China Glaze - Kaleidoscope Collection - 4 Swatches

Good morning everyone! Today I'll be showing you 4 polishes from one of the most popular (and hard-to-find) China Glaze collections, the Kaleidoscope Collection.

2 of these polishes are mine and 2 of them belong to my friend Emma who let me swatch them for your viewing pleasure! (And also so I could decide if I wanted to get them for myself.)

I'll show you the two I do own first. (My favorites!)

China Glaze - He's Going In Circles
This was the first Kaleidoscope I felt I needed and an amazing friend, Laurie, got it for me for my birthday!
(You may remember Laurie from her guest posts here and here - she won't be needing anymore though because she's just started her own blog! Check her out at Dressed Up Digits.)
He's Going In Circles is a light seafoamy green scattered holo, and I adore it. The color is so "me" and the holo effect in these polishes is unlike any other holos, it's scattered and sparkly and pretty. I love it!


Before I go on to the other polishes, I'll tell you where they came from.
Another great friend, Chelsea from Pretty and Polished, does a lot of dusty hunting. She finds beauties like these and other Kaleidoscope/OMG polishes and she sells them on her blog for really great prices.
Not only does she sell hard-to-find polishes, she sells her own custom frankens too!
Check out her Etsy store here, she has amazing polishes! I have 3 of those babies to show you and I hope to swatch them soon!

Okay, after that name dropping, we are ready for the other 3 polishes.

China Glaze - How About A Tumble
This one is a beauty, too. I thought I only needed the green one, but then I saw this one! It's a pretty pink shade, purple-toned. Yum yum yum.

China Glaze - Don't Be A Square
This is another pink but a more salmon-colored pink. This one is lovely, they're pretty much all lovely.
The formula on all of these is good too, 3 coats but they apply really easily.

China Glaze - Kaleidoscope Him Out
This is probably my favorite name from the collection! It sounds like a pun OPI would use. This color is also lovely, it's a light blue with the same pretty sparkly scattered holo.

There are 8 more colors from this collection that neither myself or my friend have, so I don't know if I will ever show you more of them. Maybe someday I'll buy a few more. There are more pretty ones!
(But I am not going to get all 12 like I did with OMG. My wallet can't handle that.)

Super Bass = Super Fail

Hey everyone! Today I'm going to show you something I probably wouldn't normally show - a random NOTD (nail-of-the-day) that I did last week when I was in a hurry. It's not impressive or particularly appealing in photos but then I tried to add something which just did not work. And for that reason, you need to see this.

This is one coat of China Glaze - 2030 and one coat of OPI - Bring On The Bling.
Just a simple, quick gold mani that looks nice in person but sort of gritty in these photos.
I like it because it matches these OPI cosmetic bags I have:

Cute, right?
So I wore this mani just for a day and when I was ready for something new I decided to add the latest shatter that OPI has come out with, OPI - Super Bass Shatter from the Nicki Minaj collection.
And it just did not work. I'm pretty baffled.

It cracked a bit on my index and middle finger but then it just stopped doing anything.
Nothing. Just a coat of pinky red polish. Nadda.
So weird right?

Most pictures I've seen of Super Bass look awesome! I thought it was going to crack really well! But then this happened.
I need to try it again because I really like the color.

Do you have Super Bass? Does it work? I'm curious!
I'm going to be singing that song for the rest of the day.
Boom boom boom boom....

Backstage Pass armor mani!

Hey everyone! I wasn't sure what to call this mani and I decided on armor because my nails looked like they were wearing glittery armor! Wanna see what I did?

Little glittery coats of armor. You might remember I posted swatches of Color Club's Backstage Pass Collection a few weeks ago, and I mentioned wanting to do this with the collection's namesake, Backstage Pass.

If you want to acheive this look, you need lots of patience.
I was home alone one night with lots of time to spare, so I broke out this polish, a toothpick, and I went for it!
You actually have to arrange the glitters one by one onto your nails.
I found it easiest to put a thin coat on the nail to give the glitters something to stick to, and then blob the polish onto some paper and pick up the glitters a few at a time with a toothpick. (That way, you don't get a ton of clear polish onto your nails and it won't be so thick and hard to dry.)

It can be difficult to get the glitter all the way to the edge so I filled in any big gaps at the tip or sidewalls with silver polish. (You can really notice the silver in the photos but in person it's pretty invisible.)

I needed like 4 coats of topcoat before I had no bumps.

I really loved this look - it was ridiculously shiny and blingy. It looked like those Minx nail appliques that were all the rage a few months ago. I really wanted to keep this mani on for a long time but I found that the edges were poking out after a day or so, so I had to take it off.

What do you guys think? Would you do this, or am I totally insane? (Don't answer that last one.)

Glitter Gal leopard nail art!

Good morning everyone! Today I'm going to show you some nail art I did with my first Glitter Gal polishes back in November that I never got around to posting until now! (I'm bad sometimes.)
(Okay, a lot of times.)

Holo leopard! It can be tricky to come up with nail art involving holo (because the holo sort of takes over) but I think I succeeded with this one!

For this mani I started with 1 coat of Glitter Gal Black 3D/Holo.
Using a-england Excalibur (a silver foil, also available from llarowe) I did some freehand leopard print with a very small brush.
It needed an extra pop of holo so I added a thin coat of Glitter Gal Silver 3D/Holo!

In low light, the holo washes away and you just see the leopard print! It was a pretty cool mani.

As always, Glitter Gal is available from llarowe, and so is a-england.
Click here to go back through all my GG posts and see swatches for a whole bunch of their polishes!

China Glaze - Martini Pedicure

Good morning! Today I have a great polish to show you. I picked up this baby from a blog sale because the ones on eBay were more expensive than I would like. (Sadly the bottle I bought was not full but I got it for like $5 shipped so I can deal.)
This is now one of my favorite polishes!

China Glaze - Martini Pedicure
Ah yes, another oldie-but-goodie from China Glaze.

I really think Martini Pedicure and Tequila Toes were some of the best collections that China Glaze released. I've got five polishes from the two collections - No Way Jose, 100 Proof Pink, Drinkin' My Blues Away, Shaken Not Stirred, and of course, Martini Pedicure.
(I'd still like Martini Lunch & Sass In A Glass & On The Rocks & It's 5 O'clock Somewhere... Currently accepting donations of them... Ha!)

This is a turquoisey-blue glassfleck shimmer polish, again with that white-silver shimmer that most of the polishes from these collections have.
This one is a bit sheer, I think this is 4 coats. I don't care about doing 4 coats when it's this pretty.

This is too cute. I wish I had a backup. Or at least a full bottle... Ha!

Enlarge that last photo. You should see it up close.

Do you have any of these old school CG polishes? Know of any that I should have but don't? :)

old school tattoo mani

Hey guys! I know I've been slacking on the nail art lately, so hopefully today's post can make up for some of that! Because this is probably one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Let's get right to it!

Boom! Old school tattoo style! I'm still wearing this mani right now and I can't stop staring at my nails.

I even managed to do it on my right hand! (Aligning all those stamps is tricky!)
This hand isn't as good though so here are some more photos of the other hand.

The base color for this manicure is Color Club - Nomadic In Nude from the Back To Boho collection.
(I previously stated that this was a dupe for Lippmann's Waking Up In Vegas but I have since learned that while they are dupes in the bottle, the Lippmann dries much darker.)
This is my favorite nude! I chose a nude base so it would look like black tattoo work on skin.

I used a whole bunch of different plates for this look. I'll try to list them all:
-Konad Q1 (sparrows, leopard print on thumb, some of the stars, lightning bolt)
-Konad m3 (stars)
-Bundle Monster BM-12 (spider web, some stars)
-Bundle Monster BM-206 (nautical star)
The diamond, rose, second web, and some stars all came from faux-nad plates from eBay.

You can't see this side of my thumb in the other photos, but this awesome guitar is from a Nail Art Diva plate. Their website is not working right now so I don't know what the plate is called and in advance - no, I can't get anymore of this plate, but if the website were working I think you could order it there.

I dotted into some of the empty spaces with a toothpick just to bring the whole thing together.
All my stamping was done with Wet N Wild Black Creme.

Apart from this being just a really cool mani, there happens to be a special reason behind it.
A lovely lady I met in the polish community, Brenda, has a very sick daughter, Dyan. Several of us have decided to create manicures showcasing Dyan's favorite things in hopes they will help raise Dyan's spirits in her recovery and let her know that we all love her and are thinking about her. Dyan loves tattoos so I came up with a tattoo mani!
Dyan is recovering miraculously and I wish her all the best in her journey back to health!
You can check out more "Team Dyan" manicures on Sonoma Nail Art and Polish Ninja.
I'll add more links here as they are posted.

Color Club - Beyond The Mistletoe Collection - swatches and review

Hey guys! Two Color Club posts in a row from yours truly.

Beyond The Mistletoe is Color Club's 2011 holiday collection. It consists of 6 glitters and a topcoat.
These glitters are different from Backstage Pass because the glitter is all smaller and not a pain to apply!
However... these babies are hungry. And what I mean by that is they love to just eat up your topcoat.
You put on topcoat, it's okay for an hour or so, and suddenly, your nails are gritty again! I don't understand why some glitters do that but boy, these do. Adding another coat or two usually solves it. No big deal.

Before I show you these swatches I want to show you an awesome post another blogger did with these polishes.
The Edge Of Sanity swatched them here, in two ways: alone (full coverage) and over the shades from the Foiled collection. These glitters pretty much match up exactly with Foiled. It's awesome.
So check out her swatches for full-coverage and layering over Foiled, and check out mine for layering over some cremes!

Color Club - Beyond The Mistletoe (over Zoya Kristen)
Do you like my homemade labels? Ha! I've done this will all of my unlabeled sets because I recently stopped storing them in their boxes and just put them in a drawer (I had to save room!)
This one is mostly blue glitter with holographic glitter as well. This one seems to be the most holo-packed out of all of them. It's really cute and wintery, especially over a blue like Kristen!

Color Club - Holiday Splendor (over Essence You Belong To Me)
I'm showing this one pretty differently than most people do but I really like how this looks over the mint-colored creme of the Essence polish. This one can be worn alone because there is a green jelly base but when you layer it, it ends up being a bit neon!
Not quite sure if the glitter is silver or green (or both) because it's hard to tell through the green tint. There is also some holo glitter.
If you've been lemming China Glaze Atlantis, pick this one up, because they are nearly identical. This one is lighter and Altantis leans more teal, but they are super close.

Color Club - Sugarplum Fairy (over Zoya Kendal)

This one is lavender glitter and holo glitter. Makes a really cute combo over this lavender polish. This one is probably my second favorite in the collection!

Color Club - Gingerbread (over Zoya Megan)

Gold glitter + holo glitter. Not as holo as the others. I'm a sucker for a good gold glitter and this one works. I like it.

Color Club - Candy Cane (over Zoya Audrina)

I. Love. This. Glitter. And I love this combo too. A whoooole lot.

Pink glitter and a little bit of holo glitter. This one is my favorite.

I wore this over its matching Foiled shade, Hot Like Lava once:

I got so many compliments on this mani and a ton of girls asked me what polish I was wearing. 

Which made for some awkward moments when the conversations went like this:

"Actually it's two polishes... Color Club... Yes that's the brand... You can get them at Winners sometimes but only in sets of 7... And I think they're sold out... Yes you'd need both sets... But you can get them online alone..."

Eventually it ends with weird looks and me feeling like a crazy person. 

Color Club - Jingle Jangle (over black)

I've shown you this combo before when I wore it as a mani and decided to reuse the photos. I'm lazy sometimes.

This is shades of blue and purple glitter in a clear base and maybe a pinch of holo. 

This one gives a really cool look and I want to layer it over a purple because I bet it would be rad!

Overall this collection is awesome and glitter lovers will especially adore it. There's not one I don't like. Good job Color Club!

That's another Color Club collection down! How many have I swatched now I wonder? 

Sad thing is, I'd love to have more!

(Can't wait for their spring collection...)