Review: THE ENTIRE CHINA GLAZE HALLOWEEN COLLECTION 2013

I'm not normally big on the "normal" style of swatches but I found the China Glaze Halloween Collection 2013 in TBBS yesterday and I couldn't resist getting them.  Then actually using them. Because they're ALL AMAZING.  Let's take a look, shall we?  I have about three million pictures, so get comfy!

Let's start with Howl You Doin', without commenting on the name because it's pretty terrible.  The polish, on the other hand, is kinda amazing.  I don't have anything like it in my collection, that's for sure.  It's a dark reddish purple jelly, filled with the typical purple and orange glitter but what's not usual is the orange flakies.  The combination is amazing, so complex to look at.  This is three coats, topped with a top coat. 

 

Next, Bat My Eyes, a black jelly packed to the gills with gold and copper glitter and a smattering of bar glitter.  LOOK AT IT.  It's stunning on the nail and only needs two coats to be opaque.  It has that wonderful depth you get with glitter-packed jellies.  I didn't even notice the bar glitter before I applied it, and it just makes it that much more interesting and unique.

Next, Boo-gie Down, a polish a lot like Whirled Away but with large and small copper hex glitter added.  This is one coat over Urban Outfitters Cherry Tomato and it just looks great.  You have to do a little fishing to get the larger pieces of glitter, but not too much.  The metallic glitter is nice with the matte black and white hexes and large bars. 

Fang-Tastic is a real glitter bomb, filled with purple, pink, green and blue glitter of all sizes.  This is one coat over Urban Outfitters Sunshine.  You have to dab the glitter around a bit to get an even coverage, but it's not a real problem.  This polish would work great in a gradient.

I'm so into texture and taping right now and I can't stop touching it on my nails as the combination of smooth and rough feels cool.  Bump In the Night has the same texture as the other China Glaze texture polishes - that sandy finish with no glitter.  It makes a nice change from all the other matte glitter polishes around right now.  It isn't as versatile though as the finish is lost under a top coat.  Here, I applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, added a coat of Seche Vite then taped off my stripes with scotch tape and applied one coat of BITN.  Beetlejuice-y :D

SURPRISE TWIST: Under the stripes but over the OPI is a coat of the glow-in-the-dark polish Ghoulish Glow!  This polish is not only super glowy, but is also pretty much invisible on the nail so you could theoretically use it over just about anything.  LOOK, GLOWY.

The Verdict:  Hot damn this swatching process takes forever but it's worth it when you get an awesome collection like this one.  I'm not normally into the Halloween polishes but China Glaze has done a great job here.  You could totally use all of these year-round.  I need a nap now.

My. Entire. Updated. Collection.

You know, I think my new declaration should be that I shouldn't make declarations cos it lasted, what, all of a couple days?  I get way too much enjoyment out of blowing things off so committing to a schedule is never a good idea.  So!  Let's go with "more" posts.  Since my last two manis weren't quite right, I thought I might as well show you my polish collection.  Conditional upon me showing you this, you must promise not to count them then work out the approximate cost.  I have low expenses and nail polish is my favourite thing to buy so...yeah.  The worst part is is that I have probably bought about 200 more polishes since I took these pictures.  And this is what my collection looked like in April 2012...

To give you an idea of how much of a problem I have, keep in mind that this table is the Ikea Norden table, extended, making it close to 7 feet long. Yeah.  It's that bad.  I even had to crack out a fish-eye lens because I couldn't fit everything in frame otherwise.  The bonus of the fish-eye is that it makes the table look like a tiny planet populated exclusively by nail polish...mmmmm.   I organised everything by brand but I really want to put them all in a rainbow now.  Can you imagine, a seven foot wide sparkly polish rainbow??  Took ages to this so it's unlikely to happen, but nice to think about.

And this is my baby collection, from April 2012.

The Verdict:  Of course I love this.  I'd be even crazier to spend all this time and money, if I didn't like looking at them all.  If there's something you want to see close up, just leave it in the comments and I'll do a macro version!

My. Entire. Collection. Update 3!

I made this post a month ago, showcasing my entire polish collection.  Turns out, time flies and those photos were nearly six months old.  In that six months I managed to buy 50% more polishes.... that is a bit of a problem.  At least it's a rainbow problem this time!

With the help of my ever helpful friend Erica, we managed over the course of a couple hours to extricate all my polishes and refine them into this glorious, excessive rainbow I now have to present to you.  Turns out the hard part was turning this rainbow back into drawers ordered by brand - that took FOREVER - but for the week it was here, it was amazing.  For scale, this table is seven feet long....

The Verdict: Oh nail polish, how I do love you.  I don't care that this is ten times what a "normal" person would consider a big collection.  Worth it cos sparklies and rainbows and this makes me happy.  Surprising though is that all this fits in three Helmers from Ikea.  Just.  Yay sparklies!