NOTD - China Glaze Sea Spray

Hi ladies.  Just a quick nail of the day today - Sea Spray by China Glaze.

I bought it as I heard it was a close-ish dupe for Chanel Riva.  Unfortunately, as I don't own Riva, I can't really comment on that.  It does have a touch of the trademark Chanel 'Hidden Shimmer', but just a smidgen, and it's really much more of a 'flat' colour.  However, it's a lovely, pale blue toned colour - pretty inoffensive for wearing to work, and a good holiday colour!  I wore it a lot on my holiday (back in March - sigh)!

Application wise, I found it a bit heavy and creamy.  It bubbled slightly (although not on this hand) and took ages to dry.  I found two coats was just about enough, but it really needed three to get rid of any streaking and to have a totally opaque finish, which adds to the drying time.  However, it was pretty long-lasting, and I managed it a week on my toes whilst I was on holiday before it chipped - pretty good going, considering I was flip flopiting around on the beach!

So, although I like the colour, I wasn't that wowed by the formula.  This is the first China Glaze colour I've tried - I would try others, but I'd have to really like the colour.  I can live with crappy application and drying time from £3 nail polishes, but at around £10, I expect better!

Thanks for reading! xx

Holiday Nails

I was intending to do a nail of the day post this week - however, my nails are currently in a terrible state, so they need a bit of work before showing them to the world.  I've let them grow too long, they've started to split and break - they basically need a good chop!

Anyway, I thought I'd show you three polishes I was wearing in rotation on my finger and toe nails on my holidays.  They are Daring Pink by Mavala, The Color to Watch by OPI and Sea Spray by China Glaze.

I love all these colours, and had some complements from random strangers on the Mavala and China Glaze ones whilst on my hols.  Although they're not the most traditional holiday colours, I really enjoyed wearing them.

Daring Pink is an almost irridescent, cool toned pink/purple colour with a hint of shimmer.  For me this worked best on my toes.  Two coats to opaque, quick drying and lasted almost a week without chipping = a happy Bristol Beauty Blog!

I picked up The Color to Watch from the Swiss Collection after spotting it whilst browing John Lewis - I loved the unusual lilac/purple colour.  Unfortunately, it's a sheer application, not the opaque that I was expecting.  However, I made it work on by nails by building up four or five layers and getting a true to bottle, opaque colour that I wanted.  This wasn't too difficult to achieve - I really like the application of this polish, and it dried incredibly quickly, so it didn't take any longer than two coats of a different polish would take to dry.

I bought Sea Spray on Ebay after searching for a dupe to Chanel's Riva.  Whilst I don't think this is a dupe, as there is very little of the hidden shimmer that I've seen in swatches of Riva, it is a very pretty, pastel baby blue colour.  And with a name like Sea Spray, it's perfect for a beach holiday!  This is the first China Glaze polish I've tried, and I have to say, I wasn't overly impressed with the application and drying time.  It needed two to three coats to get a good finish, but the polish tended to drag a bit and it took FOREVER to dry!  Saying that, once dried, it lasted a good long time on my toes and my fingers, despite lots of walking in sand etc, so it gets a thumbs up for me for staying power.

I wish I'd actually remembered to take NOTD photos of these polishes - I will wear these again over the next few weeks (once I've sorted out my nails) and take some snaps, as all these are lovely, summary colours and look great on!

What nail polishes are you loving at the moment?

Don't forget to enter my Mac Wonder Woman Giveaway!

Thanks for reading! xx