Road Trip Nail Art & China Glaze Swatches

press sample

Hey there!
Today is a first. First swatch post! I didn't want to do a post with swatches only, so I took some inspiration and created new nail design for this collection I was swatching.
It was China Glaze Road Trip, which has been around for few months already, but for some reason it came to local (=Czech) distributors just about now. I got 6 shades of total 12 of the collection.
My road trip nail art was inspired by a top I bought on my last trip. I wanted to go detailed and really stick with the fabric pattern but I failed there and went with whatever-comes-to-my-mind tribal.

Keep reading for my first swatches and more nail art!

                                                                                                                                     

First a bit about the NAIL ART.

I used four shades from the collection, Rimmel 703 White Hot Love white and a lot of acrylic paint. I also left some negative spaces as I've wanted to try that for a while.
All is sealed with Essence BTGN and mattified with Essence 24/7 nail base.
To paint the lines and details I used the same (blue) long thin brush I always use (I might post I photo, huh). Hopefully I achieved the look I was going for. When I showed the nails to my sister, she recognised the hippie vibes... what do you think? Does it make you think of a road trip?

                                                                                                                                    

Now to the SWATCHES.
In the order I was swatching them let me present you China Glaze Road Trip.

First I wasn't sure I liked the China Glaze brush, but one I polished one nail, I was excited - I was able to polish whole hand without getting the polish all over my fingers (no, really, I usually tend to be messy). Sometimes I didn't even have to do any clean up!
The drying time was always good, when I finished first coat on the fifth nail, I could go back to the first for the second coat, as the first coat was dry enough.
The formula was always rather thin it would be ridiculously easy to pool your cuticles.
The coverage was a surprise - where I expected opacity, I got jelly-ish and vice versa. However, all polishes were more or less opaque in two coats.

And the first is...

Trip Of A Lime Time
It could be the formula or the fact that this was the first polish I was swatching that made the polishing super pleasant. I didn't even have to clean up here! The colour is lime green creme, probably not for everyone but I can imagine some fun retro nail art with this. This is two coats and you can see a little bit of nail line.

Sun's Up Top Down
So far I didn't have very good experience with yellow polishes but this one surprised me! It has light shimmer that didn't translate well to the photos. The formula was again thin but easy to apply and didn't make stripes. Opaque in two coats.

Pop The Trunk
I'm not into reds. Just no. However, when I had this one on, it felt sexy. Yes, exactly that.
This tomato creme colour was almost opaque after one coat. Two coats in the photo.

More To Explore
Here comes my favourite. I loved the colour the moment I saw it. It's coral creme or bleached neon. I was disappointed by the formula though - maybe it was just me, but this polish didn't apply very evenly. It could have been opaque in two coats, but I had to add third one to smooth out the imperfections.

License & Registration Pls
I am a blue polish person and I own a lot of blue polishes. I thought I already had this colour but I was happy to be proved wrong. This one is quite unique! It has sheer formula, almost jelly, but is still perfectly opaque in two coats.

My Way Or The Highway
This one has also a bit of jelly character, but not as much as the blue. Good coverage, nice to look at.

                                                                                                                                    

Uuuh, that was a long one. How did I do with my first swatching?

I must admit I thought I wouldn't like doing this, but I actually enjoyed all the polishing and comparing. For me the winner is totally More To Explore. I also have some fun ideas concerning License & Registration, but I'm afraid it's not the kind of colour I would get to use often, no matter how much I like it. My first meeting with China Glaze polishes went very well and I can see what everybody loves about this brand now.

Have you tried this collection? What are your thoughts?
Have a nice day!

China Glaze polishes in this post were provided to me by modelaznehtu.cz for an honest review.