China Glaze | Vegan Claws

A vegan nail polish blog. A celebration of colour and light, as well as of justice for nonhuman animals.

Archive for the ‘China Glaze’ Category

China Glaze Deviantly Daring and No Plain Jane

I’ve got the first two of six new China Glaze polishes from their New Bohemian collection today! These shades have duochrome to varying degrees, and a metallic finish that’s slightly brushstrokey but not in a bad way, in my humble opinion – I wouldn’t quite call them frost, and I didn’t have trouble getting the brush stokes straight.

I’ll start with No Plain Jane, the purple shade; I was actually a little disappointed with this one since the duochrome didn’t seem as orange as I expected; more of a pinkish-goldenish-copper shade, and the purple can look paler and almost lavender in some lighting. This swatch is three coats, and I found the formula a bit thick and sticky for this kind of polish. First photos are in sunlight:

These next photos are under my Ott Lite:

Next I layered one coat of No Plain Jane over Kleancolor Black. Layered this way, it photographed bluer than it is – it’s definitely more of a red-leaning purple like the first photos showed. Sunlight:

This one is a bit more colour accurate:

In indirect natural light:

Next is Deviantly Daring; I love this rich teal-blue-green shade! Two coats shown here, and this one had a great formula. Sunlight:

In the shade, if you click to enlarge this photo you can kind of see the fine gold shimmer that gives this polish extra depth; it’s more visible in the bottle than on the nail but is really pretty:

This next photo is under the Ott Lite – I think that bright green flash that you can see near the bottom right of each nail is actually a reflection from the wall with its bright lime-green paint job, so I’m a little hesitant to post this, but I guess I’ll just say that this one isn’t totally accurate of what the polish looks like in real life!

Now, here is one coat of Deviantly Daring over one coat Kleancolor Black, in sunlight:

In shade:

So, one of these two polishes was nice but mainly just “okay” in my opinion, and the other is a definite winner! The other four shades from this collection are on my ever-expanding “to swatch” list!

Category:

China Glaze, Kleancolor

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Nubar Beguiling Carmine and China Glaze Sacred Heart

Like my previous post, these are some photos from a few months ago while I had my nails filed into claws.

First up is Nubar Beguiling Carmine (not made from actual beetle-derived carmine, of course!). I love this red! It’s a deep, brown-based red, not bright but not too dark.

Shown are two coats plus topcoat. There’s a little bit of cuticle drag so I probably should have added a third coat or waited longer in between coats.

Other than that no issues with the formula, it was quite smooth.

Beguiling Carmine is from the Polished Chic collection.

Next I’ve got China Glaze Sacred Heart, from the Ink collection. This is supposedly a neon, but it really doesn’t seem neon to me. The colour isn’t neon-bright, nor does it dry matte like most polishes with neon pigments do (no topcoat on this swatch).

But it is a nice jellyish candy-apple red that leans warm. Shown are three coats; no application issues with this polish.

In the bottle, Sacred Heart seems less bright and more brick-like than it does on the nail.

And here is a photo of both of these polishes together, showing the contrast between the depth of the two shades! …trying to remember now… I think I had the camera sitting on the table and took this photo with my chin! 😀

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China Glaze, Nubar

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China Glaze Kalahari Kiss and I Herd That

Here are the other two On Safari polishes that I recently purchased. First up is Kalahari Kiss, a very yellow-toned beige creme (I love this colour!). Shown are two coats and I had no issues with the formula; it went on quite smoothly. Photos are in partially sunny and shady conditions.

I did a glitter-tipped gradient using I Herd That over Kalahari Kiss. I Herd That is an orange-toned bronzy glitter with holo glitter in it. It was quite easy to apply, I just brushed and dabbed it on to make the gradient. I did two coats of the glitter at the tips, receding to one coat further back on the nail, then added top coat. The glitter dries a bit rough (and matte) so a layer or two of topcoat is needed if you want to smooth out the texture and get it nice and shiny.

Under my Ott Lite:

This next photo features my beautiful girl Azrael!

Next I have two coats of I Herd That over bare nails (plus one coat of Poshe topcoat) to show how it looks on its own. As before, it was easy to apply, no need to “place” the glitter or anything like that.

Since a few people had expressed curiosity about how this one compares to last winter’s Ulta-exclusive China Glaze glitter polish, Fireside Glow, I decided to do a comparison. I compared it to Fireside Glow and Ulta-mate Holiday, the other Ulta-exclusive glitter in that same release, both of which I was able to obtain thanks to a helpful US-based nail polish enthusiast! 🙂

Left to right, Fireside Glow, I Herd That, Ulta-mate Holiday:

The swatches show two coats of each polish. I found the formula thinner on the Ulta exclusive shades; they were not quite as easy as I Herd That to get opaque in two coats without getting bald spots, but no big issues. Index to pinkie, Fireside Glow, I Herd That, Ulta-mate Holiday, I Herd That.

As you can see, Fireside Glow is not all that close to I Herd That after all; it’s much more of a pinkish copper shade. Ulta-mate Holiday is obviously much more yellow than the others and seems to have a higher concentration of holo glitter whereas the others also have copper and orange glitters mixed in respectively. I Herd That seems to have a little less holo glitter than Fireside Glow.

On the other hand I found I Herd That to be sparklier than the others in lower lighting situations, probably because of the greater amount of non-holo glitter, if I had to guess why!

Slightly blurred to show the holo sparkle in the sun:

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China Glaze

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China Glaze Desert Sun and Comparisons

Desert Sun is one of three shades I picked up from China Glaze’s new On Safari collection. I’ve got another post in the works featuring the other two polishes but I’ll start with this one!

This is one of those “ugly-pretty” shades I love so much. It’s a medium orangey-brown creme. It actually turned out to be a bit more orange than I expected.

I found the formula a little thin, but no big application issues. This is two coats. In the background of this next photo is Azrael; she’s standing on top of a covered litterbox that’s next to the solarium window where I take my pics…

I compared this shade to some similar ones I have. From index to pinkie, we have OPI Ginger Bells, China Glaze Desert Sun, OPI & Apple Pie, and Joe Fresh Pumpkin. Each swatch is two coats of polish, no top coat.

Desert Sun is very similar to OPI & Apple Pie, but Apple Pie is slightly more brown. I found the formula to be better on Desert Sun, as OPI & Apple Pie was thinner & seemed more prone to bald spots. Apple Pie is also an older OPI from before they went “big 3 free” so it has DBP, toluene, etc in it as well as the old skinny brush.

As you can see Ginger Bells is darker and has more of a red tone than the others, and Pumpkin is the least brown of these shades.

If I had realized that Apple Pie was going to be a bit browner than Desert Sun, I would have switched their places and turned this comparison swatch into an ombre mani!

Category:

China Glaze, Joe Fresh, OPI

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Cult Nails Enticing and comparisons

I’ve been meaning to get this post up for a while and finally here it is. This is Enticing from Cult Nails’ second-to-last collection, Divas and Drama. I took these photos when the collection was just released, so you can see why I say “finally” since a whole other collection has come out since then!

I used a base of Milani Smoothe ridge-filling base coat, then two thick coats of Enticing. I didn’t have any problems with streaks applying this way.

As you can see it’s a pale milky pink with fleck-type shimmer in it, and is somewhat jellyish.

I have the other polishes in this collection as well but haven’t swatched them yet (strangely enough, in a collection with a coral, a minty blue, and a flakie, the first one I wore was the less-exciting sheer pale pink!)

These photos are all taken in sunlight.

I compared Enticing to other pale pink polishes that I have, from left, Kleancolor Sheer Pastel Pink, China Glaze Encouragement, Cult Nails Enticing, Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely in Love, and Zoya Audrey.

Kleancolor Sheer Pastel Pink, on my thumb, is much more of a bubblegum shade than the others. The other polishes, index to pinkie, follow the same order as the bottle pic: China Glaze Encouragement, Cult Nails Enticing, Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely in Love, Zoya Audrey. Each swatch is two thick-ish coats over Milani Smoothe.

The base colour of the China Glaze, Cult Nails, and Nicole are very similar, but the shimmer and application distinguish them. China Glaze has shimmer that is coarser than Enticing, while Nicole has coarser shimmer that is actually blue, although that doesn’t always show up very obviously on the nails. In terms of application, the Nicole polish was the streakiest/most prone to bald spots of these three, followed by the China Glaze, and the Cult Nails polish had the least-streaky application.

Zoya Audrey, on my pinkie, is a warmer shade of pink than the other three. This polish came from one of Zoya’s two limited edition New York Fashion Week trios that came out a few months ago, this one being the Peter Som trio, so it isn’t readily available anymore as far as I know. It’s also a little streaky on application.

So there you go, in terms of formula the Cult Nails polish is the clear winner here, although I do prefer the blue shimmer in the Nicole polish. Just wish there was more of it so that it’d be more visible, and that the formula was more like Cult Nails’!

At any rate, Enticing is a great choice if you’re in the market for a milky pale pink with a bit of shimmer. Hopefully I’ll get to swatch the rest of the Divas and Drama collection soon (adding it to the long list of swatches and comparisons that I want to get around to “really soon”! haha)

Category:

China Glaze, Cult Nails, Kleancolor, Nicole by OPI, Zoya

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China Glaze He’s Going in Circles

Just a quick post to show some pics of another great holo; this one is He’s Going in Circles from China Glaze’s (limited edition, unfortunately) Kaleidoscope collection of a few years back. It’s a great minty green scattered holo polish; actually what I would probably call semi-linear since it does give off a somewhat linear rainbow effect made up of scattered sparkles. These photos show two coats with top coat (OPI’s DS topcoat). Nothing to mention about the formula other than it’s one of those formulas of the smooth, perfect and easy to apply holo variety. It’s discontinued but it can often be found on ebay or from blogsales for a not-too-crazy price, generally in the 12-15$ range. Shown in full sun.

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China Glaze

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Kleancolor Café au Lait

Today’s polish is one of my very favourite nude polishes, Kleancolor Café au Lait! It’s a highly pigmented beige creme with yellow and peach undertones.

The formula is thick like Kleancolor cremes tend to be, but not in a bad way, and it covers completely in two coats. Shown are two coats with topcoat, in sunlight.

This next photo turned out brighter/darker than the polish really is…

I love this shade on my skintone. It’s really subtle and yet still a kind of offbeat shade because of the yellow in it. It’s what I reach for if I don’t know what I want to wear on my nails.

Since it was starting to have small chips after day one (standard for me), I decided to add some crackle on top to cover those up for the next day. I added China Glaze Tarnished Gold crackle. Then, for good measure, I added two layers of Orly Prisma Gloss Gold, a fine gold glitter with some fine holo glitter dispersed throughout.

Kind of a monochromatic crackle/glitter combo. I prefer Café au Lait on its own though!

The holo glitter particles in Prisma Gloss Gold are very elusive; maybe they would be less so over a more contrasting base! This blurred photo is the only one I took where they sort of show up on the nail!

Category:

China Glaze, Kleancolor, Orly

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China Glaze Mahogany Magic

Today’s polish is one that was described by several reviewers as looking like poop when China Glaze’s Hunger Games collection came out last March! Well, I like poopy coloured polishes, haha, so this was the one that originally interested me the most from that collection!!

However, I didn’t really end up liking this one as much as I thought I would, once it was on the nail. Don’t get me wrong, I do like it, and there’s nothing wrong with the polish. The formula is good, no complaints; these photos show two coats plus top coat. But somehow, it ended up seeming kind of “flat” to me… some might say that all creme polishes are flat in a way, but that’s not what I mean and I’m not quite sure how else to describe it… I got kind of bored of it while I had it as my mani.

I think the colour wasn’t quite “ugly” enough for me; it needs some more yellow in it or something! 😀

Actually, I think I just need to add some kind of nail art to this in order to love it – stamping on it with another “ugly-pretty” colour would be nice… Or a coppery glitter-tipped gradient! Lots of fun possibilities are coming to mind!! So, yeah, I think I really like this, just not so much all by itself!

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China Glaze

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China Glaze Magnetix: Cling On and You Move Me

I picked up two of the China Glaze Magnetix polishes a couple of months ago, Cling On and You Move Me (green and brown respectively), along with the China Glaze magnet. Here is the alternating mani I did with these two polishes. Photos are all indoor with flash; it was very overcast when I took them and the non-flash photos I took didn’t show the magnetic designs very well at all.

I used two coats of each polish, one as a base layer and then used the star magnet over the second coat. I added top coat before taking the photos. I’ve heard that many people don’t like the China Glaze magnet; personally I thought it was fine and didn’t really have much trouble using it, but then again it’s the first magnet I’ve used aside from this one strong fridge magnet I have! As you can see I did have a bit of trouble with centering the design, especially on the pinkie, though. I haven’t tried the other two designs on the China Glaze magnet, just the star.

I didn’t really like these polishes as much as I thought I would, especially the green. It seems weird to say since the magnetic design does give an illusion of depth and texture, but the colour on that one just feels flat to me. Maybe if it had a bit of golden shimmer in there somewhere… Maybe I need to try it by itself and with the other magnet designs. The brown one, You Move Me, I do kind of like. More recently I got one of the Color Club magnetics, the coppery one, and I have a feeling I’ll like that one better; it looks like the shimmer has a lot more depth to it!

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China Glaze

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Soulstice Spa Harbour Island and Cape Cod

Soulstice Spa has released four new polish shades into their collection for spring 2012, and today I have two of them to show you, complete with comparisons to a couple other polishes I have.

The two polishes I got are Cape Cod, a light, slightly muted blue with pearly shimmer, and Harbour Island, a pale, sheer peachy-pink-nude jelly with holographic glitter in it! As a bonus, a couple of adorable kitties will be making an appearance in today’s photos! 😉 All photos are taken in direct sunlight.

These next photos are three coats of Cape Cod. At first I found the formula to be thick so I was having trouble evening out my coats but I added a little Beauty Secrets thinner and that helped a lot.

I really like this shade of blue and the fine pearly shimmer!

The shimmer has a sort of blueish glow to it in the sunlight, very cool!

This polish reminded me of Milani Antique, another light blue with the same type of finish, so I did a little comparison. Index and ring are Antique, middle and pinkie are Cape Cod, three coats each. As you can see the Milani is a couple shades darker than Cape Cod.

And here is my boy Thor checking out the comparison, haha!

Next up, Harbour Island. These photos are also three coats.

The formula was really smooth and easy to apply but it’s a sheer and the third coat adds more sparkle and reflectivity.

The base colour of this polish is pale peach with a bit of a pinkish tone.

The holo glitter does dry slightly rough, but top coat easily takes care of that (these photos include top coat).

As always you can click on any of these photos to see the sparkly holo glitter in better detail!

I can’t say that I have any other peach/nude jellies with holo glitter! But here is a comparison to the closest thing I have, LA Splash Sparkling Jellyfish. Sparkling Jellyfish, in the middle in the following photo, is significantly deeper, brighter and more pink.

And finally, Harbour Island makes a great layering polish; here it is over China Glaze V, a light orange-coral creme. Hanging out in the photo is my boy Wade! (Wade lost an eye to a severe upper respiratory infection as a kitten when he first arrived at the shelter, but it doesn’t slow him down in the slightest! Nor does it prevent him from being the alpha male in our little feline “colony”!)

The other two polishes in this release, which I don’t have (yet, at least!), are St. Tropez, a beige nude that looks to have pearly shimmer similar to Cape Cod, and Kauai, a berry pink with golden shimmer. If you’re curious about them, blogger Glazed Talons reviewed them both here. These shades are available directly through Soulstice Spa on their website; Nail Polish Canada also sells Soulstice but they don’t have these new shades in stock yet as of the time I’m posting this.

Disclosure: the Soulstice Spa polishes in this post were provided to me for review. All opinions are my own honest opinions. (The other polishes in this post were purchased by me. The cats were rescued from the street and adopted from a shelter, respectively. :P)

Category:

China Glaze, LA Splash, Milani, Soulstice Spa

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Vegan Claws

A vegan nail polish blog. A celebration of colour and light, as well as of justice for nonhuman animals.

Archive for the ‘China Glaze’ Category

China Glaze Deviantly Daring and No Plain Jane

Nubar Beguiling Carmine and China Glaze Sacred Heart

China Glaze Kalahari Kiss and I Herd That

China Glaze Desert Sun and Comparisons

Cult Nails Enticing and comparisons

China Glaze He’s Going in Circles

Kleancolor Café au Lait

China Glaze Mahogany Magic

China Glaze Magnetix: Cling On and You Move Me

Soulstice Spa Harbour Island and Cape Cod

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