China Glaze Nova

Woo 2010 is upon us!  I've been doing a lot of self-reflecting the past few days, and burning my aromatherapy candle... and now I'm taking antibiotics for a sinus infection (blah).  I probably won't do anything for New Years, but I can at least have an awesome manicure!


I didn't want to take off my OMG from yesterday, so I just layered 2 coats of China Glaze Nova on top, followed by 2 thick coats of Seche Vite.  Nova is a small hexagon glitter in a clear jelly that is a little chunky and was apart of the Specialty Collection that came out this year (I believe it's also called Glitters and Cremes but I'm not 100% on that one).  Without a base color coat, it takes about 4 coats to be totally opaque and I can still feel a bit of grit on my nails. However, last time I wore this, my nail polish literally popped off in one piece during the day, so I didn't want to put too many layers on this time.

Blurred to see the BLING!

Here are the pictures from the last time I wore this, the 4 coater.

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

China Glaze OMG

China Glaze OMG is apart of the OMG! collection that was released in 2 parts - the 6 piece 2BHOT and 6 piece 2BKEWL.  OMG I think was apart of the 2BKEWL Palette... I just bought all of them.  It a micro-particle holographic with a silver base, perfect for the upcoming NYE weekend (and yet I'm sure I'll have a different manicure by then).

It's also impossible to capture on camera.  It's just way too pretty in real life - tons of holographic rainbows all over the place in a smooth finish.  This was three coats, Seche Vite base coat, but no top coat, as top coat tends to dull the shine of the polish as seen in my older pictures.

Older pictures from when I had a top coat:

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

HUGE China Glaze Giveaway!

It's no secret that I absolutely adore China Glaze nail polish. It's pretty, it's inventive, it's Big 3 Free, there are tons of colors, loads of glitters, and well their people just simply rock.


And now they are having a HUGE giveaway - all 50 of their Glitters and Cremes.  If you're a Twitter person (and you should be!), then start following them [official Twitter page].  Then, be sure to send out a message that says "I want 2 win the C&Gs @ChinaGlaze!" There will be THREE winners each day until Wednesday December 30th. Winners announced around 3:00 PM Pacific Time.  International users can also join in on this, and since many of you can't get China Glaze shipped overseas without paying extreme prices, I totally would join in on this!


I currently own all 50 myself, but I paid for every single bottle except for Solar Flare, which I received from China Glaze after I contacted them personally about SF not being available for sale on some of the normal e-tailers.


You can check out the colors on Head2Toe Beauty [official website] and see how amazing this giveaway really is.  Some of my favorite colors from the collection are Rose Tea (which is the picture in my blog header), Gelato, Flower Girl and Nova.  The glitters are beautiful too - even my Mom wanted to borrow Electric Lilac (and my mom pretty much hates nail polish).  So what are you waiting for?!  GO TWEET!

China Glaze Good Witch?

China Glaze Good Witch? was apart of the Wizard of Ooh Ahz Returns! collection that appeared at the end of this year.  The original collection came out in 2001, back when I kept my nails bare (gasp!).  Good Witch? is a pale pink frost with a very fine pink microglitter.  It almost dries matte and a tad gritty, but a top coat of Seche Vite smoothed it out.  I was a little irritated in the sheerness though - one coat of base coat and FOUR coats of polish before my VNS was mostly gone.  I think this color blends a little too much into my skin color, but it's still a pretty polish.

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

China Glaze Water Marbling

I've seen this several times in blogs but never in person, and while I have tried it once before, it was with miserable results.  I still have a lot to learn, but I did my best, and I'm happy enough with it.


I used petroleum jelly to coat my fingers, Zoya Remove+ to clean my nails, and then I forgot the base coat (oops) but I used China Glaze Emotion and China Glaze Cherish both from the Romantique Collection, and a top coat of Seche Vite.  I think my thumb turned out the best but while I was cleaning it up, I scratched the polish on my nail.  Go figure.


I still have to do my right hand, and then wash my hands well to get all the PJ off, but here you go!

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

China Glaze Don't Be A Square

I absolutely love glittery things, and the entire Kaleidoscope collection from China Glaze is glitter packed.  It's considered a holographic polish because of the rainbow goodness that the polish reflects.

China Glaze Don't Be A Square is a light pink with great coverage.  You can get away with one coat, but I prefer two.  I did use a base coat of Seche Vite, but no top coat, as the top coat tends to dull the holographic effect.

Under extreme light

One of my favorite "rush" colors, when I don't have a lot of time but want to have pretty nails to look at. China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

Sally Hansen Raisin the Bar

Today I stopped by CVS/pharmacy after seeing Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and how much they donate to charity, and wanted to check out the drugstore finds that they have there.

Sally Hansen had this display for the "complete Salon Manicure" system which claims to be a 5 in 1.

What?  Top coat, strengthener, growth treatment, color AND a top coat?  And just $7.99?  This sounds way too good to be truth.

Well, kinda.  First off, I kind of hated the brush.

The actual brush is very broad for the neck of the bottle, but also very short.  So it's super hard to get excess polish off the brush until I got the hang of it.  However, the broad brush did allow for very few brush strokes, which I did enjoy.  

Raisin the Bar is a shimmery pink with a hint of gold - sort of a light dusty rose.  I did use two coats for full coverage, and while it took longer to dry than a coat of Seche Vite, it was set within about 10 minutes.

Sally Hansen [official website] can be found at several stores including CVS/pharmacy [official website].

Sinful Colors Let's Talk

Even though I love China Glaze, I occasionally find other nail polishes that catch my eye.  One brand in particular is Sinful Colors, which I've always found in my local Walgreens drug store.  The bottles are around $2 a piece, but I picked up several at a 2 for $1 sale they were having in November.


Sinful Colors Let's Talk is a dark purple with itty bitty red and blue sparkles when you hold it up to the light.  However, on the nail, this color is just a trip.  I have a natural light bulb in my desk lamp, to mimic natural sunshine as much as possible.  It gives off a white light instead of a yellow light like most light bulbs do.  I could have gotten away with one coat, but added a second coat to be safe.  I found the polish to be a little thick, running into my cuticles on the pinkies.  I started off with a base coat of Seche Vite and was a happy girl until I started putting the top coat of Seche Vite on and my jaw dropped.  My pretty purple was turning into a royal blue.  I was using an older bottle of top coat, so I grabbed a brand new bottle of Seche Vite for my right hand, but nope - more royal blue.  Slightly saddened, I walked into the bathroom (where there is still the yellow light bulbs) and BAM - purple polish.  Okay, what?  I lucked out with this picture, able to get the real purple color from the yellow bulb room lamp on the left (my right hand) and the weird royal blue color from my desk lamp on the right (my left hand).

Despite how hard I tried, I couldn't get my camera to take a natural picture of the purple - not even in the bathroom, so I just used loads of color corrections to make this as realistic as possible.  I can't wait to see it in the Texas sun (if we ever get any) to go from sun to shade.

Sinful Colors [official website] was bought by me at Walgreens [official website].

China Glaze Emerald Sparkle

I've been seriously late on the whole China Glaze Emerald Sparkle craze.  I don't know the history of the color but there were some confused polish lovers who didn't understand why it wasn't included in the re-release of "Wizard of Ooh Ahz Returns" (called Emerald City).  China Glaze posted on their Facebook fan page that it was included in the 4 piece holiday promotion "Loves You Snow Much" (along with Ruby Pumps, 5 Golden Rings, and Tinsel).  I'm not the biggest fan of green polish normally but this just had me super happy while wearing it.  Only two coats with one base coat of Seche Vite and one top coat of Seche Vite (have I mentioned how much I love Seche Vite because I DO). 

This was a very smooth glitter in a green base, without any grit.  I hope to try this out again with China Glaze Matte Magic to see the difference, and check it against the Zoya polish that I received in the mail from their Green Friday promotion (held the day after Thanksgiving).


China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

China Glaze For Audrey

I think cremes bore me.  I got bored of my Agent Lavender and decided to decorate with China Glaze For Audrey and a dotting tool.  However, I am NOT an artist, so I ended up just painting 1 coat of For Audrey on all my nails and following up with two coats of Seche Vite Crystal Clear Top Coat.

I don't ever really recommending doing this only because you can get a bleed through of the old color and not be able to see the true beauty for what this is.


For Audrey is a play on the signature Tiffany trademark color.  However, to explain to you how little I know about fashion, jewelry and the like, I originally thought the trademark color was a royal blue, which is why I didn't understand this whole robin egg blue thing.  /facepalm


I have real swatches though - For Audrey was originally my problem child - beautiful, but horrible to wear.  The first time I tried it, it took me 3 coats and lots of crying  before I smudged it all off.  The second time was better - one 2 coats but the second coat was purposely thicker to cover up any streaking from the 1st coat.  

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

China Glaze Agent Lavender

My introduction to China Glaze started with the Operation Colour collection and the first color I wore was China Glaze Agent Lavender.  This was before I knew about base or top coats, and prior to it, I hadn't painted my nails in over 3 years.  Agent Lavender is a pale lavender creme with a hint of grey.  This bottle has been with me since March, and through the Texas summer heat, so I'm not sure how that's affected the formula.  Here is my swatch from March 2009 (which is when my obsession started).

In honor of the launch of my blog, I'm going to attempt to reswatch some of the older colors when appropriate, and this is definitely one of those colors.  (I used a coat of Seche Vite Crystal Clear Top Coat) The first coat was streaky and almost chalky on the nail, but also ran into my cuticles.  The second coat (which I made purposely thicker) got rid of any brush strokes.  I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat.  I cleaned up the edges with an orange stick dipped in studio 35 beauty non-acetone polish remover.

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

China Glaze Collection

I keep this spreadsheet up to date, and have a lot of these swatched already, but I'm trying not to to just post them all at once, and some I will have to reswatch to remember how well they worked and what I loved about them.  This is only my China Glaze collection currently, but soon I'll add in what other polishes I own.

My China Glaze Collection

China Glaze Ruby Pumps

I think China Glaze Ruby Pumps is a good color to start my blog with.  I really think that everyone should have a bottle in their house.  This is also my Mom's favorite color, but she uses her hands too much and ends up chipping polish within hours.


Ruby Pumps has come around a few times in the China Glaze Collection.  The first Wizard Of Ooh Ahz, Lubu Manicure, Loves You Snow Much, and it's also in the Wizard of Ooh Ahz Returns.


Ruby Pumps is a red glitter that takes 2 to 3 coats to remove any VNL (visible nail line), and topped with Seche Vite top coat, it shines for miles.

I also once took the opportunity to add some rhinestones purchased off eBay.  They were MUCH smaller than I originally thought (I was buying them for other reasons) but they look great on the nail!

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

My Nail Routine

Well this will be a short post :)


Here is a picture of my natural nails after one month of growing

I prefer my nails to be a rounded shape.  When I start breaking them, I cut my nails down so there is no white showing, and then file them in a rounded shape with a glass file.  I may file them a few times within that month to smooth out the squared edges but I don't always remember.


I don't currently use any kind of creams, lotions, cleansers, or gels.  I do use Seche Vite base coat religiously after a small problem with a green polish left me stained.

I was using drugstore polish acetone and non-acetone removers, but have since switched exclusively to Zoya remove+ from their Color Lock system.  It's the lavender smell that sold me.

And well, that's about it!  I can thankfully say that I don't have to do much more than that.  I used to bite my nails when I was a teenager, but braces made that stop real quick, however, I tend to bite at hangnails when I have super short nails, which is a terrible habit that I'm trying to kick.


Thanks for reading!  Very soon to come - actual nail swatches!

Legals

I will fully disclose any information as per the FTC's Endorsement Guidelines that were put into place on December 1, 2009.

I am not a professional nail tech or have formal training in nail care.  I'm only a nail polish addict, and any reviews made on this blog are only in my opinion unless stated otherwise.

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Woo Hoo!

I've procrastinated long enough on starting a blog, so here it is! The title may be a bit misleading, as I currently have a lot of China Glaze polishes, and just a few bottles of other brands, but I'm happy to share my obsession collection with you!