Wheel R11: Vintage China Glaze Thermals

Today for Nail Wheel Wednesday, I have a whole wheel of In the Mood polishes from China Glaze, thermals from a time when I don't remember that we called them thermals. I picked all of these up at a beauty supply store in Michigan, way back when dusty hunting was a thing and there still were a few treasures to be found. Most had long since lost their shade labels off the bottom, and I knew it wasn't likely they'd still change colors due to how old they were, but that didn't stop me from getting one of each shade they had. Since most weren't labelled, it does seem that I got some duplicates, the same shade just one bottle slightly more faded than the other. Note that some of the bottles have the China Glaze logo still in use today while some have an older style.



Same wheel after being run under hot water. Only polishes 19 and 20 show any signficiant color change.



(all are two coats, no topcoat, except as noted below)

1. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
2. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
3. China Glaze In the Mood Lemon to Coconut Cream
4. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
5. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
6. China Glaze In the Mood Gold to Lime Green
7. China Glaze In the Mood Bronze to Gold
8. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
9. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
10. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
11. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled [may be same as 10, just slightly less faded]
12. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled (3 coats)
13. China Glaze In the Mood Mint Green to Seafoam Green
14. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
15. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
16. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled [probably same at 15, but maybe at one point they changed to different colors when warm]
17. China Glaze In the Mood Mocha to Light Cappuccino
18. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
19. China Glaze In the Mood unlabelled
20. China Glaze In the Mood Purple to Sparkle Blue Neon [might be same as 19, though the base color and glitter density is somewhat different between the two]


Bottles 1 through 4:



5 through 8:



9 through 12:



13 through 16:



17 through 20:




















19 & 20 showing cool and warm states:

Kokie Rock Star and Twinkle

As per usual, I had the best intentions to post long before April was half gone, but also as per usual, I got distracted by other things. First I was wearing myself out skiing the last week of the season. Even with losing time to my ankle injury, I saw that I would be able to meet the target I set for number of ski days as long as I pushed myself, so I did, making my goal on the very last day the lifts were open. Then the day after the season ended, Mr. K and I left for a week long trip to the west coast. I took my laptop, thinking I could do some writing, but between seeing three concerts in three cities and spending time with family, there just wasn't time. I'm not sure why I thought there would be; ever the optimist I guess.

Now I'm home for a few days before I leave again for a long weekend and determined to stop slacking on my blogging. So I can ease back into it, today I've got swatches of just two Kokie polishes, because one of the hurdles to blogging for me is the overwhelming feeling when I open a folder with swatch pictures to find dozens and dozens of them needing to be winnowed down, cropped, and sized. Two polishes is do-able. I only took 23 photos of these two, so not even two dozen.

Rock Star is a lavender shimmer, a much more delicate shade than I associate with rock stars but perfect for spring (never mind the four inches of snow sitting in my driveway that's fallen over the last couple days). I used three coats for full coverage. There's a lot of gold in the shimmer in this, though that gold didn't always want to show up for the camera.





I paired Rock Star with Twinkle, which has silver glitter in a gold-forward shimmer base.



I did one coat of Twinkle over Rock Star; it laid flat enough that I didn't need to add topcoat. The shimmer in it was dense enough that I'm pretty sure it'd be wearable on its own at two or maybe three coats. Unfortunately I didn't manage to test that theory in this particular swatching session.





I liked these; good thing, since I have another half dozen or more from this brand waiting to be used.