Milani and China Glaze Texture

Texture Week shifts gears today into textured cremes. For a while, Milani was the only brand I'd seen who had these, but recently the China Glaze ones showed up. Since they're similar, I'm going to cover both collections together.

Let's start with the Milani. There are six of these, all with names that don't make you guess about what color they are if you see them listed without any photos (but of course I have photos): Yellow Mark, Tainted in Red, Spoiled in Fuchsia, Purple Streak, Aqua Splash, Shady Gray.



I wore Tainted in Red with an accent of Yellow Mark. I kept thinking these were not dry because the base stays shiny even when it's no longer wet, unlike the textured glitters I've been swatching like crazy. The little glints of light you see in these photos is not glitter; it's the light reflecting off the shiny base color between the texture mounds.





Shady Gray got an accent of Spoiled in Fuchsia.





I paired Purple Streak with Aqua Splash.





I used two coats of all of the Milanis, even the yellow. With some of them, mostly the darker shades, there were some tiny whiteish spots where it appeared that the base color wasn't completely covering the rocks or sand or whatever they put in these to make them bumpy. It wasn't super obvious, just something I noticed when I looked very carefully and that you might be able to see in the closeups here.

There are six colors in the China Glaze Texture collection as well. The names of these don't give a clue to the colors, but they do tie into the texture theme: Unrefined, Bump & Grind, Itty Bitty & Gritty, Toe-tally Textured, In the Rough, Of Coarse.



I wore Unrefined, which is a medium pink, with an accent of Bump & Grind, a warm rose pink. I used only one coat of Bump & Grind so you can see the difference in bumpy-ness between that and the two coats I used for Unrefined.





Itty Bitty & Gritty is a coral; I accented it with Toe-tally Textured, a yellow orange (also known as Mr. Karen's favorite color).





The last two are Of Coarse, a turquoise blue, and In the Rough, a lime green.





I used two coats of all the China Glaze colors, except for Bump & Grind as noted earlier. I saw the same white glints showing through on some of the colors as I did with some of the Milanis; it was perhaps a bit less prevalant with the China Glaze, but it wasn't a big deal in any case. As far as finish goes, I couldn't really tell any difference between the two brands. Here's Milani Spoiled in Fuchsia on the left and China Glaze Bump & Grind on the Right:



And here's China Glaze Of Coarse on the left and Milani Aqua Splash on the right:



I didn't notice any particular differences in application or dry time between the Milani and the China Glaze, either. With both brands, you need to keep an eye out for little rocks hanging over the end of the nail and push them back before they dry that way (which I didn't always do). Because they don't have the "mattes dry faster" factor working for them, both brands did take longer to fully dry than the textured matte glitters I've shared earlier this week. They were dentable for what I felt was an unreasonably long time—please keep in mind I am not the most patient person and feel quick dry topcoat is one of the best things ever. I'm wondering if sandwiching some Insta Dri clear or similar in between coats of these would make them dry fast enough to sastify me but haven't had a chance to try that yet.

I'd say these are definitely a novelty item. If you like the color but not the texture, you might as well get a straight up creme and wear that instead.