China Glaze Tis The Season

I absolutely love Christmas.  Also, I do not hope I'm offending my readers, but I do call it Christmas, as that is the actual name of the holiday.  I've always grown up with Christmas and Santa Claus, and I enjoyed it.  To those who do not celebrate Christmas because of another holiday or don't celebrate at all - doesn't matter to me as long as you're happy with it.  


Anyway, when I first heard that China Glaze was going to be putting out 16 new colors for the Winter 2010 collection, I kept thinking "Wow, that's a lot - how much can you elaborate on red and green?"  Well, plenty.  By far the longest name I've seen, this collection is called 'Tis The Season to be naughty and nice but I think it's going to be abbreviated as just 'Tis the Season. 

• Naughty and Nice: Deeply rich wine crème.
• Sugar Plums: Plum shimmer.
• Mommy Kissing Santa: Deep cherry red shimmer.
• Phat Santa: Red crème.
• Ruby Deer: Bright red crème.
• Mrs. Claus: Red glitter.
• Party Hearty: Green, gold and red chunky glitter.
• Mistletoe Kisses: Green glitter.
• Jolly Holly: Forest green shimmer.
• Peace on Earth: Olive green shimmer.
• Little Drummer Boy: Navy blue shimmer.
• Jingle Bells: Champagne shimmer.
• Midnight Kiss: Gold shimmer.
• Cheers to You: Silver shimmer.
• Frosty: White frosty shimmer.
• Snow: White crème. 

 Now, notice that the promo picture up there only has 12 bottles, but there is indeed 16.  That's because BAM:  Certain colors will also be available in the following gift sets:

Celebrate in Style Collection: Includes Little Drummer Boy, Peace on Earth, Mommy Kissing Santa, Jingle Bells and a holiday necklace. 

Merry Mint Set: Includes Naughty and Nice, Mrs. Claus and a complimentary China Glaze Peppermint Oil.

Rejoice Set: Includes Mistletoe Kisses, Mrs. Claus and a special red holiday candle. 

Cheers to You: Includes Midnight Kisses, Cheers to you and a China Glaze shot glass. 

Dreamin’ of a Green Christmas: Includes Mistletoe Kisses, Midnight Kiss and Jolly Holly.

Oh, Ruby Deer: Includes Sugar Plums, Ruby Deer and a stuffed animal. 

Peppermint Kisses with Holiday Wishes: Includes Mrs. Claus, Phat Santa, Snow and Frosty. 

I was also sent this image, even though it wasn't listed in the press release.

Party Hearty Set includes Phat Santa, Party Hardy and Jolly Holly... it appears that the "free gift" with this one is the Party Hearty top coat.  It's not an actual top coat, but rather a glitter to be layered instead of worn alone.

The release date has not been set, but I'd expect to see these in late October or early November.  I've seen Head2Toe have China Glaze gift sets before, so that might be a good place to stake out.  I personally am dying for a set of China Glaze shot glasses, just saying!

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].

Zoya Flame

I'll have more information available (and color swatches!) starting Friday, but for now, here's something to make you giddy... it's Zoya's 2010 Winter Collection called Flame.  Unlike their last few collections, this is only 6 colors collectively called "Flame" (unlike the Flash and Sparkle or Wicked/Wonderful).


Note:  This collection was originally called Fire & Ice but in September the name was changed to "Flame".


Here's the entire plate - Valerie is very hard to photograph because it's pretty dark.

From left to right: Tiffany, Gloria, Crystal (!), Lisa, Sarah, Valerie.

Tiffany, Gloria, Crystal

Lisa, Sarah, Valerie.


Now, Zoya didn't contact me directly about the color Crystal, but holy cow, it's perfectly me because of the blue with gold sparkle... Blue and Gold are my Alma Mater college colors, so I'm excited to rock this for Homecoming which as a faithful alumna, I go to.  Woot!  (Too bad it wasn't Krystal though, I would have been over the moon then.)  Like I said, more on Friday!

Zoya [official website] can be purchased on their website for $7/bottle.

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 Octa Gone Wild

China Glaze Octa Gone Wild is from their now discontinued Kaleidoscope Collection.  Dear Polish Companies... I know that 2010 was year of the neon, so please make 2011 Year of the Holograph!  Seriously, I think this was probably my favorite collection ever because I absolutely love making rainbows with my nails.  I was actually named after a rainbow - kinda.  Hey, it was the early 80s.


Octa Gone Wild is a light purple lavender base (!) with tons of awesome holographic goodness.  Sadly, I was waiting for the cool front to hit when I swatched this color and the sun just absolutely hated me.  I used a base coat of Seche Natural, 2 coats of Octa Gone Wild and a top coat of Seche Vite.  Unlike the OMG! Collection, the Kaleidoscope collection loves the top coat.  I ended up wearing this polish for several days because I loved it so much and instead of chipping, I found it was almost rubbing away?  I really want to try the Nfu-Oh Aqua Base - I heard it's amazing for holographic polishes as a base.


Here's some cloudy but still pretty pictures.

You can see just a teeny bit of the rainbows here.


Then I had to move inside before the mosquitoes carried me off.  All the lightning in my house is Natural 6500K energy saving light bulbs... I'm slightly nuts like that.  I absolutely HATE yellow light!

The base color in this last picture is too dark - it's definitely more of a light lavender than a blue purple (or blurple as it's been called).


PS: BOO nubbins.  I was about to get a manicure to have my cuticles cleaned up and my hands just overall rejuvenated and BAM, nail break.  Grr.


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].

A Public Apology

I started blogging last December after talking to my friend Jen (FrmHeadToToe) about how it can be fun and even relaxing sometimes - and especially how there is a whole community behind you.  I started out on ground zero, just finding my way through different polishes, companies, people, Twitter, Facebook Pages, websites...  It wasn't easy, but it's been fun.  I've really enjoyed the community especially.  I've always been a media oriented, community oriented person and this was just another outlet for it.


However, there have been a few bumps on the way.  Early on, I had a major disagreement with a blogger and chose a press representative's words over hers.  It ended up in a major fallout with the blogger, and while I was saddened, I realized that it was the nature of the business and moved on.  There has definitely been more drama in the blogging community that is neither here nor there, but I've tried to stay away from it, because overall I hate fighting.


Recently over the past month, I've noticed some of blogging friends have been silent on Twitter.  That's when I found out that they had stopped following me and had also removed me from their Twitter.  Today, I asked one why, and after she emailed me back, I knew I had to make this post.


I have always tried to help out, never tried to be malicious, but what sounds great in my head doesn't always come out well in the end.  That's what happened with this blogger.  I made her come off as a horrible person, and that was never my intent nor did I ever stop to think about how it made her sound.  While I respect her opinion to remove me, it makes me sad, and now worried that I've done that to others as well.  If I have offended you, I am sorry.  I truly feel that the blogging world is a community and we need to stick up for each other as well as be there for each other.  We may not all agree and while we should stay true to ourselves too, I think it can always be done civilly. 


But the end point of this is that I screwed up - royally, and I'm sorry to everyone I've hurt unintentionally.  I'm disabling comments on this post because I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable and instead, I have a Google Form where you can leave any comments you'd like - and you don't have to sign your name or be a follower of my blog to do it.


Everyone needs a little shove down to earth, and this was mine.  Again I'm very sorry and wish everyone the best.

Zoya Cheryl

Can you see the duochorome peeking out?!  Zoya's Cheryl is from the Fall 2010 Wicked Collection and is a listed as a chocolate bronze sparkling metallic.  Whatever you call it, I'm in love.  This is easily my favorite from the Wicked Collection.  


I used a base coat of Zoya Anchor, two coats of Cheryl and a top coat of Zoya Armor.  Sadly, this picture was taken IN some rain and I really only got one picture before the sky opened up and started weeping.

 You can see a drop of water on my ring finger hah.  Also LOOK at that bottle!!!!  Oh I love this color.


Zoya [official website] can be purchased on their website for $7/bottle.

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