Hey mon! Summer has hit us in Southern California and it’s hotter than a witch’s armpit today which means that we are seeing our first wildfires of the season. Fan-freaking-tastic. I guess this would be the perfect time to share with you my swatches of one of the first summer collections I’ve gotten my hands on: the China Glaze On The Shore Collection for Summer 2013. The On The Shore Collection is a 12 piece collection comprised of 6 neon jellies and 6 neon cremes. Since I am such a creme lover, I picked up 5 of the neon cremes and 3 of the jellies. Because this is pretty picture-heavy post, I am going to talk about the formula and such here before I get into the actual swatches.
First of all, I would like to say that the colors in this collection are gorgeous. I was so excited when I first started seeing the promo pics but my excitement soon fizzled once I started swatching this collection. I could cry neon tears lamenting what a disappointment the formula was for these polishes. I have to say that while the jellies behave like typical jellies (multiple coats), the cremes are the real offenders here. The creme formula is chalky, patchy and streaky and no matter how much I tried to work with them, they just didn’t want to behave. I wanted to chop my fingers off in utter disappointment and despair–yes, dramatic, but you know polish is something serious up in here. I do have to mention that I swatch all my polishes on my bare nails so maybe a good base coat could have helped? The creme polishes dry to a satiny finish and I thought I could fix them with some Seche Vite, but they just looked worse afterwards. I have no idea if the horrible application has something to do with my application technique or maybe they could have looked and behaved better with a base coat and/or a different top coat. By The time I finished swatching, I was just fed up and didn’t want to fiddle with them anymore. You can see the uneven application on my swatches below which really annoys me because I try to do my best to only put up decent swatches, but sometimes you just can’t help it.
First up are the three jellies: Heat Index, Keepin’ It Teal and You Drive Me Coconuts. All of these required 4 thick coats to get rid of the VNL. I much prefer these jelly polishes to the creme ones only because they look great at the end. You could probably avoid so many coats by applying a white polish underneath–put on your white undies, ladies!
Heat Index
Keepin’ It Teal
You Drive Me Coconuts
The following 5 polishes are all from the neon creme collection. This side of the collection had the most drool-worthy colors, but unfortunately they did not measure up. Sadness. All of these swatches are 2 thin coats and one thick coat to try to smooth them out a bit. None of them have top coat as I wanted to keep their satin finish but also wanted to avoid the weird streakiness that developed when I applied Seche Vite.
Highlight Of My Summer
Bottoms Up
That’s Shore Bright
Sun Of A Peach
Too Yacht To Handle
I don’t think I’ve been so disappointed in a collection in a long time. Wait, I’m lying. Tranzitions. Enough said. Anyway, I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I was not happy at all with these polishes. I will repeat myself in that maybe I just needed a different application technique with a base coat and maybe a different top coat. I don’t want to sour you on this collection because the colors are just so pretty that if you can get them to work, they are totally worth the effort. As for me, I just don’t have the time and patience to fiddle with them so they will be going up on my blog sale. Make sure you check it out if you’re interested in trying them out for cheap before you buy them all. Just a suggestion.
Thanks so much for visiting today, and please let me know if I’m just nuts and these have worked for you. I can’t wait until more reviews start popping up online so I can compare my experience with that of others. What do you think of these colors? Are they gorgeous enough to be worth all the extra work? Let me know! Talk to you soon.
