My new favorite nail colors



Oh my, I'm not even going to justify my obviously professional painting skills... lol! Gorgeous blue though!
China Glaze First Mate.

For mother's day I ended up buying my mom a couple colors from China Glaze's Prismatic collection.  They were doing a buy 2 get one free sale at Sally's and I couldn't resist. Especially since we went through our one and only bottle of Katy Perry glitter polish in a single summer and have been on a glitter hunt ever since.
The pinkish Full Spectrum is almost a dupe for the Katy polish we coveted, expect that it isn't quite as pink as Teenage Dream.  I also bought Prism which is a slight purple hued glitter, and Liquid Crystal which is a blue tinted glitter. All 3 will become opaque with 3 coats, 4 if you want it to really pop, and 2 coats are needed over another polish to really get the glitter evenly distributed.
You will need a top coat over these because they don't lay flat, they end up being pretty gritty when dry. Almost like a soft sandpaper. Nothing one swipe of a top coat can't take care of.  But these aren't my favorite new nail color. I love them though, I'm pretty much obsessed with glitter so it's surprising that I wasn't more excited about the prismatic nail polishes.

What I was really excited to receive was the one nail polish I bought for myself in that race to buy as many glitter polishes as possible so my mom couldn't use them all up in an entire summer before China Glaze could come out with another wonderful glitter polish.  *cough* I bought 8 glitter polishes *cough* The nail polish I was excited about was First Mate. It's a dark, think a deep lake rather then an ocean, navy blue. This is from the 2011(?) Knotty Nauticals collection. Many blues are neon or too light for my pale skin and end up looking strange, but this is perfect. I love blue polish but have a hard time wearing it. Not only because of my skin tone but also because I'm not 12 anymore. I feel like this blue is muted enough that you could even wear it to the office.  I, of course, paired mine with Liquid Crystal and the effect was gorgeous. This is a lovely creamy solid color, no glitter or flecks in it. It took 2 coats to be opaque. The first coat was extremely streaky, but that was covered completely by the second coat though.

This entire look wore for about 4 days, including 2 shifts at work. I work in a deli/restaurant so I wash my hands constantly, plus I'm doing dishes and using cleaning products, so it's pretty hard on my hands. In the end it was actually the glitter that started to give way before First Mate. I ended up removing all of the blue, because unlike the glitter, it just wouldn't chip away.

I can't wait to pair my other prismatic colors with their corresponding hues! Purple with Prism, Pink, or even Red with Full Spectrum, I bet silver would look wonderful with these as well.
You can still purchase these HERE at Sally Beauty.  Pink Voltage is another fantastic summer shade. (Or winter shade in my case because we all need a little cheering up when it's -20 degrees outside eh?) It's quite possibly the brightest bright pink I've ever had the pleasure of painting on my nails.

Photos can't even do it justice, it always looks more muted and more purple but it's a bright neon pink. Once again, obviously I'm a professional nail artist... lol! And actually it looks fine in real life because my cuticle is all ragged on the black nail which translates into a shitty job in photos.