China Glaze - Heat Index (Summer 2013 Sunsational Collection)

There are those days that you are in need of a good juicy neon pink....today was one of those!
I reached for China Glaze Heat Index, of last years neon summer collection: a perfect neon pink that is a juicy jelly. The jelly makes it succulant and shiny and it makes the neon a bit less harsh. This was three coats and I had still vnl and it is not build-able to opacity I'm afraid BUT the colour was very intense.

China Glaze - Heat Index

If and when you are allergic to jellies and/or vnl, Heat Index is not for you. If you like squishy colour wash on your nails: try Heat Index, you'll love it!
A point to note is that these Sunsational jellies don't last long on the nails...the ones that I wore were heavily chipped after one day or so....perhaps I'm doing something wrong......I don't know?!

China Glaze Sunsational Summer Neons 2013 - Highlight Of My Summer

I almost forgot about Highlight Of My Summer, even though it initially was my first pick out of the collection.
HOMS is a very fresh, minty green colour with a lot of white in the base and some yellow to make it not too minty. Colour wise it is very lovely, I do not have anything similar in my stash. Consistency wise it was a hot mess......when I was little I used to paint my nails with Tipp-Ex (used for blocking out type errors). This white stuff had a terrible consistency, dried instantly, clotted always and HOMS does excactly the same things :-(
It dries so fast it does not level out, so it streaks and it clumps. I added thinner which helped a little but not enough by any means. After 3 fairly thick layers of HOMS it n e e d e d two thick layers of topcoat to smooth things out a bit.
Wear time was horribly bad as well: the next day I had bits and pieces missing from my tips...

I did a very brave (dare I say so myself?) attempt to photograph this monster (the pic with the "sunset button" is the most colour accurate I could achieve):

China Glaze - Highlight Of My Summer

in diffused light

in sunlight

using the "sunset button" on my camera

Conclusion: love the colour, hate the polish!!
I'll use it for dotting but never again for a full mani. >sigh<

China Glaze - Sunsational Summer Neons 2013 - Shell-o glitter sandwich

The third in the China Glaze Sunsational series is Shell-o, a hot coral pink jelly.
I have a love-hate relationship with jellies: I love the squishyness of them but I hate the transparency of them (especially when there is dirt >ieuw< under your nails....).
To make best of the translucency I decided to make a true jelly sandwich with matte white glitter: All That Glitters - Spotty Dottie Light. The white of the glitters makes the neon of Shell-o stand out perfectly!

See for yourself:

China Glaze - Shell-o and All That Glitters - Spotty Dottie Light

in sunlight

This was 3 layers of Shell-o with 2 layers of Spotty Dottie Light in between.
Shell-o was a bit streaky, it needed a bit of thinning (like Bottoms Up and Sun of a Peach), with 3 layers the result was juicy and nice! Spottie Dottie was glue like, so I put even more thinner in there and that made the application a million times better.

I love the result very summery and fresh! *happy*

China Glaze - Sunsational Summer Neons 2013 - Sun Of A Peach and a comparison

Next up from the China Glaze Sunsational Collection is Sun Of A Peach (SOAP), a light neon pastel peach/salmon colour. Somewhere on the web I read that neon pastels don't exist but I beg to differ...they do...just look at SOAP (and Bottoms UP; all the cremes from the Sunsational Collection as a matter of fact).
It is definately pastel, there is loads of white in the base and it is most definatly neon because it glows in the late afternoon when there is lots of ultraviolet light in the air!

The fomula of this one was a tiny bit better then Bottoms Up, but still streaky and fast drying. I did three layers this time....yet it still is not fully covered as I would like it to be.

What do you think:

China Glaze - Sun Of A Peach, Highlight Of My Summer and Bottoms Up

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Like all neons, SOAP is impossible to photograph. The colour of the last picture is somewhat accurate but not nearly neon enough....
Today I added some stripes as a accent nail. For the stripes I used Bottoms Up and Highlight Of My Summer.

Next up I did a little comparison with colours that are somewhat in the family of SOAP: China Glaze Pink Plumeria (PP; the lightest colour from the summer neons of last year) and Mimosa's Before Mani's (MBM) from the Avant Garden Collection 2013.

China Glaze - Pink Plumeria, Sun Of A Peach and Mimosa's Before Mani's

left: Mimosa's Before Mani's middle: Pink Plumeria left: Sun Of A Peach

As you can see MBM is in the same colour familie but is darker, has golden shimmer and does not have the pastelly neon qualities SOAP has. PP is neon but is more pink then peach and has some silver shimmer to it.

I looked in my stash and remembered Essie's Haute As Hello (HAH) that was described at the time to have some neon qualities....and I saw the very ancient OPI Nice Hand...Great Nails (NHGN) which looked to be it the family.

OPI - Nice Hand...Great Nails, China Glaze - Sun Of A Peach, Essie - Haute As Hello

top: Haute As Hello, bottom: Sun Of A Peach

top: Nice Hand...Great Nails, bottom: Sun Of A Peach

Essie's HAH has indeed have some neon qualities to it but much less then SOAP and it is more pinkish peach (both are cremes).
OPI NHGN has the orange going on with gold and silver shimmer (?) yet is no way a neon and is a lot darker then SOAP.

China Glaze - Sunsational Summer neons 2013 - Bottoms Up

YEAH: PrettyPolish has the China Glaze Sunsational Summer Neons in stock.....I just couldn't resist: I bought some (they ship internationally, you just have to send them an email)!
Today I will show you Bottoms Up, a soft neon pink. It is a cute pink with a lot of white and a lot of umph, like Barbie on steroits or something!
The formula was horrendous...it dries extremely fast so it does not level properly and leaves a bit of a streaky result. I have two layers here but tree would have been better I guess (I just hated the formula and couldn't get myzelf to go for a third round....). As much as I hate the formula I love the colour: I am not a pink girl by any means....but this is just fun and bright and summery and in your face and sweet and it makes you look tanned all at the same time!

Look:

China Glaze - Bottoms Up

Looks like I average pink......

The most neon I could get it.....

OK, my compact just does not pick up the neon like I see it.....but trust me it is bright and highlighter pink!
You need it :-)