Beauty Obsessed

You remember how yesterday I talked about my admiration of those fabulous bloggers who were in the business of swatching full collections of nail polish on the regular?  Well today I’m in admiration of anyone who buys a home!!  Holy moley, let me tell you – it is SUPREMELY exciting to buy your first home (I guess, any home really!) – but there is so much to learn and info to absorb, wowza!!!  It’s a lot for a brain to handle.  Thankfully we’ve had absolutely stellar people working with us to find the condo and get our financing in order, but its been a relatively consuming pastime for the last few weeks. Well worth it, but mindblowing all the same!!

Anyway, we spent some time at the bank tonight wrapping things up, then come home to make dinner, then talked numbers some more…suddenly my evening has gone *poof* and I’ve hardly even done anything!  I really wanted to get the second part out for the Summer Neons collection from China Glaze though, so here I am!  The second half is just as eye-popping as the first, so get ready!

I’m With the Lifeguard is a ‘glimmering lime green,’ and while I love this shade in theory – makes me think of lime koolaid! – I’m not liking it on my skintone at all, though it is lovely to look at.  The last picture is the most accurate for how bright this is.  I found 3 coats was best to even out a bit of streakiness, and it had a similar formula as most other shades – thicker but fairly easy to work with. This dried semi-matte.

Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight (different setting)

The description of Ride the Waves - a ‘dark ocean blue’ – is so terribly enticing to me.  Due to the sheer, thin, jellyish formula, it really made me think of the deeper waters of the Caribbean!  To avoid any VNL, 3 coats is absolutely necessary.  I really like this shade – it reminds me of Nails Inc. Baker St. (which Beyonce was apparently wearing shortly after she had Ivy Blue, hence everyone wanted it) but it’s not quite as electric, though it’s still really very eye-catching. It’s darker and not as cool-toned in real life, and the squishy nature looks like you could just drink it up.  As I was wearing it as my mani this week, I realized it would be perfect as a base for Lippmann’s Across the Universe!

Indoor lighting

With flash

Natural light

Sunlight

Just as juicy and ripe-looking as the fruit to describe it, Under the Boardwalk, a ‘fluorescent raspberry’, has almost the same formula as ‘Ride the Waves’, but not quite as jellyish.  Again, 3 coats best, though 2 is workable here, and it’s deeper in tone than it looks in photos.  I feel pretty ‘meh’ about this shade – it’s quite nice but nothing stand-out to me in any way.

With flash

Sunlight

Sunlight

Love’s A Beach, a ‘sizzling hot pink’, is slightly warmer than ‘Hang-Ten Toes’, but the differences are slight and I personally wouldn’t feel it necessary to own both.  If I had to chose, I think I’d pick this shade, as the blue-leanings are less pronounced.  Formula was good; it applied easily without fuss.  3 coats were used here for good measure.

With flash

Natural light

Sunlight

In theory, Surfin’ For Boys would be the ultimate shade: a ‘glistening bright coral’? Sign me up! However, there’s something off about this color for me; I think it’s the shimmer which looks almost purplish in certain light, and just feels a bit gaudy to me.  It’s actually remarkably similar to another shade I own, LA Colors in Magnetic Force, except I think I like that polish better (well, at least the color).  However, I think this is still a great shade for summer, and definitely a perfect pedi shade.  It went on very easily in 2 coats, and dried semi-matte.

With flash

Sunlight

Sunlight - different setting

Last but not least, we have Flirty Tankini, a ‘shimmery strawberry smoothie pink’ with a particularly good formula.  I could have done 2 coats with no problem but I did 3 to be nitpicky.  I really liked the sweetness of this shade and though it went particularly well with my skintone.  The shimmer was understated (as it didnt’ contrast with the base color) and I’m looking forward to wearing this as a full mani very soon!!   

With flash

With flash

Sunlight

That wraps it up for the China Glaze Summer Neons collection!  I liked this half equally as well as the first, and I have my faves – Ride the Waves, which grew on me, and Flirty Tankini, which is just too darn pretty!  Though I enjoyed the formula of most shades as a whole, it was a bummer to apply 3 coats for almost all of the polishes here.  A suggestion was made that I could layer these shades over a white polish to let the neon qualities really pop, and I think I’ll take that recommendation to heart.  Every single shade was majorly bright, and to enhance that aspect would only serve to make this collection that much more special (and allow less coats of color overall!).

As a whole, I found a few of the shades in the collection not as unique as I’d like – some seemed to replicate shades I already have in my stash.  However, I chose those shades for a reason, so what’s not to like? lol  One complaint I have about the collection as a whole is that there are a fair amount of shades that are quite similar to each other – there are no dupes, but they’re close enough that I personally wouldn’t feel like I needed to own both/all.  However, in person the differences between them are more obvious, so you may refute me there and I would be OK with that   Really, this collection is the epitome of fun, splashy shades for Summer, and if you want them all, who am I to argue?

What is your idea of the perfect Summer polish shade(s)?  Would you try out a neon polish?

*Product samples were provided to me by the PR company/brand for my unbiased consideration.