China Glaze: Hunger Games Collection Swatches

I pre-ordered half of the China Glaze Hunger Games Collection from Sally's because I had a couple coupons to use before the end of February.  I wanted pretty much this whole collection, but I cut it down to six colors.  Of those six, one was unavailable at the time they shipped, so I only have five to show you today.  However, I'm really a fan of these colors (and the one I didn't get was Smoke and Ashes, which I NEED in my life!) and I may be stopping by my local Sally's with my second round of coupons in hand this weekend...

The first color in this collection is Mahogany Magic, a reddish brown cream.  I usually gush about how much I love green nail polish, but in the same vein, I just love brown cream polishes.  This hit it out of the park for me.  I love this color.  I can't explain it.  It's brown!  I shouldn't love it!

These pictures show two coats with no top coat.  It's a super shiny finish.  The formula was only okay though, feeling a little thick.  I had to remove the extra polish from my brush and stem to get clean strokes.  

That wouldn't keep me from this color though.  I have a few other brown creams and I think this one is probably my new favorite.  

The second polish I have for you is Agro.  I keep typing Argo, so if I lapse into that and don't catch myself, I apologize!  I don't know anything about the Hunger Games story, but I seem to remember reading that this was inspired by the agricultural district.  (Whatever that means...)

This is a beautiful dark green shimmer.  It's metallic-y and olive-y and pretty gorgeous all around.  It has a great light reflecting quality to it that makes it really eye-catching and dramatic.  And it's green!  With all the previews that we saw before this came out, I was most excited for Agro.

These pictures show two coats with no top coat.  It had the same formula issues as with Mahogany Magic, but also in the same way, they would never stop me from wearing it.

This is Stone Cold, a charcoal grey matte polish and actually the first one I wore!  I had been frankening for several hours the day I got this package and that takes a major toll on my nails.  I spilled on my manicure and was too busy to care, so I had to repaint.  I knew I was going to do swatches the next day for Lacquer Convention, so I grabbed this really quick.  

When I saw the first swatches, I was excited to see a matte polish that actually appealed to me!  I have one other, not including neons, but in general, I never reach for mattes.  I also have a matte top coat that I never use...

But can I tell you how awesome Stone Cold is?  This polish is fabulous!  I love everything about it.  These pictures show two coats.  If you notice, it is incredibly smooth and that's not through an awesome paint job, it's through an awesome formula.  My other matte polish is a pain in the rear to work with, so I was taken aback by how easily this was to apply!

I did want to see what it looked like with a shiny top coat, so I grabbed the nearest bottle, Orly Sec 'n Dry and added one coat.  I love the way it looks like this too!  The glitter stands out a lot more and really sparkles.

The only unfortunate thing was the day I wore this, it chipped almost immediately, which I sort of expected from a matte polish.  I sandwiched some base coat between coats, but next time I'm going to see if my matte top coat helps...

Luxe and Lush is the fourth polish and I layered it over Stone Cold for these pictures.  I debated whether or not I needed this one, and not for any fault of its own.  It's really a pretty flaky.  I love the iridescence.  I just feel like I own these flakies in my frankening supplies.  I bought samples from TKB Trading when they first came out.  I might need to find this bottle a new home with a friend of mine instead.

But like I said, it's gorgeous!  It's a different kind of flaky than the Finger Paints collection that was released earlier this month.  I'd consider it a flaky glitter, because the flakes are thicker and heavier and just have more body than other flakies.

The color shift is great over this dark color.  It's also a fairly dense polish.  This was one coat.

Lastly, there's Electrify, which I sent my BFF a text of as soon as I put it on and told her that she might need it.  This polish is a mix of red and gold glitter in a clear base.  I'm not normally a big fan of gold polish or glitter, but I love the tone on this one.  

These photos show three coats for complete coverage, though it could also be layered over something.  It's at that nice density where it came do well in either case.  This was the one that I wanted to keep wearing the most when I swatched it, but I still had one more polish I needed to at least swatch that ended up being my full manicure instead.  Boo!  Electrify may get to play next weekend...

Overall, even with some formula issues, these colors are really something to check out.  I'm going to go hunt down Smoke and Ashes and see if I can manage to walk away with just that one!  I'm eyeballing the two oranges and wondering why the heck I didn't order them!

Thanks for reading!