China Glaze Holiday 2011

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

Today I have swatches of the China Glaze Let It Snow Collection, their Holiday 2011 release, which China Glaze sent for review.  These are already out now in stores, so you should be able to find them pretty easily.  As a whole, it strikes me as a really good classic holiday collection with a decent amount of variety, but that's just about the only generalization I have.  There are lots of colors to go through, so let's get to it!

The pictures are all under artificial light, all but one are swatches without a base or top.  I'll start with the reds (or reddish shades), and there are three of those. All three are more jellies than cremes and each needed three thin coats to be even and opaque, but three is what I expect of a red jelly.  Poinsettia is the bright red of a poinsettia, and a really good holiday basic.

China Glaze Poinsettia Nail Polish, Three Coats

Winter Berry is a berry red jelly and a good bit darker than Poinsettia.

China Glaze Winter Berry Nail Polish, Three Coats

Velvet Bow is a really exceptional one, a deep burgundy jelly.

China Glaze Velvet Bow Nail Polish, Three Coats

There are also two metallics, another holiday basic, and both were two-coaters. The first is Icicle,a really good silver with sparkly shimmer bits.

China Glaze Icicle Nail Polish, Two Coats

Champagne Bubbles is a yellow gold with glitter that brings to mind Cowardly Lyin'.

China Glaze Champagne Bubbles Nail Polish, Two Coats

There are two that are kind of off on their own before I move on to the glitters.  Holly-Day is an evergreen creme that was good in two coats.

China Glaze Holly-Day Nail Polish, Two Coats

Blue Year's Eve is a fantastic blue shimmer with the slightest purple duochrome flash, which you can see on the left side of the bottle.  This is the one I'm wearing, so the picture is two coats of color with base and top coat, and I noticed that purple showed while I was driving a little bit ago.

China Glaze Blue Year's Eve Nail Polish, Two Coats

That brings us to the glitters. I'll start with Snow Globe, which I'd use as a glitter top coat.  It's light glitter in a clear base, and here you can see one coat over Blue Year's Eve, Poinsettia, and Holly-Day.

China Glaze Snow Globe Nail Polish, One Coat over Various Base Colors

In the bottle, I thought Ring in the Red was similar to Ruby Pumps, but swatching showed me that's true only in the sense that they're glitter in a red base.  Ring in the Red has powdery fine red glitter and very small red hex glitter.  On the first coat, it looked like it would take a zillion coats for coverage, but it only took three.

China Glaze Ring in the Red Nail Polish, Three Coats

Glittering Garland is a great deep green glitter in a green base that really is the color of a garland.  I used two coats.

China Glaze Glittering Garland Nail Polish, Two Coats

It's hard to name a favorite in this collection because I love holiday polishes, but the next two are in the battle for first place.  Tinsel Town is powdery fine and small hex glitter in a base just a hair lighter than a charcoal grey, and it was good in two coats.

China Glaze Tinsel Town Nail Polish, Two Coats

The last polish in this collection is Twinkle Lights, a clear base loaded up with mostly gold glitter and a decent amount of red and green glitter.  In this swatch, I used two coats on the top two nails, and on the bottom one I used one coat over two coats of Champagne Bubbles because I wanted to see how they looked together.

China Glaze Twinkle Lights Nail Polish, Two Coats

As you can see, the traditional holiday colors are all here and there's a good bit of variety, so I'd have to call this one really solid holiday collection.  That is China Glaze Let It Snow, and I hope the swatches help you make your picks!  Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.