China Glaze Sea Goddess Collection for Spring 2014

Hellllloo everyone! I'm back!

Sorry about the unplanned hiatus! I'll have much more time to blog now (and do my nails for that matter). For the last few months my nails were an absolute mess. It'll take me a while to get them back into shape, so please excuse my gross cuticles and dry hands in the next few posts. Actually, I'm looking for a new lotion that's heavy duty but also good for everyday use that doesn't have an overwhelming smell and absorbs fast... so if you have any recommendations feel free to leave them in the comments! My hands thank you in advance!

Anyway, on to the polish! I went to my polish supply store for the first time in a few months last weekend to see if they had any new, interesting collections. Although I've been on a break from the nail polish world (I think I purchased a record low number of polishes in the past 8 months), I've been keeping tabs on the upcoming releases just in case there were any that I absolutely HAD to have. I came across the China Glaze Sea Goddess collection which I haven't actually heard of yet... I had to google the collection name to figure out if it was actually a recent collection. Of course, my hoarder instinct kicked in and I purchased all 6 polishes even though they didn't have a swatch wheel and I had the idea that they were textured polishes (which I'm not completely sold over). 

This'll be a fairly long post so I'll put it under a cut. Unfortunately I forgot to make a collage thingy so there isn't any pretty picture before the cut (I tried to make it just now, but it's hard on a tablet without a stylus...)

First up we have Sand Dolla Holla.

Sand Dolla Make You Holla

Sand Dolla Make You Holla with topcoat

Sand Dolla Make You Holla: Okay, first things first. I really don't like the name of this polish. I don't really have a reason for this other than I think it's silly and it annoys the crap out of me /endrant. Other than the stupid name, this polish is actually pretty cute. It's a pinkish off white creme-jelly with small rainbow glitter suspended in it. Like the rest of the polishes in this collection, it's textured - however it seems to be less textured than the rest of the polishes. I don't mind too much about the less textured feeling. This polish reminds me of vanilla frosting with rainbow sprinkles. Mmm.

Seahorsin' Around: A pretty teal-blue textured polish with green-gold glass fleck glitter (not really shown in my photos I'm afraid). I love how China Glaze does glass fleck polishes, and I wish they would do more. I wouldn't actually mind if they stopped doing whole collections based on a fad finish (unless it's holographic of course). Too many textured polishes and I get tired of them. To end my aside, I really like this polish. I like the green-gold flecks. If they made this polish without the texture I'd probably love it to an irrational extent - it makes me think of the sun sparkling over the sea (and reminds me that I want to take a vacation soon!).

Shell We Dance?: A light raspberry pink texture polish. The glitter in this polish is interesting, it's a mix of small glitters and some bigger slightly darker colored glitter that sparkles. I didn't think I'd like this polish that much (looked kinda meh in the bottle), but I'm actually pleasantly surprised.

Tail Me Something: A lavender texture polish. This one is a bit boring to me - it strikes me as a bit one-dimensional. I think this has purple and silver glitter in it, or just really sparkly purple glitter that looks silver to me. I can't tell. I tried staring this polish for extended periods of time trying to figure out what kinds of glitter were in there but in the end the sparkliness just gave me a headache. Polish: 1 Me: 0.

Teal the Tide Turns: I actually thought this one would be my favourite from the whole collection. Surprisingly it isn't, but I still like it! It definitely is one f the more interesting polishes in this set - it's a milky jade green base with small, brighter green glitter. I'm not really dying over the texture finish, and I think that if this were a normal polish with that glitter and speckled look I would totally, utterly, fall in love with it. I know that you can put topcoat over it to give it a glossy look, but you need a relatively thick topcoat (or a lot of coats of topcoat) and I'm the impatient type. Maybe one day I'll give it a shot.

Wish on a Starfish: Hands down my favourite polish in this collection. This is a light baby pink with gold glass fleck glitter. I LOVE this polish. it reminds me of a lighter version of Strawberry Fields Forever (which I also love), but the texture makes it unique and gorgeous. I'm actually surprised at how much I love this polish. It could be even better if it wasn't textured, but I'm actually okay with the textured finish. The texture and the gold flecks give this polish dimension.


Overall, I liked this collection more than I anticipated I would. Most of the texture polishes work (Wish on a Starfish is amazing I tell you), but for me, Tail Me Something was a bit boring and I could have probably passed on that one. Formula-wise these were fairly consistent - on average I used 3 medium-thin coats for each polish. I'm not particularly fond of applying textured polishes because you really have to use thin coats and wait in between each layer to make sure it dried properly. I had to reapply Teal the Tide Turns a bunch of times (very frustrating) because with thick coats it can take forever to dry and it may not have the total sandy look that it's supposed to have. To make some sort of conclusion, I liked this collection more than I thought I would and I would definitely recommend checking out Wish on a Starfish if you like pink textures.


That's all for today! I can't wait to see what else the nail polish companies have in store for 2014!

Thank you so much for staying around and supporting me even though my posting was fairly spotty last year!

Marisa