystal on my index finger. It has a slight blue to purple shift and has lots of colorful round glitter. I really love the combo.

Cloud Mani with China Glaze I'm Not Lion

I started this week with a China Glaze I'm Not Lion manicure. I spent Monday's lunch break helping DH change the completely flat tire I found on my CRV and chipped the polish on 3 or 4 nails. Amazingly, I didn't want to redo them and saw that Let Them Have Polish! posted a cloud mani. The light bulb went off and I went to dig through my Helmer to find some colors.

I used two coats of the super sparkly, opaque, cool-toned CH I'm Not Lion from the Out on Safari collection as a base. The lower cloud is one coat of Hot Topic Black, and the gold is from Black Poppy. The gold was a little too sheer for one coat over black, but I did well with two careful coats.

I'm pretty happy with the results, and if you want to re-create it, see the original tutorial here on Nailside's blog.

Max Factor Fantasy Fire over Orly Charged Up and China Glaze First Mate

This one is going to be pic heavy! It's impossible to do Fantasy Fire justice with a camera. All I can advise is to get it if you have a chance! I was lucky and won it in a giveaway. From What I understand, it's only available in the UK. :(

Fantasy Fire is a multi-chrome, fine glitter polish in a jelly-ish purple base. It's best to use as a topcoat because it comes in a tiny 5ml bottle and multiple coats would be wasteful! I used one coat over Orly Charged Up and 2 coats over China Glaze First Mate. Charged Up is a bright purple jelly. Not neon, but a true purple. First Mate is a true blue creme. Fantasy Fire's application was a cinch as it goes on like butter!

Click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want a better look!

1 coat over Charged Up. Look at the colors in the bottle!

You can see the red glow on the left and the shift from yellow/green to red on the right.

Another shot of the shift. Yellow/green near the cuticle, red at the tip.

This one is purely for the pretty. :)

Two coats of Fantasy Fire over First Mate. Not the best photo, but  I wanted to show it over blue as well.

You can see the difference in the shift with two coats .

China Glaze On Safari Kalahari Kiss and I'm Not Lion

Posting this one via email while hanging out at the hospital for my mom's heart cath, so formatting might be weird.

I went into Sally Beauty for a new shampoo and my friend/hookup/enabler runs up and asked, "Do you want to see the new China Glazes??" Uh, what? My brain doesn't think about fall polishes being available in June. But there they were!

I tried to show restraint since I'd just bought several new bottles, and I think I did okay with the two I got. Kalahari Kiss is a yellow/brown/beige cream and I'm Not Lion is a very fine gold, silver, red, and holographic glitter polish. Above is two coats of each. I was very pleased the the smoothness and opacity of I'm Not Lion. There were a few others that caught my eye, but I have others that are similar. We'll see if I cave and get any others.

China Glaze For Audrey and Black Poppy Gold Foil

I had seen swatches of For Audrey popping up all over Instagram and realized I had this beautiful polish and hadn’t used it in over a year. I had my Black Poppy mani on, so I decided to do a gold accent nail. I love the look of this mani! But…

Man, on man is application a nightmare!! I was hoping I just had an off bottle and not every For Audrey was thick but runny and very streaky. Sadly, it doesn’t seem the case based on Instagram comments and the blogosphere.

Like I said, great results, but you’ve gotta work for them!

China Glaze Summer Neons Swatches

I love having friends in high polish places (Hi, Christy!). I saw swatches of these polishes and made her promise to tell me when these came in. I had seen neons popping up all over blogs and stores, but none really caught my eye. I actually debated buying a bottle I wasn't crazy about because I knew neons were the in thing this summer. I'm glad I didn't because I genuinely love the five I got from this collection (six, actually, but I gifted one to my niece). I like that they aren't just cremes, but have a beautiful shimmer to keep them interesting.

The first polish I tried was Surfin' for Boys. It is a super bright orange-y red with a very fine silver-pink micro shimmer that brightens it up another notch. 

Picture is fairly color accurate to the polish

My second polish was Sun-Kissed. This color is straight up highlighter yellow. There is a smattering of silver microglitter to make it extra interesting.

Color accurate photo. And a chip. :(

After that, seeing them all lined up on my bookshelf was just too much. I had to do a skittles mani. They go together so well! I was going to remove it before work this morning because I thought it may have pushed the nurse practitioner envelope a bit, even if my day is full of kids and women. Luckily, my boss loved it!

Skittles Mani, thumb-pinky: Splish Splash, Surfin' for Boys, Flirty Tankini, Orange You Hot?, and Sun-Kissed

Splish Splash is a very vibrant blue with Silver micro shimmer, Flirty Tankini is a pink-y coral with silver/pink micro glitter, and Orange You Hot? is a shimmery highlighter orange.

Skittles mani with my fav bright pj pants in the background. :)

Formula wise, some of these are bears. I used 3 coats of Splish Splash, Orange You Hot? and Sun-kissed. just two coats were needed for Surfin' for Boys and Flirty Tankini. All polishes were rather thick and tended to run down the stem of the brush after you had already wiped it and begun polishing. I do think they are worth it, though. I may add a few drops of lacquer thinner and see how that goes.

What do you think? Are you picking up any of these?

Nail mail! (and I've got awesome friends)

I had a generally not fun day today and came home to a package from England in my mailbox. Tristam and Dragon arrived! I did a happy dance into the house when my son told me I had another package in the house. I literally squealed, "it's Gail's black label OPIs!" DH has decided that I must now have every color imaginable and surely I don't need more nail polish. Heh, heh.

Holy cow dear readers... I got 27 black label OPIs, 4 Sinful Colors, 2 Sally Hansens,1 China Glaze Crackle, and my A Englands. I am a happy blogger. I think I'm gonna go roll around in some polish bottles...

I haven't even begun to really sift through these

China Glaze Magnetix - Pull Me Close & Attraction

Thanks so much to Bestie for grabbing up these polishes and the China Glaze magnet for me! I saw swatches of this collection on Scrangie's blog, and knew I had to have Pull Me Close and Attraction. On a side note, the names in this set are awesome! Very magnet-y. :)

Pull Me Close is a cornflower blue base with black magnetic particles. I did each nail in a different pattern so you can see how they look. My index finger is a starburst pattern, the middle finger is a diagonal stripe, and ring finger is a chevron pattern.

Attraction has a glittery grey base with black magnetic particles. This one caught my eye because of the large glitter particles. I haven't seen a magnetic polish like this one yet.  Again, I used all three designs in this mani to show the differences in them.

I've seen lots of complaints about the China Glaze magnet being weak. I thought the patterns were very clear with Pull Me Close, but not so much with Attraction. Maybe it's more to do with the polish itself than the magnet.

I did read yesterday that China Glaze is releasing new colors and a different magnet. I'm excited to see it because it seems that everyone is releasing magnetic polishes but using the same patterns. I saw a fishnet pattern that nails inc. is releasing and it looks super cool.

China Glaze Prismatics Collection Swatches

I passed up on the Prismatic polishes in Chicago - I was distracted by all the pretty, but couldn't leave them behind at Sally's when they have polishes Buy 2 Get 1 Free. (That deal is good on all polishes all month long, BTW.) I didn't get the whole collection, but picked up one of each of the three they had in stock.

The Prismatic Collection is China Glaze's Spring 2012 release. It a collection of duochrome glitters. Extremely dense, tiny glitter that shifts from one color to another and larger, multi-colored round glitter in a clear base. The shift is subtle in most of the colors, but it's definitely there. Swatch photos do not do justice for these colors. They must been seen in person to be appreciated. 

First up is Liquid Crystal, which shifts from blue to purple. There is a smattering of silver, gold, green, pink, and orange glitter. Liquid Crystal is the most obvious duochrome of the three polishes I purchased, and is definitely something special. 

Next up is Polarized, which is a pretty silver that doesn't really shift much. The larger glitter in this one is yellow, pink, orange, and green.

Prism is the last polish of the group I picked up, and it is a purple holo that shifts to a light blue with chunky pink, blue, green, orange, silver, and gold glitter.

All of the swatches are 2 coats of polish with no top coat. They are very dense and very dramatic. Application wasn't difficult at all. They all flowed off the brush and onto the nail quite nicely. I imagine a thick topcoat would make these look even better. I will probably pick up more of these if I find them out and about.

China Glaze Foie Gras with Essie As Gold As It Gets

I recently used Foie Gras from the China Glaze Hunger Games collection (Capitol Colours) for my NOTD. I got bored with it after 2 days and decided to throw on As Gold As It Gets. I loved the effect! One coat of AGAIG leaves a very dense spattering of tiny gold flakies that is shiny, but also very subtle over a neutral like Foie Gras. It dries very quickly, so I didn't use a top coat. Look at that shine! It wore so well I was begging for a chip so that I could change it. I get so bored so quickly!

China Glaze The Hunger Games Collection - Capitol Colours Swatches

!!!! I cannot adequately explain how excited I am to have these polishes! And the movie! March 23rd really needs to get here. My younger brother readily admits that he had not read a book in at least 15 years, and devoured all three in less than a week. He got the complete set for me for Christmas. I proceeded to tear through them in less than one week as well. Luckily, I've got a friend who is a bigger fan than I am and has the ability to hold back a set of the polishes for me and let me get them before they are to be released. :)

I passed on Electrify, Hook and Line, and Luxe and Lush, but looking back, I figured I might as well get the whole set since I was buying 9 bottles without thinking. So, previously mentioned friend is setting those back for me, and I will add them to this post. ETA: It's 9:01 pm on 2/28 and I got them all. As soon as I'm sick of Stone Cold, I'll swatch and add them to this post.

The original press release for Capitol Colors named each polish and what they were inspired by. There was a lot of legal hullabaloo shortly thereafter, then we learned that the polishes would have different names. The new names are supposed to be inspired by one of the twelve districts. I like the original names better, but will take them any way I can. I'll list the original name in parenthesis.

Fast Track (Catnip) is named after District 6, Transportation. It is a nude with golden glass fleck-y shimmer. The formula was really nice, completely opaque in 2 coats. The above pic is with a flash to highlight the shimmer.

Dress Me Up (Primrose) is named for District 8 - Textiles, and is a taupe-y pink neutral creme polish. It leans much more pink IRL, but my camera just didn't capture it. I think it looks rather grandmotherly in the bottle, but there is enough dustyness to it on the nail that it doesn't seem outdated at all. The formulas of the cremes were watery and weird. Still opaque in two coats, and minimal clean up was needed.

Foie Gras (Rebel), named for District 10 - Livestock, is a dark brown/taupe with a hint of purple. Because of my skin tone, the purple shows much more prominently.

Riveting (Fire in Flight) is named for District 3, which specializes in technology, is a very bright tangerine orange with a glass fleck/foil finish. It is a little more sheer and was the only polish in this set that needed three coats. I'm not usually a huge fan of oranges, but I really love this one.

Mahogany Magic (Baker's Son) is named for District 10 - Lumber. It is straight up brown creme. There is a bit of green there that keeps it from being one of those "Oh look! I got melted Hershey bar all over my nails!" colors.

Harvest Moon (Cinna-man) is named after District 9 - Grain, and is a copper version of Riveting. Beautiful copper foil. Just like Cinna's eyeliner. :)

Agro (We Could Run Away) named after District 11 (agriculture) has a pearly finish. I want to call it a frosty finish, but that word creates such a bad reaction in my brain. It is a lovely shade of green. Similar to Peace on Earth for China Glaze's holiday 2010 collection, but much less yellow.

Stone Cold (Joined at the Seam) is named after District 2 and their masonry, It is a matte graphite grey that was fully opaque in one coat. As with most mattes it has very quick dry time. Its also generally recommended that you avoid base coats and top coats with matte finishes. I didn't notice any staining, but didn't have this on very long at all.

Stone Cold + topcoat is a great look as well. I love that you can wear it both ways. I think that's why mattes with shimmer finishes are my favorite. They are interesting matte and glossy.

Smoke and Ashes (Fight to the Finish) is named for Katniss, Peeta, and Gale's home of District 12, which is known for Mining. This polish has a very blackened blue base with tiny round blue and green glitter. This color is so, so pretty but so hard to photograph! It has so much depth, and is rather hard to appreciate except in real life on the nail.

Hook and Line is named for District 4 - Fishing. I absolutely adore the color and it hurts me deep down inside that it is so damn brush stroke-y. Hopefully I can look past it. We'll see.

This is Luxe and Lush after District 1 - luxury items. It's a flakie polish in the way the glitter reflects different colors - mostly yellow, red, and orange when over Riveting (Hello, Girl on Fire mani!). The glitter particles are larger than common flakies and are very pointed like shattered glass.

Lastly, we have Electrify. How in the world did I pass on this polish? It is sooooo beautiful, and almost everyone I saw commented on how great it was. The above pic is 2 coats of Electrify under 1 coat of Seche Vite. The surface was a little bumpy, but not bad. I was feeling super stressed yesterday, so decided to do a quick polish job in the car. Had this one on in 10 minutes. Love, love, love!!

The creme finishes were opaque, but oddly watery. The others had a flawless formula. All of the above photos are with 2 coats of color with the exception of Riveting and Stone Cold and none have topcoat but for the second shot of Stone Cold.