Tuesday, August 10, 2010

CND Swap

Recently I did a swap with Jen of The Polish-Aholic and was delighted to get my first CND polishes. Well, almost my first; I already had one bottle I'd gotten in a MakeupAlley swap from the era when CND was known as Creative Nail Design and the Colour & Effects system was not yet in place. Even before I got a chance to try the polish, I enjoyed the bottle shape, which is unique in my collection. It's rounded on one side and flat on the other, so the colours nestle right next to the effects and each pair makes a unit that stands apart from the next one thanks to the curved side.

CND

CND


Left to right: Anchor Blue, Emerald Shimmer, Raspberry Parfait, Scarlet Shimmer.


I chose Anchor Blue to swatch first. It was a two-coater, and you can see in the pictures that it was so pigmented that my usual clean-up technique left some blue on my skin (I'm sure if a little more acetone would have taken care of it, but since this was just swatching I didn't subject my skin to that).

CND

CND

I really liked that the labels had extra information about the color and finish on them; it reminded me of Zoya's site, which I've always found helpful—no need to wonder or guess about how sheer something is going to be.

I then layered Emerald Shimmer over the blue, using one coat on my index and middle fingers and two coats on my ring and pinky.

CND

CND

It's no secret that I love layering, so this was right up my alley. The shimmer wasn't streaky at all, so one coat was fine but it built nicely as well. If these hold up in a full mani, I'll have to look for a local supply of this brand, as I liked what I saw when I swatched them. Thanks, Jen!

16 comments:

  1. pretty, I like that combo! I'm glad you like their polish and I hope you can find them locally! If not I can always try to find more for you at my local place!

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  2. I just got the CND Effect in Gold Sparkle and it's awesome! I've been layering it over everything haha. I haven't tried their shimmer effects yet, but this looks really good, I'll have to look into it.

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  3. the bottles are so cute!!!
    and i love ur swatch!!
    can't wait til u post up all the other swatches!!=)

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  4. I have one CND effects polish that my aunt got me. (she is in the beauty industry so she has access to pro beauty supply stores- too bad she doesn't live near me!) I really like it and would live to get more, I loved the bottle shape as well. I don't have any of the base colours though.

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  5. Anchor blue looks amazing! Ahh! I need to get myself some CND polishes for sure :)

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  6. great combo! i have something similar i am gonna try now... i steal all your ideas! lol

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  7. I only have 1 effect so far but I think they're great! I'm curious about the other colors, these 2 look very nice :)

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  8. Looks great! I really like it with the shimmer on top. :)

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  9. Looks nice! I don't have any CND but would definitely love to try them. :) Yeah I recently swatched a blue and it made my skin blue too :(

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  10. I love CND! I only have 2 of their polishes to date, but Fireberry is one of my all time favourite reds! It's a one coater. Amazing!
    I agree with you on the bottles being fab. I love the shape and the rubber lids!

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  11. Hey Karen, I tagged you in a recent post of mine on my blog. :)

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  12. ooh! those are gorgeous! i need some CND too!! :)

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  13. gorgeous blue. i also triend CND when it was creative. when i went back to get more the bottle shapes were changed, lol.

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  14. i really like the blue one!

    i tagged you in a post,
    http://nailjunkie100.blogspot.com/2010/08/i-got-tagged-for-4-things.html

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  15. I also tagged you for some blog loving! Great blog, I love reading it :)

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