China Glaze Island Escape Revisted

Yep, we’re revisiting the CG Island Escape Summer 2011 collection. Why? Well, when I swatched them here a bit of them showed up sheer. Some of you commented and shared the same sentiment about disliking the amount of VNL we were all seeing.

I decided to layer them all over one even base of white polish (In this case, it was my China Glaze Snow, or my “white-out” as I call it XD) It only took two coats to achieve full opacity and near bottle color!

I think it is worth it, the white base really brings out the gorgeousness of these polishes. I would have done 3 layers with a single Island Escape sheer, and still had VNL anyway. Basically, the same amount of layers but with an extreme amount of bling!

Here’s some more close up comparisons of the swatched over white and the old swatches on my nails with all its VNL glory.

Starting with the cremes, and the ones I was “uncomfortable” with.

Papaya Punch
On my nails, without a white base, it looks a bit more of a light papaya color. With the white base the orange is brought out much more strongly, almost mango.

Electric Pineapple
Washed out yellow, but over white it almost is neon. It comes pretty much to life.

108 Degrees
108 Degrees was not exactly a “sheer” polish, I did achieve full opacity with three layers (of course) but it just looks a lot more yummier over white. You can see the silvery white fleck glitter here.
(and why do animal hair always haunt me?! This was in a pet-free DORM room. agh).

Blue Iguana
Sorry about the dent. This one I was not able to get a very good picture of. Over white, I achieved a more bottle color rather than the paler blue that is being shown on my nails.

Senorita Bonita
On my nails the pink fleck shimmer was almost undetectable, and it pulled too pink in the photo. The nail wheel swatch, over white, is definitely ALMOST (haha, an oxymoron. See what I do?) color accurate. This is a hard color to capture. Anyway, over white, the pink shimmer showed through so much more strongly and confidently. This was a color I had always looked forward to when I first heard of the collection, and was disappointed to find how “meh” it looked on the nails 😦 However, over white, it’s revived some of my original faith and love in this color.

And my favorite, layered over white:

Cha Cha Cha!
I was “meh” about it when it was on my nails, but over white? OMG. If I didn’t have so many untrieds, this would be my “go to” color. Hell yeah!

Now, over white, I would suggest/recommend these polishes even more! 🙂 It is not much trouble for me to layer them, and I do enjoy layering polishes to achieve bottle color. The only thing I have to watch out for is making sure the white was applied evenly and is not “too” wet when I apply the first base of color on it, or else it will become a draggy, streaky nightmare. We don’t want that.

China Glaze Island Escape Revisted

Yep, we’re revisiting the CG Island Escape Summer 2011 collection. Why? Well, when I swatched them here a bit of them showed up sheer. Some of you commented and shared the same sentiment about disliking the amount of VNL we were all seeing.

I decided to layer them all over one even base of white polish (In this case, it was my China Glaze Snow, or my “white-out” as I call it XD) It only took two coats to achieve full opacity and near bottle color!

I think it is worth it, the white base really brings out the gorgeousness of these polishes. I would have done 3 layers with a single Island Escape sheer, and still had VNL anyway. Basically, the same amount of layers but with an extreme amount of bling!

Here’s some more close up comparisons of the swatched over white and the old swatches on my nails with all its VNL glory.

Starting with the cremes, and the ones I was “uncomfortable” with.

Papaya Punch
On my nails, without a white base, it looks a bit more of a light papaya color. With the white base the orange is brought out much more strongly, almost mango.

Electric Pineapple
Washed out yellow, but over white it almost is neon. It comes pretty much to life.

108 Degrees
108 Degrees was not exactly a “sheer” polish, I did achieve full opacity with three layers (of course) but it just looks a lot more yummier over white. You can see the silvery white fleck glitter here.
(and why do animal hair always haunt me?! This was in a pet-free DORM room. agh).

Blue Iguana
Sorry about the dent. This one I was not able to get a very good picture of. Over white, I achieved a more bottle color rather than the paler blue that is being shown on my nails.

Senorita Bonita
On my nails the pink fleck shimmer was almost undetectable, and it pulled too pink in the photo. The nail wheel swatch, over white, is definitely ALMOST (haha, an oxymoron. See what I do?) color accurate. This is a hard color to capture. Anyway, over white, the pink shimmer showed through so much more strongly and confidently. This was a color I had always looked forward to when I first heard of the collection, and was disappointed to find how “meh” it looked on the nails 😦 However, over white, it’s revived some of my original faith and love in this color.

And my favorite, layered over white:

Cha Cha Cha!
I was “meh” about it when it was on my nails, but over white? OMG. If I didn’t have so many untrieds, this would be my “go to” color. Hell yeah!

Now, over white, I would suggest/recommend these polishes even more! 🙂 It is not much trouble for me to layer them, and I do enjoy layering polishes to achieve bottle color. The only thing I have to watch out for is making sure the white was applied evenly and is not “too” wet when I apply the first base of color on it, or else it will become a draggy, streaky nightmare. We don’t want that.

China Glaze Island Escape

Hi guys, my China Glaze Island Escape set came in! I’m not that crazy about this set, I was convinced after seeing some really awesome swatches but on me… They’re just meh.

Overall notes:
Formula is fantastic; unique colors that do remind me of an island
The cremes are great, although I’m not a raging fan. Two coats for all the cremes.
The shimmers are sheer (see Senorita Bonita, Cha Cha Cha, 108 Degrees and Blue Iguana) and they were three or more coats.

The Shimmers:

108 Degrees

Cha Cha Cha, a lime green shimmer. This reminds me a ton of Zoya Apple, and I like Zoya Apple a lot better.

Blue Iguana

Senorita Bonita, a light purple-almost fuchsia (this picture pulls too slightly purple)

The Cremes

Papaya Punch. This is really the color of a slightly underripe papaya. This is such a strange color, and I’m not sure how comfortable I am having it on my nails. Pedi color maybe. Or to stamp over.

Electric Pineapple. This color reminds me of something from Illamasqua, maybe Radium. Again, another weird color on me and it’s pushing my comfort zone

Thoughts anyone?

China Glaze Island Escape

Hi guys, my China Glaze Island Escape set came in! I’m not that crazy about this set, I was convinced after seeing some really awesome swatches but on me… They’re just meh.

Overall notes:
Formula is fantastic; unique colors that do remind me of an island
The cremes are great, although I’m not a raging fan. Two coats for all the cremes.
The shimmers are sheer (see Senorita Bonita, Cha Cha Cha, 108 Degrees and Blue Iguana) and they were three or more coats.

The Shimmers:

108 Degrees

Cha Cha Cha, a lime green shimmer. This reminds me a ton of Zoya Apple, and I like Zoya Apple a lot better.

Blue Iguana

Senorita Bonita, a light purple-almost fuchsia (this picture pulls too slightly purple)

The Cremes

Papaya Punch. This is really the color of a slightly underripe papaya. This is such a strange color, and I’m not sure how comfortable I am having it on my nails. Pedi color maybe. Or to stamp over.

Electric Pineapple. This color reminds me of something from Illamasqua, maybe Radium. Again, another weird color on me and it’s pushing my comfort zone

Thoughts anyone?

China Glaze Island Escape

Hi guys, my China Glaze Island Escape set came in! I’m not that crazy about this set, I was convinced after seeing some really awesome swatches but on me… They’re just meh.

Overall notes:
Formula is fantastic; unique colors that do remind me of an island
The cremes are great, although I’m not a raging fan. Two coats for all the cremes.
The shimmers are sheer (see Senorita Bonita, Cha Cha Cha, 108 Degrees and Blue Iguana) and they were three or more coats.

The Shimmers:

108 Degrees

Cha Cha Cha, a lime green shimmer. This reminds me a ton of Zoya Apple, and I like Zoya Apple a lot better.

Blue Iguana

Senorita Bonita, a light purple-almost fuchsia (this picture pulls too slightly purple)

The Cremes

Papaya Punch. This is really the color of a slightly underripe papaya. This is such a strange color, and I’m not sure how comfortable I am having it on my nails. Pedi color maybe. Or to stamp over.

Electric Pineapple. This color reminds me of something from Illamasqua, maybe Radium. Again, another weird color on me and it’s pushing my comfort zone

Thoughts anyone?

A few NOTDs

Nails of the Days, that is. I don’t really do them– I just post ’em as manicures, but I guess they would be categorized as Nails of the Day. Anywho. I’ve been focused on the Lippmann glitters for the last 9 days, I overlooked a manicure from back then. So this post will show you two manis, one from the past and one that I’m sporting now.

Base: Butter London Victoriana (light teal glitter)
Stamp: Sally Hansen Chrome in… something I forgot, it was a long time ago. But it’s a gold chrome.
Konad plate m78

Current manicure:

Base: Avon Electric Green, a light spring grass green jelly. About three coats to get it all evened out.
Stamping color: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Jumpin’ Jade
Plate: Bundle Monster BM19

A few NOTDs

Nails of the Days, that is. I don’t really do them– I just post ’em as manicures, but I guess they would be categorized as Nails of the Day. Anywho. I’ve been focused on the Lippmann glitters for the last 9 days, I overlooked a manicure from back then. So this post will show you two manis, one from the past and one that I’m sporting now.

Base: Butter London Victoriana (light teal glitter)
Stamp: Sally Hansen Chrome in… something I forgot, it was a long time ago. But it’s a gold chrome.
Konad plate m78

Current manicure:

Base: Avon Electric Green, a light spring grass green jelly. About three coats to get it all evened out.
Stamping color: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Jumpin’ Jade
Plate: Bundle Monster BM19

Another spam

Had a frustrating week. But most of it is done. Behind in my blogging, sorry about that! I have 29 followers and I feel so excited that people outside my family and friends are reading my blog!

Here, have spam. (not the canned kind).

Zoya Crystal, a dupe to the OPI Reflecting Pool.

THIS IS GORG. It’s got gold flecks in it, and even in dark it will reflect what little light there is and make me look like I have gold nails. Love it.

China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, a gorgeous pastel light minty green. 

Stamping color: Sally Hansen Chrome in Cinnamon Diamond

Konad Plate

Aside from the slight smearing by topcoats, this was a great mani– it looked like easter eggs on my nails!

Butter London British Racing Green, with Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure layered over.

BRG is a gorgeous dark green with a visible shimmer in the bottle but when I applied it, it looked like hunter green and there was no shimmer (at least none that I could capture on the camera. D:)

Color Club Love ’em Leave ’em

Taupe “holographic” (it’s really very very scattered. I couldn’t get a linear going)

I present to you my favorite look of all this spam. 

Base color: Color Club Ms. Socialite (gorgeous purple. I totes love it.)

Tip and accent color: OPI Show it & Glow it (from their burlesque collection, a fuchsia glitter)

Striping black: Color Club Where’s the Soiree?

Tips were freehanded

 Zoya Mitzi for base (a neon green matte)

China Glaze Crackle in Fault Line

China Glaze from their Tronica collection

Stamped with a BP fauxnad, with CG Snow.

Another spam

Had a frustrating week. But most of it is done. Behind in my blogging, sorry about that! I have 29 followers and I feel so excited that people outside my family and friends are reading my blog!

Here, have spam. (not the canned kind).

Zoya Crystal, a dupe to the OPI Reflecting Pool.

THIS IS GORG. It’s got gold flecks in it, and even in dark it will reflect what little light there is and make me look like I have gold nails. Love it.

China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, a gorgeous pastel light minty green. 

Stamping color: Sally Hansen Chrome in Cinnamon Diamond

Konad Plate

Aside from the slight smearing by topcoats, this was a great mani– it looked like easter eggs on my nails!

Butter London British Racing Green, with Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure layered over.

BRG is a gorgeous dark green with a visible shimmer in the bottle but when I applied it, it looked like hunter green and there was no shimmer (at least none that I could capture on the camera. D:)

Color Club Love ’em Leave ’em

Taupe “holographic” (it’s really very very scattered. I couldn’t get a linear going)

I present to you my favorite look of all this spam. 

Base color: Color Club Ms. Socialite (gorgeous purple. I totes love it.)

Tip and accent color: OPI Show it & Glow it (from their burlesque collection, a fuchsia glitter)

Striping black: Color Club Where’s the Soiree?

Tips were freehanded

 Zoya Mitzi for base (a neon green matte)

China Glaze Crackle in Fault Line

China Glaze from their Tronica collection

Stamped with a BP fauxnad, with CG Snow.

Footprints in the Sand

A swatch of Avon Urban Grey. It looked a lot more grey in the bottle, but on me it was kind of disappointing and ew-ish with my skin tone. It has a hidden shimmer too. Reminds me a lot of OPI’s I Vant to be a Lone-Star!

Stamped with Sally Hansen Chrome in Salmon Pearl, with a Born Pretty fauxnad m73 plate.