China Glaze Hologram Collection Spring/Summer 2013 Swatches and Review

Now here's a collection to be excited about.  I'm excited, at least.  Tweleve new holographic polishes from China Glaze.  Some shades are similar to the older, discontinued OMG collection holos, but some are completely new.  These feature an improved formula and a really pretty fine linear hologram effect. 




China Glaze Astro-Hot.  Light lavender-leaning pink holo.



China Glaze Cosmic Dust.  Light dirty silver / pewter holo.



China Glaze Don't Be A Luna-tic.  Pale, cool-toned seafoam green holo.


China Glaze Galactic Gray.  Medium warm graphite gray holo.


China Glaze Get Outta My Space.  Light, soft, pinky-lilac purple holo.


China Glaze Infra-Red.  Vibrant warm magenta holo.  This is the most colorful and saturated of all the holos in this collection.  I find it to be quite striking. 



 China Glaze Not In This Galaxy.  Warm medium peach-coral holo.  Almost as colorful and saturated-looking as Infra-Red, but lacks the same punch.

China Glaze OMG A UFO. Warm, yellow-toned, mossy-olive green holo.


 China Glaze Sci-Fly By.  Light, silvery sky blue holo.


 China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots.  Dark midnight blue holo.  Slightly soft/dusty look to the base color even when the hologram effect is visible.


 China Glaze Take A Trek.  Medium denin blue holo.  Slight lean toward blue-green.


China Glaze When Stars Collide.  Warm, slightly dirty/murky dark purple holo.  This one is the most interesting to me, I haven't seen many holographic polishes this exact color.  If you want a unique holo, this is the one I'd recommend.  

The formula on these was great.  Absolutely perfect.  Thin and smooth-flowing without being runny, yet nicely opaque.  I didn't have any of the typical holo-polish application problems like bald spots, running or streaking.  Most colors were almost completely opaque in one coat.  I used two coats for all colors here.  No basecoat, no topcoat.  The only problem I had with any of these is that a few of the brushes were frayed on the ends.  Very fast dry time on all shades.

 The holographic particles in the Hologram Collection polishes are very fine, but not as smooth at the OMG collection.  You can still see a speckled texture to the polishes, sort of like static on a TV screen.  In dim light, the polishes look slightly frosty with a faint rainbow sheen, which to me makes them better-looking than the OMG polishes.  However, the Hologram collection polishes don't have the same intensity of holo effect in full sun that the OMG holos do.  They're not weak, and they're much better than the Tronica ones, but they're not quite as strong as they could be.


For reference, here are some other popular holographic polishes, shown in indoor light.


I think these are really good.  I'm not disappointed.  The formula is better than I expected it to be and the colors are nice.  Not all of them are unique, but attractive nonetheless.  The holographic effect could be stronger, but, you know, I'm pretty happy with them.  They're a lot better than the limited edition Tronica holo collection that was gone in the blink of an eye last year (or was it the year before?), and they have a smoother holographic sheen than some of the other holos that have been released recently.  They're not chunky like the Kaleidoscopes and they're not too frosty and streaky like the OMGs.  I approve.

The China Glaze Hologram Collection will be available starting in April 2013.  MSRP on these is $14 each due to the cost of the materials.

(This was sent for review.)