Texture before it was a "thing"

Last night I sat down to get started on a black-on-black mani I wanted to do.  It was going to be awesome, involving matte top coat and stamping.  Really subtle, really classy, really ready for October.

Unfortunately, my Orly Liquid Vinyl was not feeling very cooperative, so I had to put it in time out.  (I also took a few minutes to mix in some polish thinner, so maybe next time it will play nicely.  Here's hoping!)

Not wanting to go to bed with naked nails, I pulled out an untried China Glaze, Angel Wings from their 2012 holiday collection.  I find this polish intriguing because when left without top coat (or, probably even with one or two coats...) it's a very rough finish, not unlike the Zoya Pixie dusts, OPI Liquid Sands, et cetera.  You wouldn't know this when browsing the multitudes of polish blog swatches and reviews, however.  In fact, I couldn't find a single review that didn't have this looking glossy as glass, and as far as I can remember, most bloggers didn't acknowledge this slight discrepancy.  A bit misleading, in my opinion.

I'm not an excellent photographer, but I tried to capture the TRUE texture of this polish, if only to satisfy my own need for realistic portrayals of what you get straight out of the bottle.

This is Angel Wings x3, no base coat, no top coat.



Another angle does a better job of showing the amount of sparkle the gold and holographic glitter give this, but in no way does it do this polish justice.



One final photo, because I'm so awesome at these things.  Blurry is never intentional, but hey, it DOES do wonders for holo.