*PR samples

Hello lovelies,

I'm sure you've seen swatches of the China Glaze Sea Goddess collection already but you haven't seen mine ;) Sea Goddess collection introduces six textured glitter shades in mostly light spring colours. I've received three to review so here they are...

Sand Dolla Make You Holla - milky base colour with pinking undertone packed with multi-coloured glitter. The polish has gritty textured finish. The formula was a bit sheer but I managed to make it work in two thicker coats. It applied ok and dried rather average.

Shell We Dance - raspberry cream base with pink and silvery glitter and textured finish. I like this shade much more partly because it's better pigmented and a bit more sparkly. It applied well but it took its time to dry/harden.

Teal The Tide Turns - mint green textured base with green glitter. For some reason the base reminds me of frog eggs I used to fish out when I was kid..yuck! Anyways - I've applied two coats which were opaque enough. The polish went on well but dried rather average as the other ones.

The last pictures show the polish with a coat of topcoat but it wasn't enough. It would take two coats of topcoat to get smooth finish. The removal hard as with any other glitter polish so I'd recommend the foil method of peel off base coat.

I must say I'm not that keen on this collection as I prefer different kind of texture, finer and sand-like. I like these polishes much more with top coat.

China Glaze polishes are available at your regular stores and e-shops if you live in US. In UK they are sold at Sally's, The Nail & Beauty Link etc.

*PR samples

*PR samples

Hello lovelies,

I'm sure you're curious about the new Illamasqua Shattered Stars polishes from the new Glamore Collection. If you've missed the photo report from the event introducing this collection to bloggers, read it here.

The Glamore Collection features three new textured nail varnishes which they call Shattered Stars polishes and wowza they are sparkly!

Trilliant - beige glitter texture with hints of vintage pink. This is the first shade I reached for when I was swatching. It looks very elegant yet it's so sparkly that it will get a lot of attention.

It went on very easily and was fully opaque in two coats. Although I had a bit of a hard time applying it because under my light it was so sparky I hardly saw where I was painting. But the formula itself was very good. It dried fast into a rough yet not sharp textured finish. I've compared Trilliant to the OPI Silent Stars Go By. They are very close but Trilliant has a bit more chunkier glitter and has a bit more sparkle.

Fire Rose - rose pink glitter texture. This is the girliest shade of all three, proper sweet and sparkly colour. And that's cool, we all need some of those in our lives, right? I still can't get over how sparkly these polishes are!

The formula was very good. It applied easily and two coats were fully opaque. The polish dried fast into a textured finish. Trilliant and Fire Rose have almost identical formula, just different colours. I don't own another textured polish that is a dupe or close match to Fire Rose, below are the closest shades I have.

Marquise - red orange sparkly texture. This polish has much finer texture than the previous two and therefore a bit less sparkly. The finish feels like a fine sand, very much like Zoya PixieDusts. It applied very well and the pigmentation was very good as well. In the first coat the polish is almost opaque and has more reddish shades. The second coat adds depth and the bold orange tone.

I swatched Marquise last because it looked the least appealing to me..boy was I wrong! it totally goes with my skin tone and I love the polish on me! In fact I'm still wearing it as I'm writing this review, that's how much I love it! It's a total surprise! I've been wearing it for three days now and it's like it's glued to my nails...no tipwear or chipping yet. The closest shades to Marquise I own are Zoya Destiny and OPI Jinx but they are not 100% dupes.

I'm so glad I got a chance to try out these three polishes because they are brilliant! All three have great formula to work with, are well-pigmented and they just look awesome on nails! All three require few minutes of soaking or foil method when you want to remove them. They behave the same as glitters. You could use the peel-off base coat but then of course the polish won't last that long.

I hope you've enjoyed the post at least as much as I enoyed creating it and that Illamasqua will create more textured polishes in the future. Glamore collection launches on 27th February 2014 at Illamasqua website and counters.

*PR samples