Upcoming Collections: China Glaze "Poolside": Summer 2010. Swatches Part 2: "Sun Worshiper" and "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"

Today I have two more neons to share from the Poolside Collection. Let's take a look:

"Sun Worshiper" is a vibrant warm orange tone. This is actually a very interesting color, though I am not sure it will regularly be seen on my nails. I do like it though. This color photographed much truer than the colors I swatched yesterday. It's not raining here but it's overcast; The little bit of sun hiding behind the clouds made for much better photo opportunities.

The formula on this one was a little difficult to work with and I did have some streaks and balding, though thankfully not on the hand I photographed.

I used three coats and still had VNL though I don't think you can see it in the photos so that's good.




What would a neon collection be without a vibrant florescent highlighter like yellow? That's where "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" comes in. This color photographed pretty accurately given the lack of sun.

So far "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" has been the hardest to work with. The formula is thin and runny but dries so fast you're left with streaking and blading. I needed four coats of this and I STILL had the dreaded VNL. Ugh!!!!

If you can live without the yellow skip this one, not worth the effort in my opinion.

This collection will be released on April 1, 2010. Stay tuned for swatches of the final two colors.

Disclosure: This collection was furnished to me by China Glaze for consideration. All reviews published on this blog are at my own discretion. Please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

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Upcoming Collections: China Glaze "Poolside": Summer 2010. Swatches Part 1: "Pool Party" and "Flip Flop Fantasy"

I have a few swatches of the Poolside collection to share with you today. I first have to say that these SUPER bright neons are incredibly difficult to photograph but I did my best. I will also do my best to explain what I believe is the true and accurate color of the polishes compared to the photos. It's raining here so the photos are also lacking because of that but again I did my best.

The China Glaze Poolside Collection consists of 6 neon colors:
• Pool Party: Neon Pink
• Flip Flop Fantasy: Neon Coral
• Sun Worshipper: Neon Orange
• Yellow Polka Dot Bikini: Neon Yellow
• Kiwi Cool-Ada: Neon Green
• Towel Boy Toy: Neon Blue

Today I am sharing two of them with you and hopefully by weeks end I will have the rest of the collection swatched and posted. After swatching these two in the rain I think I am going to try and hold out for the other four until I get some sun here because the photos are seriously distorted because of the weather. I hope they help nonetheless.

The first color I have to share with you is "Pool Party" which is a neon pink color. The pink in this is on the darker side, close to a fuchsia but without the purple tones fuchsias usually have.

The formula on this was thin and I needed three coats to achieve opacity. It was pretty easy to apply if I waited between coats for each coat to dry, if I was too hasty and the coat before was still wet I got a bit of balding/streaking. I don't see any VNL so that's great but, as many bloggers have mentioned, to minimize VNL with neons you can apply a white creme color under the neon shade. I did not do that for these photos. The polish, like most neons, dried matte; I added a topcoat to get it looking shiny.

The color is certainly more vibrant in person but I tried my best to capture the right tone. It's a bit of a darker pink, not a light pink as I mentioned above. It has a slight berry tone to it. A touch darker than the photos.


"Flip Flop Fantasy" is one of my favorites of the collection. It's a fantastic coral neon. I love corals and this is a unique color in my collection because of the neon quality.

This one was a bit tougher to apply. It was a little thicker in consistency than "Pool Party" and I got a little more streakage but nothing I couldn't handle. It was not a nightmare.

This one like the other was difficult to photograph. It's appearing much more orange than it actually is. It is not orange it's coral. Coral is orange-y but not orange.

Again, I am sorry for the quality of the photos. If I find the others to photograph better with some sun I will re-photograph these. I am sure the rain had something to do with the difficulty photographing but I think that neons on the whole are hard to photograph in any lighting so I am not sure sunshine will make that big of a difference.

The "Poolside Collection" launches on April 1, 2010. Stay tuned this week for swatches of the rest of the collection.

Disclosure: This collection was furnished to me by China Glaze for consideration. All reviews published on this blog are at my own discretion. Please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

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China Glaze: "Happy Go Lucky"

China Glaze's "Happy Go Lucky" came out with the Up & Away collection. I love this whole collection for the most part because I really love cremes and each Up & Away color is a creme. "Happy Go Lucky" is the warmer of the two yellows in the collection and boy is it bold!!! It totally reminds me of a taxi cab. If I was better at Konad (ugh, still mad about that waste of money) I'd have tried to do a black checkerboard design on this or something. So I will call it a taxi cab yellow, though it some lighting it absolutely leaned mustard like good ol' French's yellow mustard.

Yellows are notorious for streak-age but this one was not too bad. Something about yellow pigment is just not fun to work with however I think China Glaze did a great job with the formula on this. It's highly pigmented and perfectly opaque in two coats and as you can see the finish is smooth and streak free.

Upon removal I am happy to report there was no staining. I don't know why yellows and greens make me worry about staining when it reality I only ever experience slight staining with reds. This removed well.





Overall a nice polish. I love China Glaze and this is a great polish. I am not sure this is a color I will be rocking much but it's nice to have in my collection. It's sort of ugly but not ugly, you know what I mean? It has a place in the collection but it won't be worn often. What do you think of "Happy Go Lucky"? Are you brave enough to rock this yellow!?

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Rimmel: "Violet Metal"

Today I bring you a truly gorgeous drugstore polish find: Rimmel "Violet Metal." This color is a winner guys! I love everything about it. It's a red based purple with a slight blue duochrome so you get the best of both worlds. Look at this stunner:


Rimmel has really impressed me with their polish formula it's not too thin, not too thick, just right. It's smooth and opaque in just two coats. I have tried a few polishes by them now and I have found them all to be easy to work with and quite long lasting. The "Lasting Finish Pro" polishes have a strange brush but the brush works for me. It's hard to explain the shape of it, (sorry I forgot to take a photo) it's sort of tapered at the end and wide (but not as wide as the horrible OPI) and FLAT. I think the key to a successful wide brush is the flat part. OPI's wide brush is very dense. This brush is flat and tapered at the end. It looks scary but I find the application with it to be among the most simple of any polish I have tried.

Now I already mentioned this is a midtone red based purple with blue duochrome. I tried to take a variety of photos and I hope I was able to capture this color's beauty. I really always favor cremes but I make exceptions for interesting colors and this one sure is interesting.




I am just so impressed with Rimmel polishes and you cannot beat a great quality polish under $4 and readily available in the drugstore. What a score. I said it before and I will say it again, I cannot believe I ignored Rimmel for so long!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!!!! Thanks for reading.

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China Glaze: "Atlantis" and Glitter Removal.

China Glaze's "Atlantis" is a stunning turquoise jelly with amazing holographic rainbow glitter particles. This color is part of the specialty glitters and cremes collection. I am not sure if these are permanent or will be limited edition but currently it is still for sale on Trans Design. I almost skipped this one but I am so glad I didn't because it's really as beautiful as everyone says!

The formula is easy to work with. The base is a squishy turquoise jelly that applies well. I used three coats for opacity and I think it was enough. I used two coats of Seche Vite Top coat in order to smooth out the chunky glitter. Without the top coat this will be a pretty rough texture.

When the light hits the glitter in this polish it's one of the most gorgeous things. The glitter flashes all of the colors of the rainbow. It was difficult to capture that in photos but I took some out of focus ones to show it:

I find glitters to chip significantly faster than most other polish formulas but this one did not. I wore it for almost 5 days (that's how pretty it is) and had minor tip wear but no significant chunks were missing.

I am very impressed with this polish and glad I thought twice before passing it up. I think it's one of the best glitter polishes in my collection.

Glitter removal can be a pain but I was able to remove this without breaking a sweat using the foil method I have seen on other polish bloggers blogs. Just soak a cotton round in polish remover, place a round on each nail and wrap the nail and cotton with foil. Let stand for about 3-4 minutes. Apply slight pressure on the nail when removing the cotton and foil and you should have a fairly clean nail when finished. Much better than using 1/2 bottle of remover and a bag of cotton rounds.

I love this method! Whoever thought of it, thank you!!! There's very minimal cleanup required after it, just a teeny bit of stray polish. Try it next time you rock the glitter. Don't let glitter removal keep you from wearing your favorite glitter polishes.

What do you think of Atlantis? Did you pick it up? Have you tried the foil removal method? Let me know, I love to hear from you all!!!

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Interview with a Polish Blogger: Annie (Nailstah)

Meet Annie of Nailstah! If you haven't checked out her blog what are you waiting for? Her nail blog is pretty new and pretty fabulous so go on already!!! Want to get to know the girl behind the blog? Well keep reading!

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1. What's your all time favorite nail polish brand?

I think if I HAD to pick just one it would probably be Orly. I'm rarely ever displeased with any of their colors or formulas, and I think they're really underrated.

2. If you had to pick just 5 polishes to keep for life what would they be?

Oh man. This question makes me cringe. How can you limit yourself to just five polishes?! That's a punishment. I would probably pick: 1) Orly- Enchanted Forest, 2) Orly- Mandalay Ruby 3) O.P.I- Dim Sum Plum 4) Color Club- Femme Fatale 5) China Glaze- Vertical Rush. Gosh darn it, what a hard question! I had to go through my Excel spreadsheet. I think variety is the key. I think I could do with a green, red, pink, and a plum, and use Femme Fatale to spice up any of those colors. Whew.

3. What colors do you rock the most? Any you don't like to wear?

I've realized that I always tend to lean toward the same colors of pinks/purples/plums. I try to stay away from neons. They hurt my eyes in the bottle, and I really don't think I can pull them off. =[ I'm trying though! Slowly but surely. But the colors I love wearing are greens, purples, and pinks. I don't think yellows, or blues look very good with my skintone unless it's a really dark shade of blue.

4. What's the strangest job you've ever had?

HMM. I don't know if it's considered strange. It was unusual but not strange. I used to work for the Sheriff's department as a Coroner intern. I did this for about 6 months before I started becoming super cynical so I had to leave to keep my own sanity. Kudos for those who are coroners/ police officers/ sheriffs/ CSIs/etc. It's a hard job, you see so many things that can either make you grow extremely cold as a person, or the experience can change your life. =] All my friends have definitely heard about this and I've shared as many things as I legally could with them. Helps make the society a little more conscientious right? This is going to be the longest answer yet, but I'll share a nail polish related story. A woman was painting her nails in the car while driving in traffic on a highway, and she swerved into a lane with a semi truck. Let's just say, please ladies, don't ever ever ever paint your nails while driving. PLEASE.

5. What do you do for a living?

I am currently a full time student, and work a retail job part time.

6. What's your favorite movie?

Wow, yet another difficult question. I love me a good Disney movie. The ones that top my list are Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Up. I'm such a child at heart. I absolutely love the movie Italian Job, and The Count of Monte Cristo. =D

7. What's your secret to the best manicure?

I don't really have a secret.. I think my manicures are not up to par with some of the blogging ladies. I'm still learning. This has nothing to do with the question but I'll just say, I have a big box where I dump all my untried polishes. I keep a little basket on my desk filled with about 9 polishes that I'd like to wear/swatch. I pick the polishes that go in the basket by sticking my hand in the untried basket and picking out polishes. Fun right? HAHA. This is how I sometimes have random polishes on my posts. =]

8. What's your favorite thing to cook and bake?

BAKE?! LOLOLOLOL. I can't bake worth my life. Although I have such a sweet tooth, I prefer other peoples baking, because mine stinks. I can make a great kimchi fried rice. Yum!! If you don't know what kimchi is, it's a Korean staple. A side dish made from fermented Napa cabbage. Delish!

9. What inspired you to start blogging? How did you decide what to name your blog?

I always loved blogging, I've done it in high school, and then I just fell out of it when I went to college. I wanted to start again because my bff wanted me to make a Tumblr, I did, and wanted something that had reader interaction so I moved to blogspot and the rest is history. I decided to name my blog NAILSTAH, because my nickname in high school/ college was ANSTAH. I have no idea how it arose, but since my name is Annie, I think that has something to do with it.

10. What nail polish brand do you think is totally underrated and fantastic?

Omgoodness, you read my mind. ORLY!!! Absolutely FAB!

11. Let's hear 3 random facts about you...

3 random facts.. oh boyy... 1) I absolutely hate insects, which is odd because I used to work for a biology lab for three years during my undergrad, and there were a ton of insects all over the place. LOL 2) I apparently twitch in my sleep, like a little puppy. Maybe I'm still growing! =D 3) I have really strange chains of thought. I jump from topic to topic which make sense in my head but is usually hard for other people to follow.

I love meeting new people who share the same interests or have any questions, so please feel free to shoot me an email or just say hi! I swear I don't bite. =]


Thanks for a great interview Annie! It's always fun to get to know other nail bloggers!!!!

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Color Club: Pucci-licious

Color Club's "Pucci-licious" is part of the PopTastic collection which is a great collection of bright shades. I imagine that the name is a nod to the fashion designer Emilio Pucci, who is known for bright in your face sort of designs but I am not 100% sure that that was the intention.

Pucci-licious is a gorgeous blue toned lilac type purple. Now we know that purples are notoriously difficult to photograph (they always want to be blue!) but I did my best and the photos I have selected appear to be accurate. I also photographed several other purple cremes next to it so that you can see that, at least in my collection, there's no real dupe:

I find these types of photos difficult to take and I always get a bit of a shadow but I think you get the idea of the different tones or I wouldn't post it. As a side note can you tell how much I adore China Glaze's "Spontaneous"? It is one of the most used in my collection. As you can hopefully tell from the photo "Pucci-licious" is a unique purple. I thought it was going to be similar to Orly's "Cashmere Cardigan" but it is different, which makes me happy!! I LOVE purple cremes.

The formula on this is quite thick and richly pigmented. If I'd applied more carefully I could have been opaque in 1 coat, these photos are 2. I found it easy to work with. The color is, like the collection indicates, BRIGHT but it's not quite neon. Neons usually dry quite matte, this did not. It was not high gloss but not matte, which I am happy about. I always use a top coat so it doesn't really matter but I am not a huge fan of polishes that dry matte when they're not "mattes" you know?

I haven't really been able to find a great selection of Color Club polishes locally but they're readily available on sites like Trans Design. I have only seen them at one Beauty Supply/Salon store in a local mall and they had a price tag there of $3.95 (for reference this place sold OPI for $6.95 and Essie for $5.95). On Trans Design they are are currently just $2.49 each (regular $3.20) so quite the steal!!

Overall I am really happy with this polish. I am such a sucker for purple cremes and this one performed nicely and will probably make it into my steady rotation of polishes. Have you tried any Color Club polishes? Any from the PopTastic collection!? What are your favorite Color Club polishes that I MUST have?

Disclosure: "Pucci-licious" was furnished to me by Color Club(Forsythe Cosmetic Group) for consideration. All reviews published on this blog are at my own discretion. Please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

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OPI: Tickle My France-y

While shopping at some random salon shop in a local mall I picked up the OPI "Jade is the New Black" and this beauty. I spotted "Tickle My France-y" in a basket on a table by the door. Could it be? Clearance polish? I looked all around for the price and when I couldn't find it I finally asked the woman behind the counter. "$1.95" she said! $1.95? No way!! This store sells OPI for $6.95 (a decent price). I was so excited. This is a color I contemplated purchasing for some time now. So I had to go for it. Unfortunately they didn't have anything else exciting in that bin but hey, beggars can't be choosers right?

"Tickle My France-y" is a gorgeous nude/beige/pinky creme. I think this is a fantastic "mannequin hands" type color and it's downright perfect for a conservative office environment or a job interview. I am actually kicking myself for not picking up a few more of these to have on reserve in my collection for that wonderful day when I FINALLY get someone to hire me as an attorney. Oh well, there's plenty of neutrals in the sea. This one is nice because it reads pink, nude, taupe and mauve all at once which is a pretty interesting quality for a creme.

I needed three coats for opacity but that was expected with a color so muted. I didn't mind. The formula was nice and as always I hate the wide brush. Application was not painful though so it's all good.

What do you think of this color? Do you own it? Do you want it? Let me know!!

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Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! I hope everyone gets some Irish luck today. Please drive safe and be responsible if you're the type who uses today as an excuse to drink. I don't drink and I forgot to thaw out my corned beef to make corned beef and cabbage so we'll be having that tomorrow.

I thought I'd do some festive nails but it's nothing really fancy at all. I painted an Irish Flag on one nail, which wasn't too tough. I think it looks pretty cute.

I used China Glaze "Tree Hugger" on all of my nails except for the one with the flag. "Tree Hugger" is a lime shimmery shade that I normally wouldn't wear but it's great for today!

For the flag I painted my entire nail with Orly "White Tips" and then free handed the two colors for the flag using Orly "Wandering Vine" and Sally Hansen "Sun Kissed". Here are the colors:

And here's the final result, what do you think?

So have a wonderful and safe St. Pat's and please remember if you're going to drink be responsible and have a designated driver it's never worth it to drive drunk, never.

Did you do fun festive nails? If so and you featured them on your blog leave a link in the comments, I'd love to see them!

As always thanks for reading!

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