China Glaze, Dynasty

One of my favorite holiday polishes thus far.  I love the warm, tomato-red jelly, the flashes of different-sized holographic glitter.  It is sparkly and wears ridiculously well. Three coats. 

Sometimes glitter like this reminds me of the flurry of snow. :) 

And blurry to show a little bit of its holographic spark..

I know I haven't been posting as much as before, but work just keeps piling! Please stay tuned, you guys:  I've a giveaway coming up!

China Glaze, Stroll

 My pictures have changed in quality, haven't they?  I've taken to taking pictures in a very well-lit indoor room because I feel as though the color takes center stage and is also more color-accurate than when I take them in washed-out outdoor pictures. :D What do you guys think?

Anyway, this is China Glaze Stroll--a polish that I found in a dusty pile at one of my favorite nail supply stores in my college town.  This is also one of those colors that I've worn for a while now--it showed up in my review for LA Colors' Addict--but I've never swatched and reviewed on its own.

Stroll is a deep, warm red jelly with interspersed irregular gold glitter.  It takes three coats for full opacity and is a wonderful, glowy autumnal color.  The polish dries to a smooth finish despite the glitter and is also relatively easy to remove in comparison to most glitter standards. 

But see, here's the thing:  I like this color, and I think it's deep and sexy, but I can't help but be disappointed with the glitter thing. When a polish is described with gold glitter, I want to see gold. I don't in Stroll--not on the nail or in the bottle.  Once I start removing the polish I can see its coloring but mostly the glitter sinks too much, giving the polish a textured, slightly pinky color that catches and glows in the light. But compare that to LA Girls' Addict, whose coloring is admittedly a lot less pigmented but when close up looks like standing under a tree with red and gold leaves.  I prefer Addict by far...

But I've worn Stroll more often.

I've come to the conclusion that the real reason as to why I've done so is personal--the color matches exactly with the color of my glasses, semi-translucence and all. Sigh. Sometimes, vanity knows no bounds, huh?

NOTD: blue skies

Accomplished with two coats of China Glaze For Audrey as a base, and then sponged with a basic white on a makeup sponge for a realistic, cloudy effect. :P Easy peasy!

China Glaze, 5 Golden Rings

Fun fact:  the only China Glaze 'I Love You Snow Much' polish that I never bought is...

Ruby Pumps.


(Gasp!)

I gave Tinsel to a suitemate for Christmas, bought Emerald Sparkle at a sale, and swapped for this while I was going through (er, still am going through) a gold glitter phase.

I LOVE Gold glitter, and I think 5 Golden Rings is actually very lovely for this.  It is three smooth-drying coats. You can see  VNL in these pictures but they're not as prevalent in real life. It is a very soft warm gold, and comes off as classy. It'd be something I would wear to an office holiday party. The first layer also goes on very sparse, so I think it'd also make a good layering color if you so wished. Very versatile polish color. Like it a lot. :)

Speaking of China Glaze glitters...


I don't own any of them from the specialty collection yet. (Gasp!) I'd really like to get three of them, as a graduation gift to meself. :) I've bought Atlantis for my bestie (hiiiii Mika) and we both liked it; I bought Ginger for a christmas polish blogger swap and it was absolutely lovely on the bottle; I'm interested in Stellar a little bit, and Dynasty, and Carnival Lights.


*shrug* it's either the specialty glitters, or BB Couture, or something else... but have any of you tried the specialty glitters? What did you think? Do you have any suggestions? :D

China Glaze, Emerald Sparkle

Say hello to one of the nail polishes that started it all.

Admittedly, I think it was RBL Recycle that really started the madness (you can tell, since I think I have about three posts of it on this here blog), but Emerald Sparkle is noteworthy for being the one that made me sit there and think, "Hmm, it just might be a good idea for me to own every single green polish that ever existed, probably."  This was exacerbated by the fact that dark green is my favorite color and that a lot of prominent nail bloggers like green polish as much as I do.

Still, I wasn't a glitter person and I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to pull the haul for this one, and I dilly-dallied around it for a while.   But when I was dragging my brother around Sally's for a tub of Mango Mend on my birthday, I found this little pretty. On sale.

For 99 cents.

Uh, yes, I bought it.

I think I might legitimately say that Emerald Sparkle is my first lemming and for that reason is one of my favorite polishes that I own--not to mention that it's dark and sparkly and deep and wonderful in every possible way. (I didn't think this when I first put it on.  It was on a cloudy day and I thought, 'ew'. This is a more recent picture and I love it--this is two coats, and, as you can see, has slight VNL. The nail line is not actually visible in real life, but I recommend three thin coats of Emerald Sparkle anyway.

One last sentimental picture before I go back to studying for finals:
 

Awww yeah.

China Glaze, For Audrey

I love this. I know EVERYBODY and their mom loves this, but I -really- love this. A lot. Um. Yes.

Two coats, utter perfection. What more is there to say? The black lacey thing is rub-ons---remember that torn up upholstery-type thing I was wearing? This is what it's supposed to look like, and then I got all ambitious and wore rhinestones.

That's right. It's uphill from here, babay.

China Glaze, Wagon Trail

Indoors.
Outdoors, shade.
Outdoors, sun.
Outdoors, sun.
Outdoors, sun.
Far Off.

So, Merry Midnight doesn't last on me: it chipped off my right index finger. I wonder if it's because I was wearing six coats of nail polish at the time, though, so don't take my word on how long-lasting it is just yet. Thick polishes come off faster. It was a relief, anyway; the coats were so heavy that my nails hurt as I removed the two. Gah. ):

I'd been dying to try Wagon Trail for a while now, so I did: it's lovely. I can't say it's my favorite polish, because it isn't--I don't think my skin tone is right for it. It makes me look sallow, as it brings out the yellow overtones on my skin. But god, it's incredible. Looks like black in low lighting---in fact, looking at it right now I could swear it's black, but it just lights up in the sun. I just love a polish with a couple secrets. (I can't say the same for almost-black cremes, though. Boo.) The effect is not unlike finding a treasure under the dirt, so to speak. It looks like a gold that's been so sullied it only brightens under strong light.

I'm afraid that my pictures do not do this polish justice at all: it's nowhere near that dark when the sun hits it. It attains a glowy, lit-from-within look when under direct sunlight, and glistens interestingly in shade and partial light. I'll try to take better pictures tomorrow, but the fall quarter is beginning to wrap up and I'm in the middle of tying together all of my final projects, which is stressful for me. (Not to mention that my roommates know about my polish obsession, but not how far it goes: you try taking sunlit pictures in secret and see if you could cover up the fact that you were taking a picture of your manicure.)

This is two coats, and absolutely perfect. It's my personal opinion that Wagon Trail is actually a black base with a ridiculous amount of olive green/gold glitter, but most people seem to think it's a dark olive base with gold glitter. I dunno.

On another note, I know that the far-off pictures changed! I can't take the photos under artificial light anymore: my lamp has finally run its course. The bulb is exclusive and I have to order it online (BOO, lack of instant lighting, BOO), so as you can imagine I've been unable to do much at my own desk after the sun sets... which is about four thirty nowadays. D: Hopefully, things will change after next week, when I get to visit the source and demand a replacement personally. I can hardly wait to get my lamp back.