China Glaze Classic Camel

Stay with me on this one.  When I saw this bottle, I wasn't too excited either.  It reminds me of vanilla ice cream that was frostbitten.  But Classic Camel from the Vintage Vixen Fall 2010 Collection is AWESOME.  I had to stop myself from just making this my entire manicure.


It almost gave me mannequin hands, which I'm not complaining!  Such a cool color packed with microglitter.  China Glaze describes it as khaki creme with gold micro glitter and boy, does it ever have gold microglitter in it.  


I used Seche Natural for my base, 2 coats of Classic Camel, and a top of Seche Vite.  My brush on this bottle was a bit weird - almost like a fan brush - flat.  But that actually made application easier.  Go figure.

See!  Buttery yellow awesomeness!

Do you SEE that microglitter?!


Here's one in indirect sun.

Calm, cool, collected.


Finally a shade picture to finish you off:

This was when I was seeing mannequin hands but not quite in the pictures.  Either way, this is a fast favorite - and a yellow at that... without the problems of yellow!  YAY!

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

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Claire's Mood Daring/Innocent

Oh back to Claire's.  This was another one of their Mood polishes that I didn't think I'd like all that much.  As you can plainly see in my bottle picture, It looks like "Daring" is a greyish color (and in the hot Texas sun, the bottle looked like it too), and the "Innocent" color looked like a whitish cream color.  Unlike "Calm/Wild", this was a creme polish, not a glitter.


I used a base coat of Seche Natural, 3 coats of Daring/Innocent, and a top coat of Seche Vite.  Imagine my surprise when I saw this.

Um what?  Now granted this is in the sun, but that's no creme, that's butter yellow.  The tips almost look greenish grey.  It reminded me a tiny bit of a banana, but I was going to roll with it.

In the indirect sun, you can start to see more of that butter yellow/olive green color again.  Now this was actually the next day (I applied it at night) and frankly, I had a bad day that day.  Lots of construction type work, so the polish was starting to chip and peel just a bit.


Now here's the fun part.  I went into my bathroom and ran the water.  First, I used super cold water to get the "Daring" color to show up.

That is totally a weird yellow green!  Not grey at ALL.  I'm so confused.


Next I used some hot water (ow) to get the "Innocent" color to show up.

This color is definitely a buttery yellow, not a white cream.


I turned off the water and was able to snap a slight wet but very true picture of how my nails looked most of the day.

Overall, I was pretty happy with this one.  I love my glitters, but sometimes I can love a creme too.  Again, this was $5 but they seem to constantly have the buy one, get one half off deal.


Claire's is available world wide or online [official website].

CND Gold Sparkle

I received this CND effect to review and I was pretty excited to check out how this would work.  In the bottle, it almost looked like flakies, which is my new obsession.  I used a base coat of Seche Natural, one coat of CND colour Blackjack as my colour and topped it with Gold Sparkle.

As you can see in the sun, Gold Sparkle was almost a flakie, but not quite.  It reminded me more of sugar crystals - but it really lightened up the black, which I enjoyed.  I'm still scared of full black nail polish - reminds me of those goth days.

It's a little harder to see in the shade, but this almost reminded me of China Glaze Fortune Teller (but with gold instead of orange).  In just one coat, the Gold Sparkle completely covered the nail - not making the nail opaque, but giving great, even coverage.  I'm excited to try this color over other colors (colours) as well.


CND is available for $9 per colour, and $11 per effect and you can find locations to buy here. TransDesign and Head2ToeBeauty has the colours for $4.50 and effects for $5.50.50.


Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Piggy Paint "Solar Power"

Piggy Paint "Solar Power" was one of the neons from their Project Earth collection which is suited towards tweens.  If you have little girls, I really do recommend this polish since it is so free of chemicals.  Included in my box was a business card with the following instructions for wear:


Application Instructions
* Wash hands with soap and water.
*Apply 2-3 thin coats of Piggy Paint.
*Air dry 60 seconds
*For maximum chip resistance, blow dry polished nails for 1-2 minutes with hair dryer set on warm heat/low blower setting.


I almost wished they hadn't sent me a yellow, since yellows are the hardest colors to wear and make opaque, but I am working with what I have.  The first thing that stuck out to me was the fact that I loved this brush:

It wasn't too flat or round, all the bristles worked so well in harmony.  I was able to accurately get polish where I wanted it, without the brush getting bald spots or having polish run into my cuticles.  I did follow the instructions to the letter (no base coat, gasp!) especially since I wanted to see what they were working with.


Again, I can't really comment on the formula, but for a yellow, it wasn't too bad.  Here is in the shade, 2 coats:

You can definitely see a lot of VNL but for little girls and tweens, I don't see that being too big of a problem - hey we used highlighters to paint our nails when we were that young!


First I have a sun picture with 2 coats:

Then I added one more thin coat to see if that would make a difference:

To me, 3 coats just showed the matte more (as neons dry as a matte).  However, I was ultimately pleased with the formula and would like to purchase a few more colors to see if they also hold up.  I also want to check staining since they claim to be "Natural as Mud: non-toxic, odorless, kid-friendly."


Piggy Paint also sent me their Radioactive (glow in the dark) polish but that's a bit hard to photograph in the sun ^_^  I will attempt to get a night posting in.


Piggy Paint is available through their website [here].

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Wow, talk about a throw back with China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.  I grew up listening to oldies music with my parents, so when I heard about this color, I immediately burst out in song.

Unless I'm dropping 100 pounds soon, you won't see me in a  yellow polka dot bikini, but that's besides the point.  I used Seche Natural for my base, one coat of China Glaze Snow, 3 coats of Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and then a top coat of Seche Vite.  I must say, yellows are NOT my favorite.  You can see some streaky business going on, which is typical of yellows, and really, I'm not sure how I like yellow with my skin tone.  I have 4 other yellow polishes to swatch so be prepared to see those coming up.  This was really a bright highligher yellow color though, and it did pop.  The shade picture is where the neon really was blazing - my nails just appeared to glow which is what I've found with this collection.  Glowing nails... sounds like a medical condition.

Sun picture followed by shade picture.

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

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

China Glaze Poolside Sneak Peek

While Fed-Ex is officially off my Christmas list, they did FINALLY bring me my China Glaze Poolside samples!  I'm attempting to swatch now, but other bloggers weren't kidding when they said "THESE ARE BRIGHT."  My camera has been FREAKING out, and I even tried my light box out (finally).

So here's my little preview - I'm working my way though my reviews ^_^

Pool Party, Flip Flop Fantasy, Sun Worshiper, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Kiwi Cool-Ada, Towel Boy Toy.  Poolside launches both domestically and internationally on April 1, 2010


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


Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.