China Glaze Eye Candy 3D Glitters Collection Winter 2011 Swatches and Review

This has been one glitter-heavy season for nail polish collections, hasn't it? Not that that's a bad thing, of course... You know me, never enough glitter. Anyway, this particular collection is called Eye Candy, and that it is. It's a set of six "3D" glitters (glitters which are a mix of different kinds of glitter) from China Glaze that are opaque enough to wear solo.


China Glaze Blonde Bombshell. This is a clear base with superfine light, yellowy gold microglitter, sparse gold stringy/bar glitter and small (but larger than the other particles) round yellowy gold glitter. The stringy glitter is subtle, but adds a nice touch to what is otherwise a standard gold glitter. It's really pretty and sparkly, but probably my least favorite of the set. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just that there's so many gold glitters in clear bases, it needs to stand out a little more to be interesting to me. The stringy glitter helps with that, but it's not the dominant glitter in the polish, so you hardly notice it.



China Glaze Lorelei's Tiara. This is a very fine silver microglitter in a clear base with a sprinkling of small, round aqua blue glitter. Very pretty and icy looking, isn't it? It almost looks like a foil because of how fine the base glitter is. The little glints of blue are perfect. I'm sure this is named after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but all I think of is that Styx song. That, or Lorelei of the Rhine.



China Glaze Love Marilyn. Yes, this looks a bit like OPI Gettin' Miss Piggy With It!, but in my opinion, it's better. This is a small, bright red glitter and a larger, but still small round silver glitter in a clear base. It lacks the large hex glitter and the magenta glitter of the OPI. China Glaze Love Marilyn is nice and opaque and looks very rich and very red on the nails. The color distribution is more even in this one, only slightly less silver than red. Definitely prefer this one.



China Glaze Marry a Millionaire. This one is a mix of small, round, light lavender glitter plus fine stringy/bar glitter in a gold/green/blue multichrome color. At some angles it looks like there's some dark purple glitter in here, too, but I'm having a hard time picking out the individual particles. The stringy glitter is dominant in this one. Very complex and interesting! And opaque enough to wear it by itself instead of being topcoat-sheer like a lot of stringy glitters tend to be.



China Glaze Material Girl. This is a light rose-pink superfine microglitter, a small/medium, round rose pink regular glitter and a larger/medium hologram hexagon glitter in a clear base. I love the glitter configuration in this- the micro, small and medium particles are well balanced and really do give a 3D effect. My only complaint is the color. It seems like almost every pink glitter in my collection, from any brand, is this color. Does pink glitter come in only one shade or something? It looks similar to Pom Pom from the Specialty Glitters collection. I like the way this looks, but I'd really like to see other shades of pink glitter.


China Glaze Some Like It Haute. Oh yes... yes they do. Man, is this one intensely gorgeous polish. I know there are two or three other similar glitters out right now, but I like this one the best out of them. It's superfine black, blue-gunmetal and charcoal microglitter and larger round holographic glitter in a clear base. It goes on so easily and the microglitter combines with the holographic glitter to give it so much depth and insane sparkle. Definitely my favorite in the collection. It's not lumpy, it doesn't bubble, and the holographic shine looks like fireworks on the dark microglitter base.


The formula on these was good. Some shades are a little on the thick side, but not like the Wet n Wild Ice Baby or Nails Inc. Specialty glitters. I had zero trouble with application. I did three coats of all, but most were almost completely opaque in two. I used one coat of topcoat, but they could probably use a second to give them a glassy, smooth finish. Dry time wasn't bad, either. My only disclaimer about the formula is to wait a minute or two in between coats so the glitter doesn't clump because of the thicker base in these.


Overall, I wish a few of the colors had more to them and that these weren't so close to other colors, but I still like them. The formula was a breeze to apply compared to a lot of the new glitters I've been swatching lately. Everything lies nice and flat and they don't need a gallon of topcoat to smooth them. If you were disappointed by the sheer glitters in the OPI Muppets collection, definitely check these out. There's a lot of sparkle and brightness to these and you don't have to worry about doing 76 coats to get them to cover. Two to three coats of glitter, and a coat or two of topcoat is all they need.

(These were sent to me for review.)