China Glaze Capitol Colors: Harvest Moon and Fast Track!

Ahhhh I am SO excited for the China Glaze Capitol Colors Collection which is based on the book/movie Hunger Games, one of my favorite series of all time!

Initially I was going to pre-order this whole collection since I love the books so much, but my wallet is sad since I've spent so much money on frankening supplies, so I poured over swatches and decided I only needed 7 of the 12, haha!

Howeverrrrrrr when I went to Sally's the day it was supposed to be released, the display had been nearly wiped out and the only two they had I wanted were Harvest Moon and Fast Track!  I grabbed those and ordered the rest online...so when I get the others that I want, I'll post those as well!

So here we go, first up Harvest Moon.

The first four pics are in natural lighting:

Artificial Lighting

Harvest Moon is a beautiful bronze/brown metallic polish.  Initially when I put on the first coat, I was quite disappointed because it seemed streaky and runny.  However, it evened out beautifully after the second coat and turned completely opaque!  I ended up really liking this color, even though metallic polishes aren't my favorite.  I heard great things about it and I'm very glad I listened and picked it up!

Next up: Fast Track!

Artificial Lighting

Artificial Lighting

Wow, okay, I think this may be my next go-to polish!  It only took two coats to become opaque, which is great for a nude!  Fast track is a great nude color packed with a dense gold shimmer.  Nudes don't really appeal to me much, I don't really have any nudes because you have to match them with your skin tone and I'm just iffy about it.  This one, however, ended up looking great with my undertones, and the gold shimmer gave it a great amount of unique-ness to it.  Even though it's got a shimmer to it, I'd be totally comfortable wearing this to work...or pretty much anywhere!

Have you guys picked up any of the Capitol Colors yet?!

<3 Whitney

Borghese Patena Pearl--perfect for a stylish french mani!

Hey everyone!  I noticed a tiny chip in my berry blast today in class and since the professor just kept talking and talking and talking it gave me more time to pick at it until my polish was ruined.  Whoops.

I wanted to do another pink but I'm going to hold off.  Most of my polishes are pinks and I'm trying to expand a little so I'm forcing myself not to buy anymore pinks for a while.

So I decided to go with a super sheer color from Borghese called B130 Patena Pearl F.  I initially bought this nude transparent to give myself a shimmery top coat for my french manicures.  Unfortunately I chipped my pinky nail while ripping off my old stuff (ughhh terrible habit, I know) and my other nails aren't even so I didn't want to give myself a full french mani, so I just stuck with the Patena Pearl for today!

Inside, with flash

I love this color.  By itself, most of the time, it looks nude (see above) but the sheen in various lighting can go from orange/peach to pink to purple, which is why I use it to add a kick to my french manis.  I tried to capture as many pictures in different lightings as I could, so bear with me!

Inside, no flash

  You can start to see the orange/pink shimmer here.

Outside lighting

Look how shiny!

Window lighting, tilted

See how versatile this color is?  Even by this one picture (which I had to take at a downward angle so you could see all the colors) you can see how it looks gold and pink and orange in the same shot.

The pictures I posted are with four coats.  I've never applied four coats in my life (not including top/base) but I wanted to make sure it was enough for you to see in the pictures.  It's very, very transparent, as you can see, so even if I applied 10 coats you'd still see nail line.  What I usually do is apply my french tips and then add two coats of Patena Pearl on top and it looks awesome.

Unfortunately I can't rock transparents as well as I could because my nail beds are super uneven and I have this weird downward curve on both of my middle fingers.  These things, I think, are less noticeable with opaque shades!  Despite the state of my oddly shaped nails, I hope I've convinced you to try this color instead of a normal nude with your french manicures!  Let me know if you try it and how it goes!

<3 Whitney