Christmas glitters compared

As I've mentioned, I started going through my stash and swatching everything onto nail wheels so I can compare. The first thing I did was red glitters - and I'm working on more reds but haven't gotten pictures of that yet. I also compared a couple of red-violet jellies. Now I have Christmas-themed and/or multicolored glitters - I know nobody really cares about this in January, but if I wait until next fall I'm most likely to forget about it completely, so January it is. I've seen these called "ugly sweater" polishes but I actually like them, which is why I have a fair number of them. If you're careful about how you apply them they can be really beautiful.

I did show one more of these back in December and it wasn't there in the box when I did this round of swatching so I didn't go hunt it down again - I knew I already had pictures, anyway. That was Twinkle Lights from Nine Zero, with Christmas glitter in a silver holo base. None of the ones I'm about to show you have that silver base - that was why I went and bought that polish, because it was different. So there's certainly no issue of dupes there - in fact there's no real issue of dupes here at all, although there's one pair that does look a bit similar on the wheel.

R-L, this is Unicorn Farts (Funky Fingers), Bling Tree (Sally Girl), Yuletide Treasures (Pahlish), and Yule Light Up My Life (Serum No 5) - on the wheel they go from bottom to top. You may not be able to get your hands on any of these particular polishes, but there are always lots of similar polishes around every year for the holidays. Indie polish-makers in particular love this kind of thing. (For example, still on KBShimmer's website right now there is sELFie, a mixed glitter in a green base, and Holly Back Girl, in a crelly base.)

Note: I wandered over to Serum No 5's website looking for something else and I noticed that Yule Light Up My Life is currently still available (as of late August '16). Just in case somebody happens to be interested...

Added: I almost forgot that I had a second set. These are smaller glitters and they're not as obviously holiday so I think you could use them for other purposes if you cared to.

This is Out Of Space Convertible from Different Dimension, and Holiday Spirit from Sation. I actually like both of these quite a lot. I had swatched them on either side of Punk-ish Purple, so I tried some glitter on the tip of it, too - I'm pretty sure that one was Holiday Spirit. Out Of Space Convertible has a dark base, making it much more elegant looking. Good party material for Mardi Gras, maybe. (I do have a Mardi Gras polish, though, which I will show swatches of soon!)

Here's the wheel picture above turned sideways and cropped so it's larger:

They do look slightly fugly, I have to admit. I think these really look best over a color. The green on the right is Lodgepole Pine (Square Hue) and I slapped one of the glitters on the tip, and I'm not entirely sure now whether it's Yuletide Treasures or Yule Light Up My Life. Those two are pretty similar on the wheel, except that Yule Light Up My Life has more smaller-size glitter pieces, and of course, like most Serum No.5 polishes, it's glow-in-the-dark. (I am basically uninterested in that particular effect so I haven't really tried to see whether it works. I know it's said to but I can't say I've ever noticed it.) As far as the other two, Unicorn Farts is not really a Christmas polish, per se, but I stuck it in with these. I will say that I have heard of problems with the big glitter pieces in this polish curling up (aka tacoing) but I didn't notice it this time - they seemed to lay entirely flat as far as I could tell. And you can't really see much of Bling Tree here - especially since the big white pieces are almost invisible on the near-white wheel. I think it'd be cute with the right base but I didn't get around to trying it in real life yet.