China Glaze New Bohemian collection (part 1)

[Get yourself a snack, this is a loooong post!]

When the promos for the China Glaze New Bohemian collection came out, everyone went a little nuts.  Ermagerd!  Duochromes!  Then swatches started coming out and the excitement deflated.  I was in the minority (like that's new) because I wanted them *more*.  I love chrome polishes...but I haaate pastels.  These are chromes, but they looked like vibrant jewel-toned chromes. Yes, please!

...so I got them.  Well, five of them.  I skipped Rare & Radiant because yellow-greens make my skin look green.  The bottles are goooorgeous and really make it look like they're duochromes.  I wore a quick application of Want My Bawdy (yuck, that name!) first, but no photos.  Bad blogger, bad!  So a couple of days ago, with this eventual post in mind, I wore No Plain Jane with Swanky Silk as the accent....

My first impression of these is that they're pretty, *but*.  The "but" was a long list.  They're thin and runny, which is odd for chromes....and for China Glaze.  Then there's the perplexion of 'are-they-or-aren't-they duochromes'?  Yes....and no.  I've worn all five I have now...and I've caught a duochrome moment for each.  For Want My Bawdy it really was a moment...and I was driving.  Suddenly, with my hand on the wheel, I saw a glint of a smoky shift.  I never saw it again.  Bawdy is the least duochrome of anything in this collection.  Swanky Silk shifts a lot, but my camera just doesn't seem to know.  In my photos it almost always looks like a very warm gold, along the lines of Orly Glitz.  It's so much more!  It goes from warm to soft gold and gets a rosy pink glow at many angles.  It's borderline work-appropriate too.  I'm surprised by both how conservative it is and how much I like it.

The real surprise (shock would be a better word) was No Plain Jane.  There's a beam of pale evening sun that comes through the windows at the top of my front door.  On a whim, I tried it...

What.  Where did that even come from?  Dusk is absolutely this polish's time!  My jaw dropped.  Really.  Frustrating that it doesn't look like that more often...but these can be very frustrating polishes.  You've noticed the streaks, I'm sure.  You might have even noticed the bubble.  Eeek!  I kept trying to catch the real color of Swanky Silk, but this is the closest I got...

It gives you a vague suggestion of how this polish really shifts.  It's waaay more obvious in person.  I liked this collection, *but*.  This bubbled too...and the streaks.  It was like a pretty girl with a bad laugh.  Frustrating, beauty thrown off by little flaws that you just can't ignore.

...and when I say beauty....

As right as dusk is for No Plain Jane, Swanky Silk was made for full-sun.  Not only are the New Bohemians chromes with varying hints of color shift, they're also infused with stunning tiny shimmer that just bursts into vibrancy in certain lights.

...if only those lights didn't make my skin look weird...

...but they still bugged the shit out of me, really.  Did you see the bubbles I 'artfully' hid?  They were very real...and galled me.  The trouble with these is they're thin and take a fair amount of building, 2-3 layers.  Each layer is another chance to bubble, especially in the summer....double-especially when you're using thicker coats than usual to try to minimize streaking.  My eternal solution for thin, bitchy polishes?  Layering!

(over black)

Skittles!  This is Unpredictable, Deviantly Daring, Want My Bawdy, and No Plain Jane.  Bawdy bubbled a little.  Ugh.  Still....this was LOVE!  This was exactly what I'd hoped for from this collection!  Vibrant, jewel-toned chromey stunners!  ...but I wasn't done.  I've seen some astounding stamping and marbling done by The Polished Mommy, so I wanted to play too!

Egged on by Nichole, I decided to try (again) to do a gradient...

I liked the way the sponge changed these, so I sponged the single-color nails too.  The photos up there ^ are without any top coat.  The shimmer that pops out suddenly is *right there* when they're sponged...but...the texture.  ...hmm....matte top coat!

NYC Matte Me Crazy

Smooth and satiny!  ...but let's see them shiny!

Ooooh!! Merry xmas!  I want these on my tree this year!

....this was too much fun!  I didn't stop there.  Ok...I kinda did...

they even came off pretty!

...but I'm not done!  I still hadn't played with Swanky Silk!  See you soon!