Minnie Polka Dots

In anticipation for the OPI Couture de Minnie collection coming to Singapore, I painted myself a Minnie Mouse inspired nail art! *just kidding..

I actually did the nail art with just french tips polka dots in mind and realized that it looks too Minnie Mouse related.. LOL..

Anyway, I'm trying out new positions, new photo cropping sizes etc.. to try and make my photos prettier.. What do you think of this? Is it too slated? I had to slate it to avoid too much reflection from the light source..

Any feedback or advice would be appreciated!

Polishes Used:
OPI Come To Poppy
OPI Otherwise Engaged
OPI Black Onyx

Soft Shades Floral

Did a manicure using 2 of the soft shades from the OPI Oz collection - OPI Don't Burst My Bubble and OPI What Wizardry Is This?.

This is my first time using OPI's sand polishes and I'm impressed by it! I had 2 coats on for this mani and the polish dry to this fine gritty texture that's not really like the China Glaze's texture collection.

OPI's sand is more fine with the texture evenly and densely spread out without effort. They are really easy to remove too!

I also stamped on some floral prints using cheeky plates CH16 with Essie No Place Like Chrome to complete the feminine look.

So what do you think of this mani? Do you like it? :)

Polishes Used:
OPI Don't Burst My Bubble
OPI What Wizardry Is This?
Essie No Place Like Chrome

Candy Tribal Nails

I can't get over the bright cheerful colours from the Neons On The Shore collection and decided to do a tribal nail art using these beautiful neons! This nail art is inspired by this picture which I happen to see on Pinterest. :)

I'm loving this mani so much! The colours are so cheerful it makes me happy just looking at them! The only regret is that there are some drag marks on my last 2 fingers from the top coat. It's not that obvious away from camera though, so I'm going to ignore it. :)

For this mani, I used the creme colours for the tribal design and the jellies as base for the polka dots.

Polishes Used:
China Glaze Shell-o
China Glaze Isle See You Later
China Glaze Heat Index
China Glaze Sun Of A Peach
China Glaze That's Shore Bright
China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle
China Glaze Bottoms Up
China Glaze Hightlight Of My Summer
China Glaze Neon & On & On

China Glaze Neons On The Shore / Sunsational - Comparison Post

So today I have the comparison post which I promised in my last post! And one thing I found out these few days is that the China Glaze Neons On The Shore collection (In Singapore) is actually called China Glaze Sunsational in the US!

Not sure why the difference in name, but for benefits of my US readers (and easier for people to find me), I'm putting Sunsational into the blog post name as well. :)

First comparison will be between China Glaze Highlight Of My Summer and China Glaze Re-fresh Mint!

China Glaze Highlight Of My Summer and China Glaze Re-fresh Mint

HLOMS, RFM, HLOMS, RFM

*Sorry about the dent there from my thumb nail..

Re-fresh Mint in my memory was a fresh cheerful mint green but placed beside Hightlight Of My Summer, it instantly became this dusty grayish mint instead..

I think I might actually be picking up Highlight Of My Summer next time for my nail arts instead of Re-fresh Mint already!

HLOMS, RFM, HLOMS, RFM

This is 2 coats each.. Formula is pretty much about the same for both polish as they are both cremes.

Next is China Glaze Sun Of A Peach vs China Glaze Peachy Keen!

China Glaze Sun Of A Peach vs China Glaze Peachy Keen

PK, SOAP, PK, SOAP

I think I'm right on Sun Of A Peach being the modified neon version of Peachy Keen.. They actually looked really similar on their first coat! It's the 2nd coat that turned Peachy Keen into this sad looking dusty peach and give Sun Of A Peach a more neon finish.

PK, SOAP, PK, SOAP

This 2nd picture isn't really colour accurate due to the lighting. I guess I just included it to show that.. the colours are different? LOL

This is 2 coats each.

China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle vs China Glaze For Audrey

China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle vs China Glaze For Audrey

FA, TYTH, FA, TYTH

Similar to the previous polishes, placing these 2 side by side sort of turned Too Yacht To Handle into For Audrey, and For Audrey into dusty Tiffany.. They are definitely the same type of blue though. :)

FA, TYTH, FA, TYTH

These are 2 coats each. Which one do you prefer?

Next up, China Glaze Keepin' It Teal vs China Glaze Four Leaf Clover

 China Glaze Four Leaf Clover vs China Glaze Keepin' It Teal

FLC, KIT, FLC, KIT

Keepin' It Teal and Four Leaf Clover are not totally identical but close enough! Formula-wise, Four Leaf Clover is a neon-ish creme while Keepin' It Teal is sheer jelly.

Keepin' it Teal is definitely easier to apply but you can still see a bit of VNL there.

FLC, KIT, FLC, KIT

Four Leaf Clover is one coat on the index finger and two coats on the ring finger.

Keepin' It Teal is four coats each.

Now we're moving on to comparisons within the collection!

China Glaze Are You Jelly? vs China Glaze That's Shore Bright

 China Glaze Are You Jelly? vs China Glaze That's Shore Bright

TSB, AYJ, TSB, AYJ

These 2 are the neons are not really that neon in the collection. I don't have any similar purples in my stash so I decided to a comparison between the 2 purples in the collection in case you ain't going to get both.

I do prefer Are You Jelly? between the 2, but it keeps creating these bald spots that are impossible to cover!  You can still see the bald spot on my pinkie which I gave up on.

TSB, AYJ, TSB, AYJ

I used 2 coats for That's Shore Bright and 3-4 coats for Are You Jelly?

Even though Are You Jelly? is a jelly, it's quite opaque..No VNL there, but the bald spots are really frustrating.

Last but not least.. China Glaze Hot Index vs China Glaze Bottoms Up vs China Glaze You Drive Me Coconuts.

 China Glaze Heat Index vs China Glaze Bottoms Up vs China Glaze You Drive Me Coconuts

HI, BU, YDMC, BU

Hot Index is now my favourite out of these 3!! The colour I like, and the finish is so squishy.. looking super delicious!

Jelly effect is less prominent for You Drive Me Coconuts.. It looks more like a creme finish, but the application is definitely jelly.

HI, BU, YDMC, BU

For both Heat Index and You Drive Me Coconuts, I used about 3-4 coats and 2 coats for Bottoms Up.

Well, hopefully this post is helped some of you out there! After doing so many swatches, I'm kinda looking forward to working on some nail art now!

China Glaze Neons On The Shore / Sunsational - Jelly Swatches

I'm back! This time with swatches of the Jellies from the China Glaze 2013 Neons On The Shore collection!

If you haven't seen the creme swatches, click here for it!

My first impression when I saw these colours on my nails are just.. highlighters! Bright, neon, sheer.. They looked exactly like the classic old highlighters which we used to mark out the important points during our school days!

Application-wise, these polishes are all on the super duper sheer side except for 2 (which are just sheer, not yet super duper). I used a white base for all the swatches below as I don't want to paint over 10 coats to get a opaque coverage.

First up, we have China Glaze Keepin' It Teal, a Turquoise jelly neon polish as described by China Glaze.

Personally I think it's much more green than teal/turquoise. I know it does look kinda turquoise in the picture, but it's actually much greener and brighter in real life.

Keepin' It Teal reminds me a lot of China Glaze's Four Leaf Clover except that this is jelly. If the creme half of the collection is China Glaze's classics turned neon, I wouldn't be surprised if the jelly half is China Glaze's neons turns jelly.

Coverage-wise, it's extremely sheer. Probably never going to get opaque, but does leave a nice jelly finish. This is about 3-4 coats over a white base.

Probably a great addition if you are into jelly polishes.

Next, I have China Glaze Are You Jelly?, a bold purple jelly neon polish.

Are You Jelly? is my favourite from the jelly half of the collection. It's a beautiful purple, and it's one of the not-so-sheer colours among the 6.

Application-wise, it's smooth like jelly (of course) and took me only 2 coats to get this coverage (over a white base).

It does reminds me of another China Glaze polish but I'm not sure which. Definitely not one I have. I thought it was Flying Dragon without the blue glitters, but I searched for pictures online and they were not that close.

China Glaze You Drive Me Coconuts, a Raspberry jelly neon polish.

You Drive Me Coconuts is a raspberry pink neon that looks like it's just pink until compared side by side to the real pink neon of the collection.

This is 2 coats of polish over a white base. You Drive Me Coconuts is also one of the not-so-sheer jelly polish from the collection.

Finish for this polish is also more matte rather jelly shiny. Kinda just like painting hightlighter on your nails.

China Glaze Heat Index, a Hot Pink jelly neon polish.

Hot Index is the indicated pink polish of the collection. It's much more neon and bright in actual than in the pictures.

Heat Index does really seems more pink, but it is also significantly more sheer and have a shiny jelly finish as compared to You Drive Me Coconuts. However, both shades are really similar in my opinion and you probably don't need both.

For me, I think I prefer Heat Index for it's finish although it's super sheer. Would probably be great for a jelly sandwich. This is about 3-4 coats over a white base.

China Glaze Isle See You Later, a blue jelly neon polish.

Isle See You Later is a pretty blue jelly, but it's sort of like all the other blue neons except that it's sheer and jelly. Not super special for me.

Coverage is super super sheer, this is about 3-4 coats over a white base. Finish is nice though.. smooth and jelly.

A highlighter blue neon jelly.

Last from the collection - China Glaze Shell-O, a coral jelly neon polish.

China Glaze describes Shell-O as a coral but I think it leans a lot towards orange. I do like the name though.

Coverage is really sheer, like most of the others in this collection. This is about 3-4 coats over a white base. Looks slightly more pink in the shade and more orange under sunlight.. Quite interesting.

I'm usually into corals but not so much for this one. Maybe because it's too orange and bright.

Okay, so I'm done with this collection. What do you think? Personally I think there's too much similar colours in 1 collection (all the pinks, raspberry and corals). Might be that there isn't much choices for neons in the first place, but it does make me feel that this collection doesn't need to have 12 colours. It might be better for China Glaze to stop at 6 or 8 or something.

Anyway, I might be showing some comparisons next, so stay tuned! :)

And to my Singapore readers, China Glaze Neons On The Shore are now available for sale at PolishAlley! :)

China Glaze Neons On The Shore / Sunsational - Creme Swatches

Finally I got around to swatching the China Glaze Neons On The Shore!

China Glaze Neons On The Shore consists of 12 neon polishes, 6 cremes and 6 jellies. Today I'll be showing the 6 creme polishes from the collection, and the 6 jellies will be coming up in the next post, hopefully in a few days. :)

The creme polishes from this collection were not easy to swatch and were even harder to photograph! They are like.. well.. Creme polishes! They're thick, and needed some creme painting skills to even out. In the end I just dropped a load of thinner into each of them before I paint them on my nails.. It took an average 3 coats of colour and a good top coat (seche vite) for me to get them nice and smooth.

My camera couldn't capture the neon at all and I had to go all over the house to try find the best environment and camera for the color to show. It's quite the nightmare I tell you.. And that would explain the inconsistent background in the photos and some poor quality shots.

All in all, probably none of the pictures managed to capture the real colors but I picked those that are closest to what I see on my nails.

First up is China Glaze Sun Of A Peach, an Orange neon creme polish.

Does this look familiar to you? Cos this is probably what China Glaze Peachy Keen + Neon liquid(?) would look like. Seriously. I think what China Glaze actually did with this collection is take some of their old popular colours, add some neon magic to them and tadah! You get Neons On The Shore.

Like I said, actual colour in real life in much more neon than shown in the pictures. I applied 3 coats for this. Usually my hands look sucky with Orange, but this actually looks okay. I guess the Neon factor helped.

China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle, An Aqua neon creme polish.

China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle is an aqua blue neon creme and I'm pretty sure it's the neon version of China Glaze's super popular For Audrey.

Please pump up the neon factor yourself, my camera couldn't handle all that brightness. This is 3 coats as well.

China Glaze Neons & On & On, A Pinky Orange neon creme polish.

China Glaze Neon & On & On is described by China Glaze as a Pink neon polish, but I think there's quite a bit of Orange in it as well. Can be classified as a borderline coral?

I don't have any creme equivalent of it from China Glaze so I can't tell which polish is this modified from..

As usual, actual colour is more neon in real life. I love this kind of colour.. they are very flattering on my skin. :)

This is 3 coats of polish.

China Glaze Highlight Of My Summer, A mint Green neon creme polish.

This 1 is quite a no brainer.. Anyone familiar with China Glaze's popular shades can tell with a look that this is the baby of China Glaze's Re-fresh Mint with neon magic fluid.

Applied 3 coat for this. This is one of the pictures which the neon is almost non-existent.

Beautiful mint green neon. I don't think I have anything like this is my collection (not counting re-fresh mint since that's not neon). My neon greens are usually those highlighter green.

China Glaze That's Shore Bright, a Purple neon creme polish.

That's Shore Bright is the type of purple that is impossible to capture.. For me that is.. It's the type of purple that always look too blue. This is the closest I can get to the actual colour.

A non-neon equivalent of this nail polish might be China Glaze's Spontaneous?

This is the only polish from the collection so far which I only needed 2 coats to get an opaque and even finish. However the neon factor is the least so far as well. :(

Last but not least, China Glaze Bottoms Up, a bright Pink neon creme polish.

The best description for China Glaze Bottoms Up is probably Barbie Pink in neon. A very popping colour that reminds me of Nicki Minaj somehow I dont know why, since I don't listen to her songs. I only knew about her from her OPI collection released last year.. LOL

The only Barbie Pink I have from China Glaze is Dance Baby and well.. Barbie pink is Barbie pink.. I guess you can say Bottoms Up is neon-tified Dance Baby.. My photos don't do this polish justice, it's much much more neon in actual!

3 coats of beautiful neon pink on my nails. I am falling in love with this on my nails! It's makes me happy just looking at it! It's just such a happy color.

 I think you would be able see it on my nails from a mile away.. it's so bright! LOL

So all China Glaze fans out there.. What do you think? Would you be getting these revamped neon-tified China Glaze popular shades?

And to my Singapore readers, China Glaze Neons On The Shore are now available for sale at PolishAlley! :)

Check out the remaining 6 shades from the Neons On The Shore collection here!