Color Club Backstage Pass Collection Fall/Winter 2011 Swatches and Review

What's that? More glitter!, you say? I think I can help with that. Have a look at Color Club's latest release: The Backstage Pass Collection. Six chunky glitters in all different shapes, sizes and colors.


Color Club Backstage Pass. This is very large silver and purple hexagon shaped glitter, plus a little bit of smaller hex and normal sized purple and silver glitter in a clear base. It's extremely thick and chunky and doesn't apply like normal glitter polish. Instead you have to dab it onto your nail and spread the glitter pieces around with the brush. Some of the glitter in this one seems curved... U-shaped... 3D. Like a taco. Those pieces tend to flake off the nail after the polish dries, even after topcoat is applied.



Color Club Fame and Fortune. This is a magenta jelly base with a random assortment of shattered holographic silver pieces. This is not normal glitter, not that flaky, crinkly mylar glitter like the old NYX Avenue polishes and not traditional 'flaky' style glitter. It is large, irregular, shattered pieces of plastic. Very, very cool looking and unique in my collection. Even if this is a pain to apply, the end result is worth it.



Color Club It's A Hit. This is just a very large purple hexagon glitter in a clear base. Some of the glitter in this has that curling/curving problem like the glitter in Backstage Pass. These large hex glitter shades are best left for layering.



Color Club Platinum Record. Large and small pewter hex glitter and small, round silver and grey glitter in a slightly smoky-tinted clear base. Again, best for layering.



Color Club Take The Stage. This is regular gold glitter and a small amount of the shattered hologram glitter that's in Fame and Fortune in a clear base. The holographic accents are cool, but not that noticeable.



Color Club Wish Upon A Rock Star. A multicolored glitter in a clear base. There's silver, red, green, gold and purple regular glitter plus some large lavender hex glitter and maybe a piece or two of silver broken hex in there as well. This one was the easiest to apply of all the shades and it's possible to wear this alone, but it's definitely easier to layer.

Here's a few of the shades layered:

Backstage Pass over white.

It's A Hit! over pink.


Platinum Record over white.

The formula on these was not good. That's normal for this type of glitter, but knowing that doesn't make it any more fun to apply. The base is thick and glue-like, while the glitter all clumps up in the bottom and sides of the bottle and on the brush stem. You have to make globs of polish on the nail and then individually place the glitter with the brush instead of brushing it on like normal glitter. I did three 'coats' (drop/push technique coats) each, except for the layered pictures which are only one coat. Drying time is good, but none of them dry flat, so multiple coats of topcoat are required.

Overall, I like the colors for the most part, but the application is dreadful. They're so chunky and gooey, it really requires patience to get a nice, even glitter distribution with these. That, and removal is a bit more rough than normal glitter, these big hex pieces really love to stick to the nail.

My picks are Fame and Fortune, Wish Upon A Rock Star and Backstage Pass. Wish Upon A Rock Star has the easiest application and all three have really interesting color mixes and effects. As sharp and poky as it is, I love that shattered plastic glitter in Fame and Fortune! Especially in the hot pink base.

(These were sent to me for review.)