NOTD: ChG Stroll w/ ChG Poetic Konad

So after a couple weeks wearing blue polish, I figured it was time to mix it up. I'd just gotten my Zoya TW5000 order and decided to try Sienna. I'd been lemming this polish since I saw it on the NB back in May or June. It's a gorgeous color, that, to me, looks like koi fish underwater. It just glimmers in light, just like sunlight bouncing off fish scales. Unfortunately, the color didn't work on me. It was pretty, but with my pale skin, it just didn't work. If you are tanned, darker skin, or have any olive or yellow tones, it would probably look great on you, I'm just too darn pink. It's going in the giveaway pile. Sorry, Sienna... it wasn't meant to be.

Sad thing is, I knew it wouldn't work, and if it hadn't been for the Twitter promotion, I wouldn't have even tried it, but since it was essentially free, I picked it up anyway. Thing is, it applied perfectly, so I would have kept it for a couple days as wearing glue-ons doesn't give me the luxury of changing on a whim. However, even 2 hours later, it was still a gooey mess. I was able to peel it off, use a little bit of non-acetone remover and apply something that looked okay, OPI Red Like Roses (no pics of this one, my job was crappy and this color deserves it's own post). That lasted for a day, and then I reapplied my glue-ons and put on ChG Stroll. Here's a couple pics:

I turned this next one around so you could see the konadding better, so it may look a little weird.

Stroll is from ChG's 2009 Fall Collection, Retro Diva. It's one of the three I got from this collection, with Thunderbird and Let's Groove being the other two. It's a deep red jelly-ish base with gold, brown, and red shimmer, looks like it could be a glitter, but the application is smooth as glass. I'd had this one for awhile, but hadn't tried it until I saw it on the NB. Several people were raving about so I figured I'd give it a try. The end product was great. I'm getting lots better at applying ChG polishes, if I do say so myself. However, the application itself was, as usual, a bit troublesome due to ChG's thick formula. It's just not the easiest to work with, but as long as you know that it's a little on the thick side, you can deal with it without a lot of problems.

The color itself is really pretty, but to be honest, I wasn't completely in love with it at first. I applied one coat of TC, and it was just okay. It looked like any other dark red it me, and it didn't see why it was so special. Then last night, my nail polish ADD kicked in and I had to do something to it, so I chose to do a konad design. I picked the crown from my m40 plate and ChG Poetic as the design color. Poetic is from the Romantique collection and like all the other Romantiques, it did not disappoint. It's a hard color to describe, but I would say that it's a rose gold metallic with ribbons of silver in the bottle. The silver ribbons, however, do not translate to the nail. I think it was a perfect partner with Stroll, rather than using a more overt gold, like say ChG Passion. It really plays nicely off the red/brown/gold shimmer in Stroll. Additionally, I know I've complained in the past about my m40 plate, but this time, it worked like a charm. I'm guessing the difference was the combination of an improvement in my skill level and using the right kind of polishes. I sound like a broken record, I know, but using the ChG Romantiques is why I fell in love with my Konad. They are a match made in crazy-nail-polish-obsessed heaven.

Also, and this was a happy coincidence, because I applied another coat of TC to set the konad design, it really brought Stroll to life. The shimmer, that was a little bit muddy before, was suddenly shining like mad. So, if you are having the same issues I was, with it just looking "meh", see if a second coat of TC would do the trick. Normally, that's something I automatically do, especially with navies, vampies and blues, but I didn't think it do it with Stroll. Not sure why.

Lastly, I'm still using the Kiss tips. I really like the way that the board straight nails look on me. I keep the edges on these very square, which I think I prefer over the square-oval I'd been doing before. I will still use the shorter Nailenes, because I think they are more appropriate for certain colors, but I think I'm going to use the Kiss as my go-to nail from now on. There's an issue with them that bugs me (sometimes, when you polish, the "french line" on these has a tendency on certain nails to become evident, but it's pretty easily fixed with a bit of buffing beforehand and nail art afterward, if needed).

Hope you guys like this one. What started out kinda blah to me, became a favorite. I really like this new ChG collection. I may need to get a few more of them with my next TD or VNS order. Any must haves?