Chinese Lunar New Year Nails Using Color Club X'mas!

Chinese New Year is upon us soon, and in the spirit of celebrating the lunar new year, I thought I'd dress up my nails for the occasion! I went with the predominant colours of Chinese New Year - red and gold. And in the spirit of festivities, the brighter and gaudier the colours are, the better they are! LOL! So, I hunted around in my stash for the brightest, blingiest red and gold nail polishes I could find.

And lo and behold: I found these shades of red and gold glitter, perfect for the New Year!



But wait! Aren't those from Color Club's last Christmas collection? If that was your reaction, you're sharp - those are indeed the latest Christmas polishes from Color Club's Enchanted Holiday seasonal collection. Specifically, that gorgeous red is Wish List Red, and the gold is Enchanted Holiday. But whatdayaknow, those Christmassy shades of red and gold just also happen to be just right for Chinese New Year! Who says you can't do bling on both occasions?

So, since I had done the Christmas bling on my nails, I decided to do some Chinese New Year bling too. But since I had to wear this to work, the bling had to be a lot more toned down than I would have liked - I couldn't risk blinding my clients!

Here's the watered-down bling for the year of the rabbit. In the end I settled on a gradient manicure, using Wish List Red as a base, and layering Enchanted Holiday on the top:



Isn't that awesome? It makes me feel all in the mood for firecrackers, red packets and dumplings! And the best part is - you can actually replicate a look like that for Christmas, because you're using the same colours! Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

Color Club Wish List Red is a gorgeous jelly-like red base with dense amounts of red glitter. I really like this one, it kind of reminds me a little bit of China Glaze's Ruby Slippers. Very pretty, and very eye-catching. Enchanted Holiday consists of gold glitter, but more sparsely distributed in a clear base. I also liked this one, and I think it'll be perfect for layering over other polishes.

Both polishes were a litte bit on the thick side, which is not my usual experience with Color Club. It could just be that the base formulation was made thicker to ensure even dispersal of glitter in the polish. Still, they applied well, and dried fast. As with most glitters, you may wish to use two coats of topcoat instead of one if you want a finish that's smooth to the touch. I made do with just one, though.



I'm so psyched about my nails, and I think they're a great way to celebrate the lunar new year! If you've been looking for nail colours for Chinese New Year, but can't seem to find any, Color Club's Wish List Red and Enchanted Holiday would be perfect. If, on the other hand, you don't celebrate Chinese New Year, but still wish it was Christmas, now you have the perfect excuse to continue wearing Christmas colours!

(Product provided for review. Review is my honest and complete opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by company.)

Color Club Partners with Amethyst Jeans for the Holidays

Color Club is partnering with Amethyst Jeans for the holidays, and you could stand to win some items, so here's the scoop for you guys!

Enter to win on of 20 holiday totes given away over the next five weeks!

You and your BFF will each receive an Amethyst Jeans tote filled with a pair of Amethyst Jeans, shimmery lip glosses and a holiday set nail polish set from Color Club and a shampoo and conditioner set from Totally Texty!

Contest runs from November 29th through December 31st, 2010. Go to http://www.facebook.com/amethystjeans to enter! Happy Holidays!

China Glaze Lubu Heels and Color Club Perfect Plum NOTD

Today's NOTD is the cult favourite, China Glaze Lubu Heels, together with Color Club's Perfect Plum. Lubu Heels, named after the shoes, are a hot favourite, due to its unique combination of a black jelly base and red glitter. Perfect Plum isn't so much plum as it is red, which is why I used it as an accent colour on the ring finger. And as you can tell by the terrible cuticles, this is also an old NOTD. Trust me, you and I both wish I could photoshop the cuticles out, but my skills really don't reach those heights of digital manipulation.

Here's a shot of it in natural light, two coats of Lubu Heels on all the fingers, except the ring finger, and two coats of Color Club Perfect Plum on the ring finger:



While you can tell Lubu Heels isn't just black-black because the red glitter is still somewhat visible through the black jelly, but I still kind of wish the black jelly was a little bit less opaque, so that we could see more of the red glitter. Perfect Plum, meanwhile, isn't so much plum as it is a beautiful jewel-toned red with shimmer.

Here's a shot of it indoors:



I think that Lubu Heels is one of those colours that looks better indoors than outdoors, because the red glitter really shows through much more indoors - here you can see how beautiful it really is. You can also see the shimmer and glow of Perfect Plum in here.

Application was good for both Lubu Heels and Perfect Plum, and wear time was also decent - about 3-4 days, which is average for me. I didn't have any quality issues with either polishes in either way.

Color Club Fashion Addict and OPI Lincoln Park After Dark: KOTD

Hey guys! I'm back from X'Mas break and crazy laptop hard drive issues!

Today's KOTD is Color Club's Fashion Addict as the base with OPI's timeless LPAD for the flowers. Plate is M34 I believe.

Once again, excuse the frazzles, the pre-clean-up pics, and the general sloppiness of application - I'm so not a pro. I so suck at nails, but I promise I'm getting better. Slowly. Sort of.



I liked this, but it's not the most creative or the best KOTD/NOTD ever. I don't mind it though, This was 2 coats of Fashion Addict. Unfortunately the holo effect is rather weak on me - I don't know how other bloggers get their awesome holos to show on photograph, but this was under natural light in my room beside the window, and it doesn't look holo at all! I'm utterly crushed. Maybe I got a dud. Sigh.

I tried getting other pictures of this KOTD in other lighting, to see if I could get the holo to show up - warm light, white light, natural light, a mix of lights - and this was the best I could get:



Don't you just hate it when holos aren't holo enough?