Glitzology Swatches - Part One

Good afternoon! Today and tomorrow I'll be showing you some nail polishes from the indie brand Glitzology. It's quickly become one of my favourite indies, both for the quality and uniqueness of the polishes and for the fantastic customer service. The three you'll see today are glitter bombs in clear bases; the ones tomorrow each have a coloured base.

First up is As You Wish. I'm not ashamed to admit I bought this mostly for the name, as The Princess Bride is one of my favourite films. It has large white and holographic teal hex glitter and smaller fuchsia and lavender glitter in a clear base. I layered it over China Glaze Gothic Lolita; there is a lot of glitter in As You Wish so I had to be quite careful applying it that I didn't overload my brush. It gave great coverage in just one coat.

Next up is My Viking Boyfriend. The creator of Glitzology, Stacy, says this is named for her boyfriend, which I think is really cute. This is blue and silver holographic hex glitter, silver squares, dark blue hexes, and silver holo micro glitter. As with As You Wish it's absolutely packed with glitter, so I found it easier to dab it on rather than apply it normally. This is one coat over Nails Inc Baker Street.

Finally I have Skeleton Key. I believe it's inspired by the movie Beetlejuice, which I haven't seen. I absolutely love this one, I think it's my favourite of the three. It has matte black and white glitter (instant WIN) and two shades of purple glitter, all of various shapes and sizes. It contains bar glitter so if don't like that I'd steer clear; I personally love bar glitter! Again this polish is crammed with glitter so you have to be a little careful applying it. I layered one coat over Rimmel Grey Matter; as you can probably tell, I did a slightly thicker coat on my middle finger.

As a general note about all three polishes, they gobble up top coat so I did two generous coats of Poshe to make everything smooth. I'm happy to report I didn't experience any problems with curling glitters (hurrah!). Thanks for reading and pop back tomorrow for part two! :)

Color Club Alter Ego & Ulterior Motive

Hello, today I'm showing you a couple of Color Club polishes from their Spring 2011 collection. Except in sets of 7 from TK Maxx, Color Club isn't widely available here - I got these two recently on Amazon.

First up is Alter Ego, the namesake of the collection. It's a grey and purple polish with a gold/silver glass fleck shimmer that was opaque in two coats. As purple and silver is one of my favourite colour combinations, this is pretty much my perfect polish.

Second is Ulterior Motive. I had to use artificial light for these as there was no sun the entire three days I wore this. Boo. (I took the photos on day three so I'm afraid there is some tipwear.) It's a fuchsia pink with blue and purple micro glitter. It was a tad sheer and I needed three coats.

China Glaze Immortal & Glitter Goblin

Oops, I didn't mean to not post for five days but I've been so busy this week that all the days have sort of blurred together. I had a training day yesterday on how to manage pests (insects/rodents) in historic houses, which probably sounds really dull but is actually fascinating. It turns out I knew most of it already so I didn't really learn much, but oh well.

Today I'm showing you the two polishes I bought from China Glaze's Wicked collection for Halloween, Immortal and Glitter Goblin. I actually passed on the blurple colour, can you believe that? It just didn't seem that unique. Immortal, however, is pretty interesting - a medium grey with turquoise and fuchsia shimmer. I'm going through a grey phase at the moment, so I had to have it. Glitter Goblin isn't as cool as I'd thought it would be from promo shots: orange and silver glitter in a clear base. I was expecting awesomeness; I got blah. Anyway, I decided to wear both polishes together, with Glitter Goblin as the accent nail.

You can see that now the weather is dark and rainy and rubbish I am in desperate need of a lightbox. I had to take these photos in the bathroom under the light there, because it's the brightest in the house! Does anyone have any tips for making a DIY lightbox?

Lastly, I decided a while ago that when I got to 30 followers I was going to do a giveaway - I'm only one away now! Come on, let's get me to 30! :)

China Glaze Flying Dragon

Here's an interesting/weird (interestingly weird?) polish for you today: China Glaze Flying Dragon. It's a fuchsia-purple hybrid with very small pink and blue glitter. I did some Googling and apparently there are two versions of this polish - it sounds like I have the newer one, which is fuchsia rather than a blue-toned purple.

Flying Dragon calls itself a neon, and although it packs a punch in the sun I wouldn't say it's that bright - in normal light it looks much darker. The formula was okay, it needed three coats for opacity, and the glitter in it is so fine that it felt a little like I was painting wet sand onto my nails. It dried with a gritty, matte finish, so I suppose it really is a neon! I finished with a coat of Seche Vite, which was promptly slurped up by the polish, but I, erm, couldn't be arsed to do a second coat.

(Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain hair on my nail.)

Flying Dragon seems to have pretty mixed reviews from what I've read online, and although I'm not a fan of its gritty texture, I have to say that I fall firmly into the 'like' camp.