End of Red Week, Beginning of Green Week: China Glaze Party Hearty vs. China Glaze Twinkle Lights

I don't know why I even thought from promo photos that these two beauties would be near-dupes! I could have taken out my bottle of Party Hearty and looked!

They're both red, green and gold glitters in a clear base, but that's where the similarity ends. Twinkle Lights is much more gold, with the red and green as accents, all three colors are the same size glitter and it could be made opaque in four coats. Party Hearty combines small gold glitter, medium green glitter and large red glitter. The green is the most dominant, and it would take an awful lot of coats to make this one opaque. The swatches below are of three coats of each on a nail wheel.

In sun:



Indoors with flash:

Red Week Day Five: Color Club Santa's Cinnamon and Barielle Elle's Spell

Santa's Cinnamon is a red jelly with red glitter from the Scent-sual collection that was exclusive to Sally Beauty. I have other red-jelly-n-glitter polishes, of course, but this one smells like red hots candy! It covered very nicely in one coat, no bald spots, but the color wasn't quite deep enough, so I added a second. It dried almost matte and was slightly gritty, but before I added top coat, I added one coat of Barielle Elle's Spell, which is red glitter in a wine jelly. It deepened the whole look, shot the bling factor up to 11, smoothed out the grit and shined up the matte. It's going to be hard to take this off!

One coat of Elle's Spell over two coats of Santa's Cinnamon, inside with flash:



One coat of Elle's Spell over two coats of Santa's Cinnamon, inside without flash:



Two coats of Santa's Cinnamon, inside with flash:



Two coats of Santa's Cinnamon, inside without flash:



Even with Elle's Spell and a coat of Nubar Diamont over it, I still get the candy scent when my hands are near my face. Altogether, I think this is a gorgeous and holiday-appropriate mani!

I really wanted to see this as a matte, so I grabbed my bottle of China Glaze Matte Magic. CGMM does magic things to glittery, glitzy nail polishes, but I can't really recommend it, because my bottle dried up terribly and it took a huge amount of thinner to return it to usable. I'm stubborn, though, so when I got this revived, I used it. This is Friday's mani with a coat of CGMM:

Inside, with flash:



In the sun:

Red Week Day Four: Sally Hansen Cherry Smash

I adore this mani! This is one coat of Sally Hansen Cherry Smash crackle over two coats of FingerPaints Holly Good Time. Because Cherry Smash is jelly-like in its consistency, the glitter of the FingerPaints shows through and my nails look from a distance like a solid glitter polish. It's only up close that I can see the crackle.

Red Week Day Three: Snowman Snowflake Chunky Glitter

I have heard but not verified that Blue Cross makes these adorable little snowman polishes. G at Nouveau Cheap has some great pictures of the display, and although she states that they don't have names, I found the name "Snowflake Chunky Glitter" above the tiny UPC code on my bottle, so that's what I'm calling this guy!

This is two coats of Snowflake Chunky Glitter over Glitter Gal Red Holo, sparkling in the sun:



Looking lovely indoors without flash:



And looking just as lovely with flash, although blurry to show off the sparkly:



This wasn't a typical stroke-and-wear polish, the clear is fairly thick and the red and green glitter comes out in clumps, so you have to push it around a little bit to get it to cover evenly. Because this was over an existing mani, I was more concerned with covering the worn tips than total opacity, but I think you could get there in four coats. The top hat makes for a rather stubby handle and the shaft is short, but the brush is quite long and flexible, and not overly narrow. Dry time wasn't great but wasn't bad. Overall, if any of these are left in your area, check out the display and see if there's anything unique to you--you won't regret spending $2!

Red Week Day Two: Glitter Gal Red 3D Holo

I got this beauty from Llarowe, and first of all, I'd like to say that the customer service, shipping, turnaround time and shipping cost are all amazing from this etailer, as is the depth and breadth of her inventory! The polish itself is pricy but worth it--a true red linear holo. It's a thin but buildable blue-based red. Formula-wise, it tried to pool at my cuticles a time or two, and took three coats to get to bottle color, but it's completely gorgeous. I only wish I'd had some sunlight for pictures! Oh, and topcoat did not dim the holo at all. I had pretty bad tipwear after three days, but I have polish ADD anyway. *grin*

Glowing in the sun:




Inside with flash:

Red Week Day One: Autumn Ombre

I've been wanting to do this mani ever since I got the last Zoya red on my wishlist, Colbie, so here is my end-of-fall red ombre. This is two coats of each polish, from pinkie to thumbnail Zoya Chelsea, Zoya Isla, Zoya Colbie, Zoya Blair and China Glaze Lubu Heels.

Inside with flash:



Inside without flash: