China Glaze - Awaken

This is China Glaze Awaken. I bought this bottle in my local independant shop a couple of weeks ago. I really liked the look of it in the bottle, but this is the third time I've tried getting it to look acceptable!



The first two attempts were awful! Really really bad. The first time round, I made a total pig's ear of the application. I tend to prefer to do two (or three) light coats of nail varnish, but this one was just not having that.  Thin layers went massively lumpy and uneven, and looked awful. I hoped that Seche Vite might even it out a bit, but it didn't, it just made it worse, so I took it all off and wore a different colour that day.

Then yesterday (and this is where I know I have flipped over from being a normal human being to being a crazy nail blogger!) I woke up to sunshine, and my very first thought was "ooh! I must paint my nails so that I can take photos outside in sunlight!" Oh dear.  So I did, and I tried Awaken again. 

This time I went for one coat, but applied much thicker. This was better than the first time, as it didn't go lumpy and uneven. What it did do though, was pool very badly round my cuticles. As in, so badly that it was all over the place. I left it to dry anyway, and then tried a clean up with my Opi corrector pen, and then with cotton buds and remover, but I managed to make it all look even worse than before, and I ended up taking it all off again.

Today the sunshine has gone, but I was determined to press on and get this polish on my nails if it killed me, so I tried again. It worked a lot better this time, although there is still pooling round my cuticles that I can't fix. 



This is one coat + topcoat. The colour is a really nice dark silvery gunmetal grey, with bright silvery flecks in direct light. It's quite a thick creme, and has a nice glossy finish. Easily opaque in one coat, and it likes to go on quite thickly.




  
I really like how it looks, but the fiddly application has made me less keen than I would otherwise be. Maybe it's my lack of skill that did it, who knows?