China Glaze 'Tis The Season To Be Naughty And Nice Collection Winter/Holiday 2010 Swatches and Review

Sorry it's taken me so long to get this posted... I've been having some difficulties. Hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things soon!

What a pretty holiday collection. Makes me feel all cozy and happy.



Cheers To You. Standard silver foil. Very pretty but nothing unique.




Frosty. Such a gorgeous white. It's a semi-sheer white similar to something like Zoya Ginessa- made of shiny white particles in a somewhat milky base. It's just so sparkly and pretty and soft and delicate, even slightly iridescent- see how some of the shimmer pearls change color on the nail? Love this one, it's fantastic.




Jingle Bells. Halfway between a chrome and a foil, more on the foil side. Shiny and reflective. A neutral light gold bordering on champagne.



Jolly Holly. Incredibly gorgeous rich forest green shimmer. The pigmentation is amazing on this one, it's a one-coater even though I did two for the picture. I adore this. It looks really good topped with a layer of Party Hearty, too.




Little Drummer Boy. Soft dark navy shimmer. It's less saturated than a lot of other navy shimmers and it gives it a really soft and sort of faded look- like denim. Great pigmentation on this, too.



Midnight Kiss. Light blonde gold foil. Very festive. A little bit patchy but evens out nicely with two thick coats or three thin coats.



Mistletoe Kisses. This seems pretty unique, I can't think of many other colors like this. It's a silvery green glitter, or perhaps both green and silver glitter together. It looks much lighter than I expected, but that's not a bad thing. It reminds me of those Christmas wreaths with the plastic holly leaves that are coated in this sugar-looking crystalline substance- it's supposed to look like snow on the leaves? Light and sparkly.





Mommy Kissing Santa. Rich red shimmer. Velvety looking. Another one that's not terribly original but still pretty.



Mrs. Claus. A light red tinted base with light silvery red glitter. Different from the usual Ruby Pumps-esqe red glitter. This one looks softer and lighter than most red glitters. It reminds me of the one Color Club did in the mini set for Christmas last year.



Naughty And Nice. Very very dark plum purple. Blackened plum. At one coat it's obviously purple, at two it becomes more black. Similar to OPI William Tell Me About OPI and Essie Velvet Voyeur and all the other blackened-plum shades that were released this fall.



Party Hearty. My favorite. I've worn this four times since I got it and I still love it. It's silver small glitter with larger red and green glitter in a clear base. Fantastic for layering. Good on its own, too, as you can see here. This is two coats, three would have been more opaque but this actually looks good with a little nail showing through.




Peace On Earth. AWESOME! An olive green shimmer! Golden threads running through soft olive green. I'm absolutely ecstatic about this one. It reminds me of the long-gone Cat's Eye shade! Darker and less frosty, though, so definitely improved.



Phat Santa. A maraschino cherry red creme. Very glamorous. This is the darker of the two reds.




Ruby Deer. The lighter of the two reds. This one is more of a tomato-red, closer to something like Zoya America to give you an idea.


Snow. Plain white creme. Dries very glossy and isn't the least bit chalky. Very soft. A little streaky, I needed three coats and that's what's pictured here.


Sugar Plums. A cousin to the discontinued yet beloved Crystal Ball shade. This is a red-plum or burgundy shimmer with teeny tiny itty bitty holo glitter particles. Click the pictures to see them better. You can see them pretty well in the bottle especially.



Here's how Party Hearty looks layered over a foil and a creme:

Party Hearty (one coat) over Midnight Kiss.

Party Hearty (one coat) over Phat Santa.

Lovely, right? Super Christmassy! I'm totally into this color! Anything that reminds me of a holiday. Love. Though, I have noticed that it's gotten thicker each time I've used it. You may need to thin it every now and then to keep it smooth.


The formula on these was varied but good. The plain shimmers were extremely pigmented, a little thick, but nice and smooth. The glitters were a little thick, but that's normal for glitters. The whites and the foils were slightly sheer, I did three coats and that was fine for them. The cremes were smooth and nicely pigmented. Drying time on all is excellent, very quick. China Glaze used to dry very slowly for me but their formula has improved a lot over the years.

Are all the colors unique? No, not really. Red cremes, red shimmer, gold and silver foil, blackened purple creme... all quite common shades. However, all the colors are nice, all the colors are pretty to look at and they all seem to go well together in the collection. None of them are ugly! Yay! I think it's a very appropriate Holiday-themed collection with a few unexpected surprises thrown in. I approve. The greens are especially gorgeous.

These are available online already and they should be in stores sometime in November- individially and also packaged as really cute gift sets.

(These were sent to me for review.)

China Glaze Tis The Season To Be Naughty And Nice Holiday 2010 Collection Quick Skittle Preview

Since these are already available to order at some places I wanted to get at least skittle swatches up as soon as possible. I'll have regular swatches and a full review up as soon as I can!

China Glaze Tis The Season To Be Naughty And Nice (Holiday 2010)

(Colors listed left to right, click to enlarge)

Mrs. Claus, Phat Santa, Ruby Deer, Mommy Kissing Santa




Peace On Earth, Jolly Holly, Mistletoe Kisses, Party Hearty




Snow, Frosty, Jingle Bells, Cheers To You




Naughty And Nice, Little Drummer Boy, Sugar Plums, Midnight Kiss


All but Snow and Frosty (which are three coats) are two coats, no basecoat, no topcoat.

Party Hearty is GORGEOUS. Definitely my favorite. It's light and sparkly but so colorful and happy looking at the same time. All the greens are great. I've very pleased with them. Full review asap!

(These were sent to me for review. )

China Glaze Rodeo Diva Fall 2008 Revisited

This collection was released in 2008 but to this day, even after the dozens of new collections that have been released since then, China Glaze's Rodeo Diva remains one of my favorite collections of all time. This is what a fall collection should look like.

When I posted my swatches two years ago I was so excited about these colors that I rushed and posted pretty crappy pictures. I just couldn't wait, I was so thrilled that I had to post them immediately! But the lighting was bad, my application was shaky and I had some broken nails. So, I figured it was about time I try to do these amazing polishes justice.

Here they are once again, the incredible China Glaze Rodeo Diva polishes.


Branding Iron. A deep blackened red shimmer. One of my favorite kinds of colors! See how it looks dark on the edges and light in the middle? I can't get enough of those colors.



Cowgirl Up. Amazing red-purple shimmer. Possibly in frost territory? The shimmer is really fine like a frost but this is just too pretty and smooth to be a true streaky-silvery frost. This shade looks really amazing in the sunlight, it has hidden iridescent shimmer!



Golden Spurs. A warm light suede brown base with gold shimmer. This one doesn't look that great on me but I still love the color. So much pretty gold shimmer!



Gussied Up Green. I remember this being my favorite one when I first got this collection, but now I can't pick a favorite. This is a blackened blue-leaning green shimmer. Very dark but when the sunlight hits it it really sparkles.



Lasso My Heart. A mauve purple foil. Not as dense or silver-toned like most foils, this one is pure color and very smooth.


Midnight Ride. Extremely dark purple shimmer. Dark and dramatic. Looks mostly black indoors but in the sunlight you get glints of glorious purple.



Prize-Winning Mare. Similar to Golden Spurs in concept- a light brown base with gold shimmer. This one is much more shiny and metallic, though, and not as warm. The overall effect of this one is actually more of a bronze foil metallic look than just a plain shimmer.



Red Stallion. This color never photographs right for me! It's so metallic and shiny that my camera freaks out. It's a bright metallic red, very glowy, almost radioactive.


Rodeo Fanatic. Medium blue shimmer. Seems to be a tiny bit on the teal side- doesn't look like straight pure blue to me. Maybe there's a touch of green in the formula?



Side Saddle. The base of Side Saddle is a dark brown-toned plum shade. Raisin perhaps? Brown and purple, a bit like Lancome Lizzie Jagger. The shimmer in this is very shiny light gold.


Wagon Trail. What a cool color. It's a black base with gold shimmer but it combines on the nail to look like a olive green. Looks amazing in the sunlight.



Yee-Haw! Orangey, coral-ish pink and gold shimmer. Quite warm. Has an almost duochrome look to is because the pink-coral-peach base and the gold shimmer are each so strong that you see more gold where the light hits it and more pink where the light is indirect.


This was during the area where China Glaze's formula was on the iffy side. Runny, drippy yet thick. Remember those days? The formula on these was actually not bad, but not the easiest to control. I did three coats in all these pictures. Drying time is on the long side for some colors but not for all of them.

Still love this collection... Still get excited about it every time I see the colors. Not very many polish collections have that sort of effect on me!

I don't think any of these colors are particularly hard to find even though they're a few years old. I wonder if any of them have been made permanent? I'll have to find out!

First attempts at the 'Ruffian Manicure'

Since I'm always swatching I feel like I never get to play around or experiment much. And then when I experiment or do things just for fun, I feel like I've wasted valuable swatching time! But, I decided I wanted to try this Ruffian thing cause I like the way it looks. Here's a couple combinations I ended up with:



My very first try. I was already wearing this gorgeous Chi Chi Moondust (thank you Kaz!) and decided to put a little China Glaze 2030 on. I like the blue and gold together! I'm going to have to do this combination again!

But I'm not really sure if you're supposed to let the polish on the sides show, or how far down you're supposed to go... Or how wide it's supposed to look?

Instead of taking the whole thing off, I wanted to see what it looked like with a third color, so I added some China Glaze GR8 (can you tell I had my Konad supplies nearby? lol)

Looks kinda cool with the holo!


Wanted to try it with some brighter colors so I picked out some Color Clubs. I can't get that green to photograph properly, it just turns this stupid pale color! Argh! But it's really darker than that, and neon, not pastel.

And before I took that off I wanted to see what it would look like with a third color again:

Can't capture these neons properly! So frustrating! But for once Pucci-licious looks like it's supposed to in a picture! Something about being next to a blue helped... Odd. And if the orange and pink look thick, it's cause they are. There's about four coats of those because the blue showed through too much, plus Seche Vite on top and to make it even worse it's still wet in these pictures. Would look a lot less thick and bubble nail like when it's dry. I like the multicolor look, but to me it looks like lines of gumdrops on my nails! Which reminds me, I had a box of Candy Corn flavored Dots around here somewhere...


Thought matte/glossy would be a good combination so I did ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly on top of Essie Limited Addiction. Looks cool, I like the contrast! But it also looks like my nails are being ripped off my fingers, doesn't it? Like the cuticle is all bloody and my nails have slid halfway off? Gory!! I might have to keep this in mind for Halloween!

And because I couldn't leave well enough alone, this abomination happened. It is really fuggen ugly.

Now I want to try every combination of colors and finishes I can think of. I like this look. It's like a moon manicure but different and easier! I'm going to go try another one right now, actually.