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China Glaze Tempest (with some added sparkle)

When buying some nail polish recently I was overcharged but didn’t realise until I got home. My husband returned to the shop for me, and instead of a refund, picked me up a new polish – gotta love him! He chose China Glaze Tempest.

This is a shimmer polish with a hint of a duochrome. I’ve seen it described as a purple, but I think it looks more like a blue. Either way, depending on the angle and the light, it shifts from a vibrant cobalt blue to an inky violet.

China Glaze Tempest
China Glaze Tempest with a top coat of Nailene Artist FX Sparkle

It’s very sheer in application. I used two coats but was left with a couple of bare patches on some nails, so those received a third coat.

I added Nailene Artist FX Sparkle Coat. It’s a sparkly top coat that came with a nail art set. In the bottle, this has tiny flecks of sparkle that also switch between purple and blue, so it’s a great match for Tempest.

Nailene Artist FX Sparkle
This is the nail art set that contains Nailene Artist FX Sparkle, which is on the left

I couldn’t get my camera to photograph this at all with any purple showing, but you can see it slightly in the bottle shot.

China Glaze Tempest bottle
China Glaze Tempest – you can see the purple at the top of the bottle

The polish on my index finger also shrunk a little. You can see that it’s pulled back from the free edge of the nail. I hadn’t experienced this before, but know it to be an occasional “side-effect” of the Seche Vite top coat that I used for this manicure. I’ve read that it can shrink your polish and that a way around that is to “wrap the tips” ( sweep the free edge of the nail with the top coat too). I obviously didn’t wrap the tip of that nail very well, as all the others seem fine! Anyway, I just filed it down by that offending millimetre and all is well again 🙂

For this manicure I’ve used:
  • Base: two coats of China Glaze Tempest
  • Sparkle coat: Nailene Artist FX Sparkle
  • Top coat: Seche Vite