Oh yeah, and I'll upload a ton of photos soon.

http://mynailpolishobsession.blogspot.com/2014/07/cosmoprof-north-america-2014-american.html
http://ehmkaynails.blogspot.com/2014/07/cosmoprof-nalv-2014-china-glaze-2014.html?showComment=1405652914218#c7361176780957052839

omg

The Halloween collection looks AMAZING, and I'm loving the look for Christmas's. The dark glitters... The Halloween textures are driving me batshit wild. I CAN'T WAIT.

I've recently been window-shopping online for China Glaze, virtually all from past fall collections. It's funny how I'm not into a collection at all until two years after it comes out. I definitely need to get It's Alive, a past Halloween murky green glitter that I passed on because I thought it was too similar to one I already owned, Zombie Zest. Spoiler alert: IT ISN'T! I'm also feeling warm colors a lot more, so I think I need Desert Sun and Foxy, and maybe Loft-y Ambitions, Prey Tell, Purr-Fectly Plum, and others exactly like a billion I already own.

So basically what I'm saying here is that fall and Halloween are awesome. I love summer, and I think I'm having a great one so far (as I type this, I am soaking in the sounds of the katydids who have finally come out), but the month of October is IT, boys. It is IT!

Short update - Zoya Charisma

I haven't updated in a while because I lost my camera yet again; I have since found it, so there will be a spam post coming up. In the meanwhile, I put on Zoya Charisma last night. I had only worn it once on the toes during the summer I got it, maybe last year, and had thought it was too dark for the season. But based on how quickly neon purples degrade (the two Color Clubs I have are now non-neon berries), I decided I better use it while I can. So I finally used it last night, and the formula was a lot more difficult than I expected. It was streaky and didn't want to stick to the messed up parts of my nail tips. After 3 coats and a top coat, I thought it looked good until I went into another room, one with less clear light, even, and there I saw it was a patchy hot mess. It looked terrible! I had to add a fourth coat of color over the top coat, plus another layer of top coat. Contrast that with Color Club Mrs. Robinson, which iirc was easy to apply and looking good after coats. Then again, Mrs. Robinson went berry on me, so there you have it. Charisma could very well be going berry as well, but it's hard to tell.

I think Charisma got chips before the night had ended, along those bad tips on my nails. By 3 PM the next day, that manicure was full-on raggedy. Very, very rarely do I change a manicure after one day of wear, but it had to be done. The color of Charisma, I will say, was just fine. I would use it for toes in the future.

Zoya Caitlin and Essie Kisses and Bises swatch

 

 

It took me 3 coats to get Zoya Caitlin completely opaque, and that took me totally by surprise, because I remember it being nicely pigmented. It's still a lovely color! A murky purple/blue/grey/periwinkle, it's still a sweet spring spin on on the perennial autumn greige trend, good for cooler spring days or the warmer fall ones. A certain friend of mine once proclaimed that it was much prettier than "that ugly color Kelly". Harsh!

Essie Kisses and Bises is the perfect topper, and I pretty much always use it when I wear Caitlin. Weirdly I've never used it over the French collection polishes it came out with.

Essie Topless and Barefoot swatch

Lord almighty, I took these photos so long ago I don't even remember how I "experienced" the color. That's 100% my bad.

I yearned for Essie Topless and Barefoot for some time before I finally bought it, and then I didn't wear it until many, many months later. And what would make me finally put on a nude? Of course, a job interview. T&B is perfect for an interview because it's extremely inoffensive. A fleshy beige with a little bit of pink, I believe it leaned kind of tan on me like in the second photo. I took it off sooner than I "needed" to out of boredom and a need for color. I don't remember if it's 2 or 3 coats, but the formula is VERY easy.

So far with nudes, I prefer the slighty edginess of Zoya Kennedy and the... porelain-ness of Orly Pure Porcelain, but I think Topless and Barefoot probably has an easier application.

Using this reminded me of the Essie French collection and made me feel a need to rent '50s/'60s French movies. And listen to Brigitte Bardot songs. And start using the French program on Duolingo. Sidenote: French is really confusing to pronounce.

Zoya Tracie swatch

Back when it came out, Zoya Tracie looked very similar to the pistachio creme Essie Navigate Her, but I think it has a lot less of that yellow tinge that makes Navigate Her so funky and cool. Besides the silver pearl shimmer, Tracie is more of a spring green, making fellow spring green China Glaze Treehugger look like an apple green in comparison. It'd be a cute pedicure.

When I first wore Tracie, it was an easy 2-coater, but I think it thickened up a little or something and gave me some weirdness this time in application.

China Glaze Lemon Fizz and Happy Hands Motherboy swatch

These are seriously the best photos I could take at the time, blurry with indoor nighttime lighting!

China Glaze Lemon Fizz is a very light pastel yellow creme that gets easier to apply each time I've used it. Back when I got it like 5 years ago, a 3 coat yellow was a lot more intimidating, but Lemon Fizz is a piece of cake compared to China Glaze Solar Power, the most pain-in-the-butt yellow I own. Speaking of yellow, I saw yellow manicures a few times after the OPI Brazil collection came out, leading me to suspect the yellow in that collection was popular and would spark a springtime trend. I haven't seen it recently, though.

Happy Hands Motherboy is a multi-color glitter with pastel green, blue, and lilac, with comparatively bright pink. I don't think I had any application problems with it. I bought this during the very final Happy Hands sale before she closed shop. Alas! Her "Stuffed" Thanksgiving glitter was my first indie.

This was my Easter manicure, but I had to take it off like 2 days before Easter because of chipping.

Zoya Blu swatch

Zoya Blu is a pastel powder blue creme that's lighter and more purple than the other light blues I own (Hard Candy Sky, OPI What's With the Catitude). It is also a PERFECT TWO COATS. TWO COATS!!!!! If you love pastels, I can't recommend it enough! I'm only providing one photo because it looked too cyan in the others I took.