Cirque Colors All Hallow's Eve Collection Halloween 2012 Swatches and Review

The brand new, limited edition, first ever Cirque Colors Halloween collection comes out today! The collection is called All Hallow's Eve and it consists of two polishes: a glow-in-the-dark orange and a black shattered glitter. They're designed to complement each other when worn together, but can also be layered with other shades to add glitter or glow.

Cirque Kabocha - Cirque Neko

Cirque Kabocha. A medium nearly-neon glow-in-the-dark orange jelly. This orange is quite bright, though to my eye it's just a tad short of true day-glow neon orange. It has a jelly finish but it is buildable. I'm wearing three coats here and I still have some visible nail line. Since it's a glow-in-the-dark polish, it will glow fluorescent green in the dark.


Cirque Kabocha, no topcoat. Since this is a glow-in-the-dark polish, it will naturally dry to a semi-matte textured finish. You can actually see the luminescent particles suspended in the orange jelly base and they will add a slight texture to the dried polish. It looks nice this way as well; it reminds me of Illamasqua's rubber finish polishes.

Cirque Kabocha Glow In The Dark Polish
I apologize for the hilariously blurry picture. My hands shake so much that it was nearly impossible to hold them still enough to get even this clear of a picture in the dark! Anyway, this is Kabocha on its own. It has quite a strong glow that lasts for several minutes before it needs to be 'charged' (exposing it to light refreshes the glow effect) again.

Cirque Neko (one coat over Cirque Kabocha). Neko is a black glitter topcoat. It consists of varying shapes and sizes of black glitter suspended in a clear base. Some of the pieces are large and rectangular, some are small and square, some are just jagged and random, some are tiny circles. Very irregular and very interesting looking on the nail and surprisingly easy to apply. The glitter clumps a little, but it's not the type of chunky, clumpy glitter that I have to dab onto my nail to apply.

Cirque Neko Glitter Topcoat over Cirque Kabocha Glow In The Dark
Another cool thing about Neko is that you can still see the shapes in the dark (when you layer it over Kabocha). Sorry I couldn't get a clearer picture of it, but you get the idea, right?

Kuroneko-sama approves.

The formula on both of these was good. Kabocha is thin and a little watery but goes on smooth and dries quickly. Neko is thicker but easy to apply in a thin coat with good glitter placement. Kabocha is on the sheer side of jelly and still had visible nail line at three coats. Every coat I applied made it more and more opaque, so maybe four would have been perfect. I could have also layered it over a white or orange base to achieve the color and glow effect without having to use multiple coats, but it would have ruined the jelly finish. Neko is a pretty substantial glitter and has some sharp, poky edges, so I needed two coats of topcoat to seal and smooth it completely. Both the polishes need a good, thorough shaking before application as they settle quite a lot (the glow particles in Kabocha settle in the bottom and the glitter in Neko sticks to the sides of the bottle).

One more small detail about the formula- all Cirque polishes are scented! It's a subtle scent that reminds me of lavender. It's soothing and spa-like and gives the polishes that extra special 'something'.

These polishes are pretty awesome. Kabocha has a nice, strong glow (just be sure to shake it first) and the bright orange color is gorgeous. Neko is interesting and layers very well with Kabocha. It's chunky and pointy but nothing that a couple coats of topcoat won't help. When worn together, Kabocha and Neko are a perfect Halloween combination- black and orange in color with a fun, spooky jagged-shaped glitter and an eerie green glow.

The limited edition Cirque Colors All Hallow's Eve polishes retail for $12 each and are available directly from cirquecolors.com.

(This was sent for review.)

China Glaze Haunting Collection Halloween 2011 Swatches and Review

Only a few more weeks until Halloween! Do you have your Halloween mani picked out yet? I haven't decided on what to wear. Do I wear a Halloween-themed mani, or do I wear something that goes with my costume? Oh yeah... I should probably decide on a costume, too...

Anyway, here's China Glaze's Halloween collection for this year. No amazing orange glitter this time, but there's still some great colors in this set! The collection is called Haunting and it consists of:


It's Alive! What a great glitter. It's bright and shiny, it has a jelly base which gives it depth and it dries fairly smooth and shiny for something with so much glitter. All the qualities of a perfect glitter polish. It's Alive! is a murky, swampy, grey-green jelly base with tiny lime green glitter and larger round lime green glitter. The glitter is nice and shiny and sparkly, it does not look even a little bit dull. Perfection.


Crimson. This looks black here, but it's actually a dark burgundy-purple. On the first coat it looks like a red toned purple glaze, but by adding the second coat it becomes a blackened wine purple. Extremely dark with a hint of redness in the right lighting. I don't think Crimson is really the right name for it, as it's not really crimson at all... More like aubergine.



Haunting. A black base with silver glitter. A simple combination, yet somehow Haunting manages to be a little bit different. The glitter is really tiny and delicate and is spaced so perfectly that it looks like a pitch-black sky with millions of twinkling stars. This one is very smooth and shiny just like It's Alive!.



Near Dark. Oops... had a little accident with a bottle of Crimson... But that bottle looks pretty cool, doesn't it? All halloweeny, like dripping blood! Anyway, Near Dark is just like it sounds. Near dark. Well, okay, maybe it is actually dark, not just near it, but you know what I mean. It's a very, very dark mossy green creme. It looks black in most lights, but not the way NARS Zulu looks black. This is softer and dustier and not a jelly. Closest thing I can compare it to is Zoya Envy. I included a flash picture to show you the base color- nice and green!


This collection is available as individual bottles, or as a four-piece set that includes bottles of Black Mesh crackle topcoat and Ghoulish Glow Glow In The Dark topcoat. Lots of layering possibilities! How about...


It's Alive! (one coat) over Near Dark. These are practically made for each other. One thin coat of It's Alive is all I need over Near Dark. Near Dark enhances the green base in It's Alive. Plus, it's easier to remove all that glitter when there's a non-glitter polish underneath.



Ghoulish Glow Glow In The Dark Polish over It's Alive! Ghoulish Glow adds a milky pale green cast to anything you layer it over, so keep that in mind when you're thinking about color combinations. It's sheer at one coat, so it doesn't change the color too much. Sadly, Ghoulish Glow doesn't seem to glow much on the nail.


Black Mesh Crackle Topcoat over Ghoulish Glow over It's Alive! If my nail polish looks thick here, that's because it is! I just kept layering polish on top of polish and the whole thing is still wet in this picture. Black Mesh looks good over glitter!



Tried to capture the subtle glow of Ghoulish Glow between the cracks in Black Mesh, but it wasn't really strong enough to show up. You can see a hint of it, especially on the cuticle end of my middle and ring fingers, but even in real life it's very subtle.

The formula on these was good. Standard China Glaze formula, no surprises. I used three coats of each polish for these pictures, but only Near Dark really needed the third coat. Drying time is good, no problems with application, all around strong formula. The brush in my Crimson was a little rough on the edges, but that's really the only flaw I experienced.

Now, Ghoulish Glow. I have mixed feelings about it. The year they first released it, I bought six bottles. I thought it was going to be the BEST GLOW IN THE DARK TOPCOAT EVER!! and got a little too excited about it. In the bottle, it is the brightest, glowiest, craziest, longest-lasting glow of any glow in the dark polish I've seen. However, on the nail, it barely glows at all. I have heard that it glows really well when layered over white nail polish, but I've personally not tried that. Maybe I should. Personally, I have the best results with Fantasy Makers glow in the dark topcoat (Night Glow), but, of course, your mileage may vary.

Overall, not the most obviously Halloween-looking polishes, but a good set nonetheless! No orange... Thinking outside the box this year, eh? I love the shiny glitters, the vampy cremes are sexy (but not the most imaginative colors) and the crackle and glow in the dark topcoats compliment the theme of the collection. If you are a glitter lover, you might want to get your hands on It's Alive! before it sells out. It's really a glitter worth having.

(Most of these were sent to me for review.)

OPI Mini Halloween Kit for 2009: Tattoo Ta-Boo!

I love Halloween.... Oh yes. Halloween rocks. HALLOWEEN!!! WOOHOO!

*ahem*

Anyway, OPI usually indulges my Halloween obsession each year by releasing either Halloween-themed polishes or a mini nail art set like this.

Here's the set all together. It comes with four polishes and some temporary tattoos. I can add them to my collection!


Tattoo You Want Candy? Orange creme. This is a medium orange creme, I think they release this color every year for Halloween. I don't remember which OPI Orange this is a duplicate of, but I think they just re-name it every year.


Witch Arm? Black creme. This is almost a one-coat black. Very smooth.

I Love Mummy. White creme. Also very opaque. I did two coats and it looks perfect, that's rare for white. I'm thinking this is Alpine Snow.


Glow-Ink In The Dark. Light blue/purple glow in the dark. The star of the collection. This is a very sheer polish so you can use it as a glow in the dark topcoat without completely covering the color underneath. The glow on this is pretty strong, but not as strong as Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers Night Glow. I tried for about an hour to get a picture of it in the dark, but I was unsuccessful. I think perhaps The Nailphile had a picture of the glow? I know for sure *someone* did, I will have to double check. Anyway... This is a really interesting looking polish. It looks like it has shimmer or glitter particles, but they're really just speckles of the phosphorescent material that makes it glow. View this full size to see what I mean! It's really cool.

The formula on these is great. Pretty much your standard OPI formula. I did two coats of all the opaque polishes and five coats of Glow-Ink In The Dark. They all dried very quickly, even my five coats of Glow-Ink In The Dark. The only application issue with these is that they're mini and therefore have mini brushes. It can be hard to keep enough polish on the brush for a smooth application. Other than that, no problems.

The back of the box gives some instructions and ideas for Halloween nail art. I haven't tried any of the designs, but they all look very easy to do with the included polishes.

This collection is really cute for Halloween. Can you imagine going Trick or Treating and getting one of these? That would be awesome. I'd love to live in a world where they hand out nail polish on Halloween! Nothing wrong with a little fantasy... *sigh* Hahahaha :)

Normally I think OPI's names are witty and cute, but these make me groan. I know I've said this before about something, but these are worse than ordering at Denny's. They're so cheesy, I feel embarrassed typing them out! Tattoo You Want Candy??? Witch Arm?? I hope no one asks me what polish I'm wearing. I might cry.

But, overall, it's Halloween-themed so I automatically love it. This would be an ideal set for someone who wants to experiment with these colors and doesn't want to commit to buying full bottles. Black, white, orange and glow in the dark are 'normal' colors for me, so having them in mini size in a Halloween decorated box is very appealing to me. Would also make a great gift. I wish more companies would do Halloween sets!