Swatched: China Glaze Island Escape Collection

I took these swatch photos forever ago and I don’t know why I haven’t got around to posting them, they’re such fabulous colours 🙂  As usual I didn’t get the whole collection when I bought the Island Escape collection – I took one look at Electric Pineapple and decided it wasn’t for me.  If I want neon yellow nails, I will colour them in with a yellow highlighter.  This collection is a combination of cremes and glass flecked shimmers (my favourite kind of China Glaze polish).  So I have five polishes to show you today, I’m going to go from my least favourite to my favourite, so we will start with Papaya Punch:

China Glaze Papaya Punch - Sunlight

China Glaze Papaya Punch - Shade

I was so sad when I tried this polish – the formula was like butter, two coats for perfect coverage, super shiny.  Just the way every creme should be and I died for that colour but it’s just not for me.  It doesn’t look too awful against my skin tone in these photos but in real life they looked like they should belong to a zombie – really gray and dull 😦  So this one is signed off for dots in the centre of flowers and….well thats about it.

Next up we have Blue Iguana:

China Glaze Blue Iguana - Sunlight

China Glaze Blue Iguana - Shade

So I totally love this in the shade – it has a bit of a purple duochrome to it which you can see in the bottle and a little bit on my nails.  The glass flecks look B-E-A-UTIFUL, but it’s so sheer.  This was three coats and the VNL in the sun is too much to bear.  Even in the shade it’s still a little visible.  I’m not 100% on the colour either without the duochrome, it’s a bit of a meh blue for me – I’m going to try it again some time with an opaque polish underneath to see if it will grow on me, but for now it’s not exciting me much

Now we get into the good stuff  – 108 Degrees:

China Glaze 108 Degrees - Sunlight

China Glaze 108 Degrees - Shade

108 Degrees has the same VNL issues but it’s a much prettier colour so I forgive it a little bit more.  The colour is very much a raspberry based pink shade and without the glass flecks, I think it would pull very red.  However the vibrant pink glass flecks save this polish.  If I could cross this polish with Essie Super Bossa Nova and get the glass flecks from this and the base colour from SBN I would be a very happy woman indeed.

The final two I couldn’t pick my favourite from, they’re both fabulous.  This is Cha Cha Cha

China Glaze Cha Cha Cha - Sunlight

China Glaze Cha Cha Cha - Shade

Cha Cha Cha is more of  a shimmer than a glass fleck but still afflicted with the sheerness of the previous two in the sun.  Again this was three coats and there was a lot of VNL but thankfully only in the sun.  It has a gorgeous gold sparkle in the sun and is duochromatic in the shade which I adore.  It is a tad frosty and you can see there are slight brushstrokes but it didn’t put me off in the slightest.

And last but by no means least Senorita Bonita:

China Glaze Senorita Bonita - Sunlight

China Glaze Senorita Bonita - Shade

Be still my beating heart – how can one polish do so many things and be so pretty!  As you can see the sun its a sparkling stunner with a  purple base and pink and blue sparkles – both of which are quite visible at all angles.  And then in the shade…tiny little flakies.  Is there anything better? I adore tiny flakies, they’re fabulous in every sense.  They add such interest while not taking over the polish’s glory.  If I only had one polish from this collection I think it would have to be this over Cha Cha Cha just for those flakies.  Now I’m thinking I need to put this polish back on.  I need some sparkle!

What do you think of this collection?  Do you own any of it?  Am I underestimating Electric Pineapple as a yellow highlighter dupe?  Or am I overlooking one of these polishes because I’m distracted by the VNL?

Essie Braziliant Collection

Just a quick post for me today, Ive spent my whole weekend looking into options for moving my blog to my own domain and the self hosted version of WordPress and want to keep researching while Im motivated.  Still not 100% sure if Im going to do it or not but Im very frustrated with the lack of customisation using wordpress.com, especially that I can’t use Google Friend Connect or Google Analytics so I have good reasons for wanting to move.

Anyway today Ive got some swatches of the Essie Braziliant Collection today.  I ordered the entire collection back in July however when it arrived, Braziliant had been substituted out for Vermillionaire so Im afraid I don’t have that one to show you.  The formula on all of these are fabulous – thin and highly pigmented.  The only one I had some trouble with was Absolutely Shore which was a bit streaky.  I ordered these while having a huge orange rampage so I was really surprised to find that Super Bossa Nova was my favourite out of them all.  I can’t really explain it – its a berry pink with shimmer, nothing too radical but I love it all the same!

My apologies for the shade photos of Meet Me At Sunset and Too Too Hot – my camera completely freaks out at orange/coral/red in the shade sadly and I still haven’t found a way to fix it.

Essie Meet Me At Sunset - Sunlight Photo

Essie Meet Me At Sunset - Shade Photo

Essie Absolutely Shore - Sunlight Photo

Essie Absolutely Shore - Shade Photo

Essie Super Bossa Nova - Sunlight Photo

Essie Super Bossa Nova - Shade Photo

Essie Smooth Sailing - Sunlight Photo

Essie Smooth Sailing - Shade Photo

Essie Smooth Sailing - Detail Photo

Essie Too Too Hot - Sunlight Photo

Essie Too Too Hot - Shade Photo

Test #13 Result – Orly Bonder and Nubar Diamont

I’ve had so much fun sporting a bright summer colour in the middle of winter this week.  I’ve had heaps of comments and its brightened up plenty of more subdued winter outfits.  I still haven’t worked out what to call this colour though – at home it looks like a really hot toned orange yet at work it looks like a coral based red.  All I know is that I like it and would probably love it if the formula wasn’t so stubborn.

The Wear and Tear Test

• Day 1 – No damage

• Day 2 – No damage

• Day 3 – No damage, its still looks bright, glossy and flawless!

• Day 4 – Some minimal tip wear

• Day 5 – The polish appears to be starting to crack in places, I hate it when this happens – is it possible for polish to overdry?  I had this issue last time I wore a Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polish too.

• Day 6 – The cracks have resulted in chips, boo.  This polish is too bright to carry off any type of damage, it shows a mile off.  You can see in the second picture the extent of the cracking, so ugly 😦

Observations

What a bummer that this manicure deteriorated so quickly once damage started to appear.  I think I will reserve this polish for summer weekends in future – it makes me think of all things summer related – trips to the beach, spending time by the harbour, long summer evenings with friends.  Can you tell that I’m craving winter to be over?  We’re having a spring premonition here right now with a week of days between 20C-24C, I wish it would stay.  Anyway Im getting off point

So overall, Orly Bonder and Nubar Diamont rated as a:

6 day manicure