Guess who's back...Back again! With China Glaze Riveting

*Sings* Guess who's back, back again, guess who's back, tell a friend....

Yes, I am back again (again!) wow has it really been sooo long since I posted!  Well I have been working on another non polish blog for the rescue I volunteer for which was good.  I have also been doing lots of tedious life stuff, life, death, the whole damn shooting match, but I won't bore you with the details.

So I thought, what says bang, I'm back.  I looked at my ever growing stash, and BAM right in the kisser!  Yep, its China Glaze Riveting, from their Hunger Games collection.  It is a vibrant, saturated, glass flecked screaming ORANGE!  It isn't quiet about it, it does need the caps lock, it shouts proudly.  I absolutely love it, it is loud, proud and gorgeous to behold.  If you don't have this, then you are missing out.  Ladies and gentlement, I present to you, Riveting :)

Jubilee Nails

Being British I couldn't let the Queens Diamond Jubilee pass by without having a burst of patriotism and doing a jubilee manicure in our lovely Queenies honour could I.  There's not much to say about my mani except that if I put both my hands together, tip to tip, I have a Union Jack flag but I couldn't manage a pic without serious peril to my camera sadly!  For my polishes I used Nails Inc Bakers Street for the blue, and Nails Inc Villers Street for the red.  I used China Glaze Snow for the white.  The blue glitter is Pure Ice Strapless, and the red glitter is Barry M.  I'm really pleased at how it came out, and I have had lots of compliments so it must look alright to others as well.  So, without further ado *trumpet fanfare* I present in honour of you our lovely Monarch, my Jubilee Nails :)

China Glaze - Blue Sparrow (Neon)

The sun has been shining (through the rain, and snow, and hail.  Typical British weather!) but I am ever optimistic and decided to go for a bright neon.  Apparently blues and neons are popular at the moment so I'm told, so I went for both.  I had China Glaze Blue Sparrow on my untried pile, and thought what the heck, so on it went.  I really like it!  It applied well for a neon, and dried fast with a matte finish as neons tend to do.  It looks a little gritty on the pics but it was no where near that textured to the naked eye, and I left it matte because I thought it looked kind of cool.  I know, I am a bit late to the 'mattes' party, but I didn't used to like them, I have been changing my mind recently though.  I don't think theres a lot else to say about it really (unusual for me to be not so wordy I know!) so, on with the pic.  I hope you like it :)

China Glaze Prismatics - Liquid Crystal (with topcoat)

Today I wanted to show you what one of those China Glaze Prismatic collection looks like with a shiny top coat, since I have read some comments online that some would like to see that.  It does make the glitter pop a lot more, but it is a hungry glitter and this was two rather generous coats of top coat, one being a standard one, and then a fast dry.  I have also tried to capture the duochrome colour shift a little more, if you look at the bottle shot in the second pic, it looks more purple than the first which pulls more towards blue.  I don't think I need to say anymore about the actual polish, as I also wrote lots in the collection swatches.

Speaking of the collection swatches, I would also like to take this opportunity to say that the swatches I did previously were a little messier than I would have liked, but please bear in mind I usually post and photograph a full mani which I am wearing, and tend not to do a whole collection in a limited time (not many good light days in winter here!)  Plus I am really busy at the moment with my work for dog rescue and have a foster dog in at the moment, so yeah, I don't always have a lot of time!

Also I have heard mention that some are put off because my middle finger nail is a different length to the others (because it got broke sadly!) not to mention a few other comments that were a little rude to be honest.  Well, I aren't going to do squat about it, I am not ready to file all the rest down just for one nail in order to please someone I have never met!  I will say however that it doesn't look as unbalanced in real life size but obviously the pics are close up so amplify everything tenfold!  Besides, at the risk of possibly sounding rude myself, its just not that important in the grand scheme of things is it?

Right then, now thats said and done, on with the pics I came here to post :)  I hope you like them of course and I take all constructive criticism on board, but please remember this is a hobby of mine, I am not a professional, so lets be kind and play nice OK?  Thanks :D

China Glaze Prismatic Collection Swatches

Yeahh!  I have been waiting for these to come out and I have been lucky enough to be able to buy the whole set *does a happy dance* ohhh yeahhh!  So once the euphoria of having so much new and pretty bling arrive in one bundle, the real test was to see if they were as nice as we have all hoped they were going to be, or is there going to be a major anti climax approaching.  I'm sure by now everyone has seen the promo blurb.  This is what China Glaze say about these polishes in their PR "This limited edition collection was inspired by the beauty and magic of multi-coloured prisms. Complete with glitter and holographic-like technology. These six icy shades give the appearance of multi-layers of iridescent color. So add this incredible illusion of color to your line up today"

The PR pics and bottle shots are all very tantalising but they are never true to life are they, so what do they really look like?  So far I think they look totally gorgeous, they are like China Glaze said "hey we have a whole vat of fairy dust and a free afternoon, lets mess around".  They have very fine micro holo glitter, just like China Glaze Fairy Dust, mixed in with some other colours of micro glitter, and some larger multicoloured round glitter pieces.  So, lots of glitter then!  Do I love glitter, oh yes, yes I do!

Want to know a secret?  I was a little disappointed when I first opened them, I thought, "oh, pretty glitters but do they deserve the word 'prismatic'?", they were not quite what I had imagined.  But after looking at them closer, I am changing my mind.  They do have the appearance of multi layers so the PR blurb was right there, but the more I look at them, the more I notice.  Things like they aren't holo polishes, but they do have some lovely holo glitter in there but it is more subtle than I had anticipated.  A nice touch is that they have a subtle colour shift that I wasn't expecting, which combined with the holo glitter does justify the 'prismatic' part of the name after all.

So without further waffle, because you will all probably skim the words and go straight to the swatches (which is fair enough in this case!) here they are.

First up, Ray-Diant - Gold/Pale Green
Micro holo, mint green and gold glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

This one seems to shift from green to gold depending on the light.

Prism - Pale Purple
Micro holo and purple glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

Love it, well it is purple!  The colour shift isn't as evident in this one, I think purple is a predominant 'shift' colour.  Since this is purple already, then theres no real discernible change.  Still very pretty though.

Full Spectrum - Pale Pink

Micro holo and baby pink glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

This shifts subtly from pink to purple.  Very pretty girly colour, not sure if its really 'me' though, I don't tend to do baby pink things!  Perhaps because its a pastel shade I will probably still wear it though.

Optical Illusion - Teal 

Micro holo, and teal glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

Please excuse that there are only three fingers, but I had a big ding missing from my pinky and didn't realise until I came to look at the pics, and its night time now so too late to re-swatch!  Its a shame because this is one of the stars of the collection, lovely teal which changes to gold and purple, and is one of those polishes you end up walking into walls whilst wearing because you can't stop looking at your nails.

Polarised - Silver 

Micro holo, and silver glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

This is really blingy and sparkly, but it is the least imaginative of the collection.  It is basically, well, silver.  Don't get me wrong, it is a good silver polish and I like silvers so this will definitely be happily adorning my fingers again.

Liquid Crystal - Blue

Micro holo, and blue glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

The other star of this collection, and the one I ended up wearing as a full mani after my messy swatch-athon (I swear there is glitter everywhere now!).  This changes from an ice blue to mid blurple to purple, love it!

So there we have it, the whole collection for your viewing pleasure.  Please forgive the slowly degrading polish clean ups, but it was getting harder and harder to shift all the glitter in between swatches, and of course my poor cuticles look the worse for wear in the end too!

All these pics are 3 coats, the polishes all covered well and the formula was easy to work with.  They did dry gritty and a little matte, and all of the swatch pics were taken without top coat in weak but direct sunshine.  These were quite hungry when it did come to adding a top coat, but not the worst I have seen.  A generous dollop or two of topcoat evened my final mani out nicely and they are now shiny happy nails.

Just out of interest, I was asked would they make a good layering polish over a dark colour especially, so I took a quick snap of Optical Illusion over a Butter London Dark Knight dupe, I think the answer would have to be a yes, don't you!

So what do you think?  Love them, hate them, disappointed or excited, leave a comment and let me know :)

China Glaze For Audrey with BarryM Gold Glitter Instant Nail Effects

I finally got around to buying China Glaze 'For Audrey' after everyone telling me I needed it!  Well I wasn't too sure at first which is why it took me so long to get a bottle, but now I have it I have to say I love it!  It is a very classy colour, one of those 'not quite blue' slightly green toned shades, but quite understated and beautiful, and I don't have anything else in my collection that is close to it in colour.  It is definitely one of those love it, or hate it colours though judging from the reactions I got, there was no middle ground people either thought it was 'oo gorgeous' or in one case 'eww no thats bloody awful'.  The one who particularly didn't like it was my mum, I can always rely on her to give me her honest opinion whether I want it or not!  The formula was good, slighly streaky on the first coat but that evened out nicely after the second one.

Now me being me, I had this on for a couple of days and wanted to change it, but I really didn't have time and thought, well hey I know, I happen to have a Barry M Instant Nail Effects in Gold Glitter that was part of a giveaway I won over at Alice in Lacquerlands blog here (go ahead, click on it and give her blog some love, I will wait here its OK).  I thought the colour combination could be interesting so I slapped on a coat.  I'm not a huge fan of crackles in general but this one I did like and I can see me using again.  It is a lovely sparkly gold although it does need a top coat to bring it out properly, but thats OK I usually use one anyway.  The crackle effect was nice and even, and it was very easy to apply, not thick or goopy at all like some I have tried, in fact it was just like applying regular polish.  I liked the colour combination of using it over For Audrey, the two colours went well together in my opinion and it was overall a very pretty manicure.  What do you think, do you love For Audrey like I do, or hate it like my mum!

China Glaze Sexagon

Hi all, I hope everyone has had a good Christmas, or fantastic holidays whatever your religious persuasion is.  Its the reason for these festivities why I haven't posted in a while oops!  You know how it is, too much to do, then too much to drink, ah yeah, good times!  I was going to do an awesome mani for Christmas day with snowmen and santa's, reindeer and snow, the whole business but alas I just didn't have the time or the inclination to be honest so I just went for good old silver capped bling!  I recently purchased this polish from my friend Chelsea who is a master of hunting down hard to find polishes, and her blog and sales pages can be found here.  It is from the China Glaze Kaleidoscope collection of scattered holo polishes, and this beauty is called Sexagon.  It is a sexy little silver holographic bottle of polish and unlike the linear holo's of the OMG collection (which I also love by the way!) this one still sparkles away with all the rainbow colours you could want without strong light or sunlight.  Awesome, I live in England and its December, days are approximately 3 minutes long and sunshine is something I reminisce about, so this one fit the bill perfectly.

Sorry about the slightly dodgy pics and cleanup, but its the best light I could find to capture the loveliness of this polish. Taken under my halogen stairs lights with no flash, and don't they sparkle!  I hope you like it.

China Glaze - Nova

Well today I went for Blingernails!  China Glaze Nova is a sparkly glitter fest in a bottle.  I love and adore this glitter, it is so over the top, and such a show stopper.  It has tiny squares of silver glitter and larger hexagonal silver holo glitter absolutely packed into a clear base.  This glitter goes on very well, and I have used just two coats for the pics.  You can see some bare nail in between small gaps in the pics, but these weren't evident in reality.  Its just with the pics making my nails look super huge that obviously it has magnified it.  The pictures just don't capture the true full on bling of this polish, when the sunlight hits it, wow!  It is one of those 'don't wear and drive' polishes because you will keep looking at your nails, and in my case giving a big fat grin too, because I love this flamboyant polish., and I hope you do too.  As always, the pics are click-able to see more detail (including the botle pic).

China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise

Today I have China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise on my nails.  This is a neon, and most neons tend to have a matte finish, but I would say its more of a satin than a matte.  I like the finish on it though and of course if its glossy you are looking for, then there's nothing here a top coat can't remedy.  The negatives of this polish was that the application was quite frankly awful, love the colour hate the formula.  Most mattes dry very quickly and this was no different, but you had to apply really fast and the drag was, well a drag!  This left visible brush strokes, with the polish not really being workable enough to even them out.  I put on two coats to try to even things a little.  OK so thats the bad, so on to the good.

Is the fiddly application worth it, yes, it certainly is!  I don't have another colour quite like this one, it is pretty unique.  I have stated before I am 'not keen on green' but this one isn't just green.  Its turquoise with blue leanings, or is it teal with green leanings, or is it vibrant jade green.  I can't quite make my mind up, and neither can this polish.  In whichever light or angle you look at it, it is stunning and very pigmented, but I think it is a love it or hate it kind of colour.  As for me, well I do love it, and I'm glad I bought it.  I may have to get some more teal colours now.  The pics to my eye are showing a lot more of the blue in this polish where as in reality I see it as a lot more green.  There is a post on this blog here which shows the different colours much better than I could manage, have a look and you will see what I mean!

China Glaze Snow with Fauxnad

I decided that as I have had darker and more vibrant colours on lately I wanted something that looked light, clean, and fresh.  Since I had China Glaze Snow sitting in my untrieds, I thought I would make use of it.  I put on two coats of Snow, the formula was OK but whites can tend to be a little streaky and this was no different.  It did even out nicely though.  After letting it dry I added a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust, and it did look rather pretty just as it was then, but I wanted to add a little something extra, so out came the fauxnad plates.  I used a konad dark navy blue stamping polish (I'm sorry I don't know the name of it, it came in a kit) and used a design with really pretty flowers in an almost filigree type pattern.  I then finished off with a blue shimmer top coat.  This top coat I actually frankened but the nearest to buy would be CND Effects Sapphire Sparkle.

I only wish the sun had come out for me, as I haven't been able to capture the lovely blue shimmer, and the sparkle of the fairy dust, but it did turn out to be a really pretty manicure that looks way better on me than I thought it would.  I even had a compliment from my boyfriend who said 'oh white, wow I'm not used to seeing pale colours, well, not on you anyway'.  Now I come to think of it, I'm not sure that was actually a compliment.  Oh well, I'm taking it as one anyway!  I hope you like how it turned out, as usual the pics are click-able for detail should you wish.  

China Glaze - Mrs Claus

OK I know this is from the 2010 holiday collection and its Summer here, but it is such a pretty colour I think it works for summer too.  Theres the other thing too, which is I will wear what I like so ner!  Ah-hem, well anyway, the polish.  The formula was really good and easy to work with, and went on without a problem.  The colour is really pretty and is made up of pale pink glitter in a red base.  I love my glitters anyway so I freely admit I may be a little biased when it comes to glitters, but this one really is such a nice one.  It is very simple, no holo glitter, no multi sizes or colours but it works better for it.  It has a really shiny foil like finish, and in the sun it sparkles brightly and just looks so 'happy' its one of those warm cheerful colours I am glad to have in my collection.  (Please excuse the awful visible tips, top coat shrinkage strikes again!)

 

My China Glaze Summer Manicure

The sun was shining and the birds were singing, and I wanted to do a cheerful really bright sunny manicure to match the weather.  I started off using China Glaze Free Love, a fabulous orange polish which I swatched earlier in my blog here, and then I added China Glaze Frosty to the very tips, a bit higher than the line you would use for a french manicure.  Once it was all dry, I used a small sponge, and sponged on China Glaze Lighthouse, gradually building up the colour, and with the white on the tips underneath it made sure the bright yellow colour really popped.  This is what it looked like when it had dried.  (Obviously this is pre-cleanup as I hadn't finished yet!)

 The next bit was a bit of a fail to be honest but I carried on regardless!  I tried stamping a red flower design at the tips of the nails but it just didn't show up well enough, the polish wasn't vivid enough and it looked a bit bleugh, so I got out a fine brush and a bottle of China Glaze Phat Santa, and free handed in the red flowers over the top of the failed stamping.  The flowers at the base of the nails went a little bit better, I stamped them using MAC Lustreware which is a metallic lilac.  I embellished these with a little more Phat Santa and in turn I embellished the red flowers with a little lustreware for contrast.  I finally finished off by using a dark yellow nail art pen and dotting the middle of the flowers and putting on a shiny topcoat.  I am happy with the final result, it could have been better but could have been a LOT worse!  It does actually look better in real life, because its smaller and doesn't show all those flaws like massive close up photo's do!  The weirdest comment I have had for this design so far is from my brother who said "it looks like tangerine sick, but no really it looks OK I suppose" I guess coming from a big brother thats probably a compliment! 

I hope you like it :) xxx

Color Club Wink Wink Twinkle, with Tape Mani, Fauxnad and not quite the 4th of July manicure!

Well, I have been busy doing all of the above.  It didn't start out that way of course but then it rarely does!  First I did a mani with Color Club Wink Wink Twinkle which like most things of a purple nature do not photograph well.  The colour on my photo's is pulling far more pink than it is.  In reality its more a neon purple/magenta with non sparkly glitter and more of a matte finish.  Non sparkly, I don't know how that works, but it does work though and I wore this one for almost 24 hours before I had to mess! 

First I put China Glaze Fairy Dust over it to make it shine and sparkle, then because the bottles were next to each other and looked pretty I decided to try a tape mani by adding China Glaze Blue Sparrow into the mix.  

By this point I was envisioning a 'not quite red white and blue', and since there are a lot of my USA friends celebrating the 4th July and doing manicures to match, I though I would add some 'not quite white' to match the other 'not quites' :)  SO I used a fauxnad plate and using MAC cosmetics Lustreware as the polish I stamped a pretty flower and stem design.  Then for the whole star spangled 4th July thing I added another coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.  It didn't need it to be honest, but I couldn't resist it anyway.  So as a nod to my American friends and followers here is my 'not quite the 4th July' manicure.  I hope you all like it.

  

China Glaze - Purple Panic

This was on my list of untrieds and I was feeling like something bright, and now I'm kicking myself for not trying this one sooner.  I love love LOVE this colour!  I can't photograph it properly because it freaks my camera out, but the colour is really vibrant.  It is a neon so it isn't glossy, but its not totally matte either, it dries to a satin finish.  The formula is a bit draggy too, but not enough that you can't work with it, and I'm happy to forgive this little firecracker anything.  Now the colour, in the pics it makes it look much more pink toned than it actually is, but in reality I wouldn't really call it a purple either.  I would describe it more as vivid magenta, but it does have a purple shimmer.  Whatever colour you want to call it, I call it gorgeous, vibrant, wonderful!  It is really 'me' and I am definitely going to grab a back up of this one *hugs my beautiful little bottle*  On with the pics, which like I said just don't do it the proper justice.

Sunlight

Natural Daylight

Indoors with Flash

Graduated Hologram Manicure - Frankenpolish, China Glaze IDK & China Glaze LOL

I had on my manicure with the Frankenpolish holo I created (mwuhahahah!  Ahem, oh dear thats quite enough of that, I shall have to aquire an igor if that goes on, and they're very expensive, Terry Pratchett said so!)

Right then, as I said I had on my lovely creation but, I was bored and decided to do something more with my mani.  I decided that since I had China Glaze IDK and China Glaze LOL sat there looking at me, I would try a graduated manicure.  It was a bit trial and error, and with only an old washing up sponge and a stipple brush at my disposal (both of them quite worn) I wasn't expecting it to look great if I'm honest, so with a bottle of remover on standby off I went.  I have to say though, I am rather pleased with the effect, and a graduated holo is just perfect for a sunny afternoon I think.  With it being holo I think it was a bit more forgiving of my less than steady technique too, which can only be a bonus.  Pics or it didn't happen, right?  OK, here they are, I hope you like it.

    

China Glaze - Frosty

OK I know this polish is from the China Glaze 'Tis the season to be Naughty and Nice holiday 2010 collection (I have others from this collection too, yum!) but this is such a fresh clean colour I wanted to wear it now.  I don't know, maybe its the pink and white blossom petals all blowing about here at the moment, but it seemed such a good choice.  Also I have a spare bottle of this lovely, and seeing that it is a discontinued limited edition polish, and may well add it to my list of polishes to giveaway when I reach 100 followers :) we will see ;P

As with all the china glaze polishes I have, this is a lovely formula and applied well, it did take a little longer to dry though.  It is a fresh white glass fleck polish, with lots of shimmer and shine, and I can see where they got the name Frosty from, it twinkles like fresh frost on top of snow.  Really pretty polish though.  This was three coats, no top coat, and is gorgeous on its own or would be wonderful underneath a crackle glaze or as a base for some nail art and stamping.  I have made a note to try this (its on my ever growing manicures 'to do' list!)  Please excuse the messy mani, I always forget to clean up before I take my pics sorry!

 Must add a note to this, I wrote this a week or so ago and have since removed this mani.  Just wanted to say, it was a bit more difficult to remove than normal, I'm putting it down to all those glass flecks shimmering away in there.  Its no biggie, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

China Glaze Coconut Kiss - Ombre Manicure

I thought I would try an 'ombre' manicure, I haven't done one before and I was sat looking at my polishes and China Glaze Coconut Kiss caught my eye.  So I have done one, using China Glaze Snow as my white polish to dilute the purple.  It took a couple of attempts, it was messy, I still have it on my hands and need to do a clean up after I take the piccies, and I was starting to think this was a waste of damned good polish.  Even after all that I didn't think I would like it.  But I do, I like it quite a lot :)  I was going to do some nail art over the top of it but I think I will keep it just as it is for now.  Next time I try one of these I will be less messy now I know how to do it too.  Well, maybe I won't, I am messy I can't help it, but I'm comfortable with who I am :D I hope you like it, here come the piccies.