Christmas Manis and Top Polishes of the Year

First, an end of the year recap:

One of my favorite new polishes this year was Zoya Rebel, a sky blue shimmer that I only got to wear for a single day because I suddenly had a job interview scheduled the next day. This color made me sooo happy to look at, and it was a pleasure to apply. Other favorite blues was the not-new Zoya Blu (powder blue, dream formula!!! unbelievable for such a pale pastel), Essie In the Cab-Ana (bright pool liner blue, super summery), and China Glaze So Blue Without You (bright blue foil, gorgeous, but stains like a mutha).

I loved funky greens this year: Urban Outfitters Gotta Have It (you really do gotta have it), China Glaze Highlight of My Summer, China Glaze Be More Pacific, Finger Paints Margarita Mambo, and China Glaze It's Alive! I believe I was also a fan of China Glaze Grass is Lime Greener and China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard.

My favorite collections were China Glaze's Spring Flourish and Crinkled Chrome. I may very well be the only person in the world to say either. I got all the Crinkled Chromes I saw on clearance (use two coats and apply a top coat to prevent chips; the aluminum foil texture will stay intact). I eventually got almost all of the Spring Flourishes besides the ones that weren't ultra bright. My favorite was Lotus Begin; I went nuts over it. I was also a huge fan of Spring in My Step, a peachy-pink I believe China Glaze will come very close to replicating a few times during their 2015 spring collection.

And assorted: OPI Do You Have this Color in Stock-holm? and Snow Globetrotter.

Other older ones: China Glaze High Hopes (electric guava, perfect formula), OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ (finally I swatched this! my new favorite vamp, and it doesn't require 2 coats, praise), and Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Diamonds and Rubies (easy and opaque, perfect retro red).

And dun-dun-dun, favorite indies: KBShimmer Pine-ing for Yule (sure to be a Christmas favorite for years to come) and Sand in My Stocking (a summer fave, despite being a Christmas glitter). Speaking of...

Christmas manis:

China Glaze Phat Santa
I know you love my indoor, nighttime, flash-lighting photo. This is pretty color-accurate. A much darker red than SH Diamonds & Rubies, but still glamorous. I was very frustrated to find that it requires 3 coats, but the application wasn't difficult, and now I find the 3 coats tolerable.
 

  
OPI Christmas Gone Plaid topped with Urban Outfitters Champagne Toast
 Christmas Gone Plaid is a very dark cool green, I daresay a bit too dark for me. Champagne Toast is a glitter topper with white in varying sizes and large gold. The gold sometimes sticks out, so I would use two layers of top coat next time. I was going through a "evergreen with popcorn garland" look, and I believe I accomplished that.

Jindie Nails Candy Cane
Sheer white with red and green glitter.  I used 3 coats on most nails, but my right middle and ring have 4. You may notice that those look the most white. Next time I would layer this over a white polish. A white polish may require as many coats to get looking decent, but I would rather have that than covering up the glitter. I would prefer a glitter topper in a clear base, but overall it was a really cute peppermint bark look, even though some of the nails looked more pink up close.

Jindie Nails Noel over China Glaze Holly-Day
Noel is micro glitter in red, white, and sparkly light green, easy to apply. Holly-Day is a comfortably dark green creme that needed 2-3 coats. Together they were a subtle, but suitable Christmas look. I associate this manicure with a failed attempt to have an ultra-Christmasy night out. Nothing went my way! I missed out on the hours that the Willard Hotel sold their amazing mulled wine (it is pure heaven that cannot be explained), the White House Christmas tree was fricking turned off by the time I got there (what the frick!), and the Four Seasons hotel bar did NOT stud the orange peel in my drink with cloves. Those cloves were the reason I ordered it! None of the drinks I ordered that night were worth the luxury-level prices, but the one my friend got at the Four Seasons was. Of course now I can't remember what the name of it was, but it was a dessert, and it was luxurious.

Wet 'n' Wild 2% Milk
Another gorgeous nighttime indoor photo. This was for another job interview. Whether or not I got it is still up in the air.  3 coats, and the streaks were pretty minimal for a sheer. My bottle leans towards beige, I believe, and it comes out as lighter and brighter than my natural nail color, though conservatively so.

My go-to Christmas manicure! OPI In My Santa Suit with silver stripes (Sally Hansen striper), China Glaze Jolly Holly and Mingle with the Kringle topped with Party Hearty. The OPI and the gold are among my favorite polishes, Party Hearty is something I use every single year, I love the wrapping paper look it has over the gold here, I love the candy cane look, aaaaand I need to use Jolly Holly way more this season because it is a wintry green that does NOT look black under any light.

Zoya Ginessa (silver shimmer that is a lovely sheer at 1 coat, and completely opaque at 2) topped with KB Shimmer Pine-ing for Yule. PfY, which was a Christmas gift, has smaller red stars, holographic green triangles, and holo silver glitter in various sizes. Two layers of top coat made the pointy edges not stick out off of the nail. This was worn post-Christmas during NYE, because guess what? That's still the Christmas season. I loved it. Another KBShimmer I received for Christmas and wore the weekend after the holiday was All Decked Out; next time I would layer that over another green, because it requires many coats for an even, opaque color, and use two layers of top coat.

China Glaze Peace on Earth topped with Urban Outfitters Midnight KissPeace on Earth, a Christmas gift, is a metallic shimmer that varies between bronze and olive. Easy formula. It feels very similar to the base color of all those Chanel Peridot types from recent times. Midnight Kiss is glitter topper with gold hexes and holographic silver shards. The mixed metal was a good combo with the warm tone of Peace on Earth, and the two together are carrying on a holiday festiveness (both are holiday polishes) without being too overt.

Summer Swatchez pt. 1

Hey, I have a bunch of swatches! Starting off is Essie Playa Del Platinum with KbShimmer Sand in My Stocking. This is the exactly glitzy sand look I'd been going for. I thought it was pretty blingy, but not one commented, so maybe not.

Playa Del Platinum is considered to be a "weird" putty color, but it looked very neutral and safe on me. I found it to be a flattering shade. It was 3 easy coats.

Sand in My Stocking is a completely unique glitter that captures the beachy feel so accurately with exactly the right combination of colors and matte and shine. The glitter looks intimidatingly dense in the bottle, but went on with a moderate amount. I easily glitzed it up with one or two swishes.

Hey, thurr's my foot.

There are a few holographic gold star sequins in Sand in My Stocking, and they mostly came out on the nails on my right hand.

China Glaze Grass is Lime Greener topped with Urban Outfitters Yellow. The UO is a satin neon yellow glitter, a highlighter shade, not the warm, sunny color that's appearing in the photo. The effect in person was subtler, like scales on a reptile. Grass is Lime Greener appeared more of a neon spring green, slightly pistachio, before applying glitter and top coat. The neon glitter made it a look a little more lime. It's very bright! I'm looking at the bottle of it right now next to China Glaze Be More Pacific; they look nearly identical in this night time, indoor lighting, but they are NOT in reality. If I remember correctly, GiLG is more spring green, and BMP is more Shrek.

The formula for the UO glitter was very, very easy and smooth. Grass is Lime Greener took three coats, and more easily goes sloppy along the edges.

China Glaze Highlight of My Summer with Nicole By OPI Pitch Black Glimmer. Highlight of My Summer is a neon mint that I'd been craving since last summer. It sold out in Ulta right away! I think I used two coats. It was no problem at all. Of course it made me think of mint chocolate chip, so my beloved black (and silver) glitter was added. I wore Highlight of My Summer for a while as a pedicure, and it was pretty damn bright.

I heard someone online compare it with American Apparel Parakeet (which I just bought! still untried); Parakeet is much darker and more... tropical.

I believe this is a comparison with Be More Pacific. Nope, not alike.

Essie Splash of Grenadine is a myrtle purple-pink! It is the exact same color. The very first time I tried Splash of Grenadine, I wasn't a fan, but this time I really liked it. I chose it specifically because the flowers were in bloom. It may have used 3 coats, but the formula was easy. The first time I used it, I don't think I found it so easy.

Zoya Destiny, coral glitter texture. Classic!

I've seen comments wondering if it was too similar to Zoya Dhara. Nope! (Dhara is also a new purchase, untried. So pumpkin spice!)

Old China Glaze Flip-Flop Fantasy versus the new. The new is obviously much more peach, and less intensely bright. It's also much easier to apply.

On that note, if you want the old FFF, I highly recommend China Glaze Thistle Be the Day. It's more pink, but very, very similar. It's extremely bright, though not as "dear god, my eyes!" as FFF.

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.

China Glaze Spring in My Step swatch

GASP! A CHIP!

Neighbor's magnolia

It's a color match, right?

China Glaze Spring in My Step --from the spring 2014 City Flourish collection-- is a light peachy pink creme that probably looks better on me than any other light pink I own. I really, really like it. After 3 coats, I believe it had some patchiness, but it doesn't look like it appeared in on camera. I topped it with Essie Kisses and Bises, which adds a pink shimmer, but the camera doesn't capture that. When I first bought Spring in My Step, my sister, who is obsessed with anything with an essence of Japanese antiquity, declared that it should be worn during cherry blossom season. Even compared to my other light pinks, she cried that THIS was the one that matched.

Well, cherry blossom peak season at the Tidal Blossom was terrifying, even more so than usual. My group high-tailed it to Hains Point and ended up walking 7 or 8 miles overall.

Urban Outfitters Gotta Have It and China Glaze Fairy Dust swatch

Urban Outfitters Gotta Have It  is a bright pastel green, so bright that it borders on neon. It's amazing and super-awesome and fabulous. Surprisingly only two coats were needed on all nails but one. I'm not sure how to describe the shade of green. Is it pistachio? Mint? It's much lighter than China Glaze Highlight of My Summer, which I picked up Gotta Have It as a dupe for. China Glaze Grass is Lime Greener is much more yellow.

China Glaze Fairy Dust is of course a holo silver glitter that all of you should own by now (or own an approximate).

China Glaze Lotus Begin and Zoya Monet swatch

China Glaze Lotus Begin is a pretty, pretty light purple that leans pink as opposed to some pretty, pretty light purples like Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac, which leans blue. Unlike my many other lilac polishes, Lotus Begins is borderline neon. It dries to a satin finish, which on its own looks pretty cool and a little edgy. It's a light purple that is definitely appropriate for summer! I'm in love.

Zoya Monet contains large iridescent-ish glitter in a variety of spring-appropriate shades (pink, yellow, blue? idk) in a very thick base. The base is tinted pink, but that's practically clear. The base is also so thick, it's unpleasant to use. It makes a gross bodily function sound when you take the brush out of the bottle, which amuses me.

I loved this combo when I wore it on my toes earlier, but Monet almost ruined it for me as a manicure. There were bubbles and unevenness in how the base of Monet applied, because you have to glob it on.

China Glaze Sugar High, Four Leaf Clover, Medallion / Zoya Darcy swatches

China Glaze Sugar High
 In bright light it's a bright coral pink; in the shade it actually looks cool-toned, like a Barbie pink. I have a lot of medium pinks, and I don't have anything quite like it. I remember the formula being a huge pain in the past, and I'm thinking I thinned it. This time I had no trouble applying whatsoever, but it still looked patchy after the third coat. A layer of topcoat evened it all out. I don't know if it's something unique you, the reader, need to look for, but it was within that first order of China Glazes I got from Head2ToeBeauty years back, so it has ~sentimental value~ to me.

China Glaze Four Leaf Clover with China Glaze Medallion accent
Four Leaf Clover is notoriously hard to photograph, but I think this is pretty color-accurate. Maye it's making it slightly bluer? Maybe. If it's looking blue, then it is, because it's definitely green in person. FLC reminds me of the Junior Girl Scout uniform, the box for Thin Mints, and Crayola crayons, and maybe artificial green food coloring. What's weird is that on the nails with Medallion (cool gold glitter with holo bits), the green actually looked more yellow-toned. You can see it in the photo. I don't THINK Medallion's base has gone yellow... When I removed the polish, those same nails also had a nasty teal stain! Only the ones with glitter! I've worn this color/glitter combo before in the past, and I don't remember that happening.

FLC has great formula. I think I've thinned Medallion a lot, so it's definitely easier to apply than in the past, though you still have to be careful not to overload your nail with glitter.

Both of these were also part of my very first H2Toe package (before I realized there was a Sally's Beauty Supply near my house...), inspired by this post.

Zoya Darcy
Egg yolk yellow. There's shimmer, but you're not going to see it on your nail unless you stick it an inch from your eye. I don't think it's as intensely bright as it looks here.I think the photo actually makes it look better, because some of my nails were quite shite-y looking. The ones that were stained from the green + glitter combo actually TINTED the yellow a bit lemony rather than the warm color it is. After three coats! This also makes the streaks more apparent close-up. Thankfully, I don't think anyone besides myself has noticed...

I have more yellow polishes than a normal person should own, including Zoya Pippa and China Glaze Lemon Fizz, Happy Go Lucky, and Solar Power. LF is much lighter and Darcy actually looks orange in comparison to Pippa and HGL. You heard right, Darcy and Pippa aren't close to being dupes. I haven't compared Darcy to Solar Power, but it is a darker warm yellow like SP. SP is filled with thick, almost frosty shimmer, in contrast. Pippa and HGL are actually pretty close, except Pippa is more "buttery".

Out of all of these, I chose to wear Darcy because it matches the crocus in my front yard!

I'm currently waiting for it to re-bloom, that is, if the 7 1/2 inches of snow Monday didn't traumatize it.

China Glaze Flip-Flop Fantasy comparison: Old vs New

Old, New

China Glaze Flip-Flop Fantasy
Hmm, ya think there's a difference? Old is a neon coral, and newer is much lighter, and looks peachy (I haven't tried it yet). Both are bright! FFF seems like it suddenly got a huge uptick in popularity when the new one came out, but that just might be because it then became part of the core retail displays, and thus was much more easily available.

China Glaze Thistle Be the Day (also untried) seems VERY similar to the old FFF, but pinker. I loved FFF when it leaned pink, and not so much when it leaned orange, so who knows, Thistle Be the Day might replace it in my heart. Which would be good, since it's halfway gone.

The new China Glaze Pool Party (the old was a neon pink; I'm not sure if the new one even counts as pink, or what color to call it to begin with) also seems kind of close to the old FFF, like old FFF is the middle point between new Pool Party and Thistle.

Swatch: China Glaze At Vase Value, Spring in My Step, and Techno

Instead of a snowy backdrop, you get mud.

China Glaze At Vase Value, with an accent of China Glaze Spring in My Step and China Glaze Techno
I always forget how radioactively bright At Vase Value is. Spring in My Step is a peachy pink; the closet thing I have is Zoya Bela, which is like a jelly version and less stark. Essie Van D'Go is much darker when I paint them side to side on an index card, though the "spoon sample" I have of it (ie I painted in a blank Zoya one) looked identical to SiMS on my nail. Spring in My Step is bright, but would be an interview-appropriate color on me! It suited my skintone very well.

Techno is a holo silver glitter, varying big and small. It's surprisingly conservative in density, in contrast to China Glaze Medallion, which I have to wipe down before applying or it'll glop on and cover the entire nail in glitter. The clear base is of a great thin formula, though, so you can layer up the glitter as you like. And Techno is now a core product at Sally's Beauty Supply! I had wanted it since it came out with that spring collection a year or two ago, but it had sold out.

I used 3 coats for At Vase Value and Spring in My Step. If you stared really, really close at AVV, you could find some uneveness, but whatevs. Immediately after I applied the third coat of Spring in My Step, I thought it still looked patchy enough to warrant a fourth coat, but I don't know if I would bother. Maybe the glitter covered it up, but I couldn't see a problem once it was done with. We'll see how it goes whenever I use it for a full manicure.

China Glaze Immortal swatch and etc

China Glaze Immortal
Cool-toned medium grey with shimmer that flashes pink and blue, exactly like those sheer shimmer top coats that do the same (Essie and Orly both have one). Sheer and a bit watery. I used 3 coats on most nails, and some could've used a fourth if I were being picky. After all these years, this is the first time I've ever worn a medium grey! China Glaze Recycle, which I own but haven't yet worn, is much warmer. Essie Cashmere Cardigan is much darker and not as shimmery. I think if you had a grey creme in a very similar color, you could duplicate this by using one of the above-mentioned shimmer topcoats.

I've purchased a ton of nail polishes, especially China Glazes. For some reason, I went nuts with their City Flourish collection. First I couldn't help but get At Vase Value at Ulta even though I hadn't read reviews yet. Then I got 3 along with 3 other China Glazes from Head2ToeBeauty, which I thought was a great deal, but evened out with shipping to be about equal to Sally's prices. Then today at Sally's, they had the entire collection (I wrongly assumed they would only sell the sea textures this spring), and they have a BOGO on China Glaze this month, so I got THREE more (plus Techno, now core!). If I had known that they'd be selling them and that they'd be BOGO, I could've saved some cash. At the same time, I got some non-cores as well from Head2Toe (including Immortal) that I had really wanted, ones I would never come across otherwise, so there ya go.

I put China Glaze Lotus Begins and Zoya Monet on my toes, and it kind of looks like a sparkly Easter egg. Don't worry, I won't put up any photos of my pedicures, because one time I was googling for swatches of this one color, and I came across a gentleman's Flickr account  that was a collection of nothing but "favorited" photos of women's pedicure swatches. I would not like one of my photos to end up on one of those accounts. No thank you.
 
Anyway, Lotus Begins is a bright light pink-ish purple, and the formula was an easy 2 coats for my toes. Monet was sticky and goopy, and you can tell it will be as soon as you take the brush out of the bottle. It might even make a suction sound. You have to dab it on there and work it around, and you're good. (IME glitter is also harder to control on toes.) Monet's iridescent glitter is much larger than China Glaze Snowglobe's, which is the nearest comparable thing I own, and I believe the glitter comes in orange, green, and blue (the best one) instead of all one identical iridescent shade.