China Glaze 'Tis The Season

…To Be Naughty Or Nice. That’s like the longest collection name ever. OK, so I only bought half of these. I like them enough though that I may go back and buy some of the rest. Surprisingly, Frosty looks very interesting to me. I was kind of annoyed that these were available to purchase on etailer sites even before any of the bloggers got their samples for review, so I swatched these the same day I got them in the hopes that it might help someone else choose – I had to pretty much just guess which ones I’d like, without the aid of any swatches. So first, let’s look at the sets I got, cause they’re cute!

As far as I’m aware, purchasing the Merry Mint set is the only way to get the Peppermint Cuticle Oil, so I had to have it. It TOTALLY smells pepperminty and sweet, like I rubbed a mint on my fingers, it’s very cool. My problem with it is…well, it’s red. And it continues to be red once it’s applied to my nails. Ick?

OK, onto the swatches.

Phat Santa, 2 coats.

This is a bright red jellyish creme. Standard red, really. I stopped at two coats to keep the jellyish effect.

Peace On Earth, 2 coats.

Oooooh. Love this one. I think this is one of my two favorites. The shimmer is…sort of multicolored, it’s a really neat effect if you look closely. I see red and gold and some other colors when the shimmer flashes in the light.

Jolly Holly, 2 coats.

I just don’t understand why this isn’t called Holly Jolly, this name is impossible for me to say! But once you get past that, this is a really lovely dark green shimmer, and like Peace On Earth, there are lots of colors in the shimmer. Probably pretty close to Barielle Date Night, I’d guess.

Little Drummer Boy, 2 coats.

OH! Very nice. Gorgeous dark blue shimmer, almost a metallic. This was basically opaque in just one coat, but I applied two.

Mistletoe Kisses, 3 coats.

Lovely, unique shade of dull green on this one, and the glitter is either silver or very light green, it’s hard to tell because it’s so sparkly. I like this one a lot.

Mrs. Claus, 4 coats.

OK, I was excited about this one, but when I received it, it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. It’s sort of…pink. It’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but I was expecting more of a Santa Claus-like bright red glitter. Very light pinkish-red jelly base with fairly sparse light pink or silver chunky glitter. This one is much chunkier than Mistletoe Kisses.

Naughty Or Nice, 3 coats.

I only got this one because it came in the set with the cuticle oil. It’s really not my kind of color, too dark for me – I think it’d look almost black in most lights and that’s just not my thing. Dark dark burgundy creme. Very very very shiny.

Party Hearty, 4 coats.

The glitter in this one is of course really sparse. I’d definitely call it a layering polish – after 4 coats you could still see my entire nail line and my gross staining. Not hard at all to get the different glitters evenly represented on the nail. Silver glitter, larger green sequin glitter, and even larger red sequin glitter in a clear base. I will probably drag this one back out for a Christmas manicure.

It screams Christmas to me, and it’s neat layered over other polishes. This is Peace On Earth, Phat Santa, and Jolly Holly.

Overall I found all of these to be pretty runny. Not in a bad way, really, just runnier than I’m used to with China Glaze so it took a bit to get used to. I actually dripped Naughty Or Nice on my new jeans because I wasn’t expecting it to be so thin. Coverage was darn good, with most only taking 2 coats for complete opacity. This is kind of an awesome collection, I’m really impressed. I love that CG managed to put out a Christmas collection that consisted of more than just red and green, and with several different finishes.