China Glaze - Let's Do It In 3-D

Hey everyone! Today I have swatches of one of my all time favourite polishes, China Glaze Let's Do It In 3-D. 

I first fell in love with this polish at the beginning of last year when I found Scrangie's swatches of the Kaleidoscope collection. It went straight to the top of my lemming list and stayed there for over a year because I could never find it online for a reasonable price. However, a couple of weeks ago,
I realised this polish was only going to get more expensive as time passed, so I decided to take the plunge and buy it! And I don't regret it at all, because it is uh-mazing!!!

Let's Do It In 3-D has a dark grey base with a scattered holo effect. This is two coats over a coat of Nfu Oh Aqua Base. No words can express its beauty so I will let the pics do the talking!

China Glaze - Island Escape Collection

Hey everyone! Last week, the awesome Jacie from You've Got Nail was kind enough to send me the China Glaze Island Escape collection to swatch for you guys! I missed out on getting samples of this collection, and I was super bummed about it, so when she offered to send them my way, I was over the moon! 

The Island Escape collection consists of 6 bright, summery shades with a few different finishes - creams, glass flecked, a frost and a FLAKIE!!

As you can see, I tried out different lighting for these photos. It is a lot brighter and I think it shows the colour more accurately. I actually ordered an OttLite to use for my pics and it arrived today, but it was broken so I have to send it back to Amazon :( So I will have to keep using this other light until I get a new OttLite.....

108 Degrees - Raspberry pink with fuchsia glass flecks. This isn't the most unique colour, but it is still beautiful! I love how the fuchsia flecks are so prominent. However, it was a little sheer so there was still VNL after three coats. As such I think it would look great as a top coat over an opaque pink or red.

Electric Pineapple - Chartreuse cream. I love this! Unusual colour, but I think it is just gorgeous. It applied like a dream and only needed two coats. I reckon this would be hot on you ladies with darker skin tones! I can't wait to wear this in summer when I have a tan.

Blue Iguana - Medium blue glass flecked polish. Like 108 Degrees, this was a little too sheer for my liking. But it sparkles so much on the nails, I got over the VNL pretty quickly! This was three coats, but you could probably do four to get a more opaque finish.

Papaya Punch - Super bright, almost neon orange cream. For some reason this one dried a little darker than the bottle colour which I found disappointing because I adored the colour in the bottle! This was two coats.

Cha Cha Cha - Frosty green with yellow micro-shimmer. Not a fan! It applied like a dream, but I can never see myself loving frosty greens. This was three coats.

Senorita Bonita - Purple glass flecked polish with flakies! This is the star of the collection, but the flakies were hard to capture, so I have included a third pic that gives you a better idea of how gorgeous they are! Make sure you click on the third pic! However, like 108 Degrees and Blue Iguana, it was a little sheer, so I had to use four coats for these photos. 

Overall, I would have to say that Senorita Bonita was my favourite with Papaya Punch and Electric Pineapple tying for second place. Except for Electric Pineapple, the colours in the collection aren't the most original, but the flakies in Senorita Bonita make it a must-have, and of course, it is hard to fault the China Glaze formula! 

Thank you again Jacie!!

That's all for today! I'm off to get some much needed sleep! x

China Glaze Anchors Away - Part 1

Hey everyone! I'm so excited the weekend is here! I am going to be swatching a whole stack of colours today to show you over the next week. Hope my cuticles and nails can keep up with it!

Today I have six colours from the recent China Glaze Anchor's Away collection. There are no words to describe how excited I was about the arrival of this collection! All the colours looked amazing and now that I have them, I can safely say they have lived up to my expectations! 

I used two coats for each of the colours below, and no top coat.

Pelican Gray - Light gray with silver microshimmer. Not much to say for this colour except that it is absolutely stunning and applied like a dream!

Lighthouse - Bright yellow gold with gold sparkle. This one was... interesting.. and sheer... I liked the idea of this polish, but the colour didn't suit my skin tone as well. I'm guessing you could layer this over another polish, but I don't have any ideas yet of which polish to use underneath.

Below Deck - Dusty purple gray cream. This was undoubtedly the most anticipated colour from the whole collection due to it's resemblance to Channelesque. I haven't compared the two side by side, but I'm going to say that the difference between then is negligible and if you haven't got Channelesque, Below Deck is a pretty decent substitute. BD applied really well and I since I'm a sucker for purple grays, I'm head over heels for this one!

Starboard - Grassy spring green cream - Wowzers! This one is bright and beautiful! I think I have told you before that I'm not a massive fan of greens, but I find myself loving this one!

Life Preserver - Burnt orange cream. I was really keen to see this one in real life, because I don't really have a colour like this in my collection. It is a lot brighter than I thought I would be. I think I love it....

White Cap - Sheer white with golden shimmer. On its own, this polish isn't that impressive, but layered over another colour, it really shines! I put a coat over Life Preserver to show you.

I feel like a broken record, continually singing the praises of these polishes, but with the exception of Lighthouse, I honestly did love all of them! Which ones did you pick up from the collection? 

Part two of this collection should be up over the next few days.

Don't forget you can win four Anchors Away colours in my Giveaway!

China Glaze Crackle - Part 2

Hey everyone! Today I finally have Part 2 of my China Glaze Crackle polish swatches.

Let me just start by saying, I love Crackle, but Crackle doesn't love me! I did these swatches four times - yes FOUR times! Every time I did it, something would go wrong and I would have to re-do them! So these pictures are the ones that I settled on when I got fed up! Once again, I only used China Glaze polishes for this post.

Lightning Bolt over Spontaneous - White creme with crackle polish. This one gave me a bit of trouble. Two things you must do with this polish to ensure it crackles properly: a) Make sure you shake the bottle really well before using it. I don't normally shake polish, but this one needed it because otherwise it was a little runny and patchy; b) Use the thinnest coat possible! If you stick to these rules you will get a great crackle. I didn't, so behold craptastic crackle!

Crackled Concrete over Re-Fresh Mint - Dark grey cream with crackle finish. I originally tried this one over Spontaneous, but there wasn't enough contrast. I really love greys and greens/blues together so I liked this combo.

Broken Hearted over Liquid Leather - Pink cream with crackle finish. This is my joint favourite with Black Mesh. I love the contrast with the black! I have been wearing this for two days! Amazing!

So that's the Crackles done! Which one is your fave out of these three?

China Glaze Crackle - Part 1

Hey everyone! I really wanted to swatch my China Glaze OMG! collection today but it was so overcast that I knew the photos wouldn't do the polishes justice. So instead I did some swatches of three of the China Glaze Crackle polishes. 

I have been sooooo pumped for this collection! After a while, shimmers, creams, mattes, glitters etc all start to look the same, so to have a different finish nail polish is really exciting! 

As you will see, I need a little practice with applying these polishes, but I still love the final look. I was definitely doing better by the third swatch! The key to success is to apply one thin coat. If you use a thick coat it just doesn't crackle! 

And just as an FYI, all the polishes used in this post are China Glaze.

Fault Line over Fly - Purple shimmer with crackle finish. This one cracked the least out of the three, and I'm not sure I like it over Fly - but this could be user error! I may not have waited long enough for the base colour to dry, which is essential if you want a good cracked finish. Sorry for the blurriness of the second pic!

Crushed Candy over Recycle - Light turquoise with crackle finish. This cracked a lot better than Fault Line and I love the colour of it! It's like a cracking version of For Audrey! I used a coat of Essie Matte About You over this one. I think I would have preferred using a regular top coat instead.

Black Mesh over Lemon Fizz - Black creme with crackle finish. I think this is the best black crackle I have tried to date! Even better than OPI's Black Shatter..... There, I said it!! It cracked so quickly and looks amazing over the yellow base! 

I liked this last mani so much I'm going to wear it to work tomorrow! Not sure how that is going to go down in a conservative legal environment! Ha! What do you guys think?