Laura Mercier’s Eye Colour Quad in Tuxedo ($38.00) is her latest combination included in the Black Tie Collection, perfect for holiday smoky eyes.  The shadows vary between slight shimmer to matte in finish, while the texture is uniformly smooth and silky.  You get a bright white, shimmer, silvery white highlighter, deep dark gray, and a shimmery black.  I think we both know what to do with this quad–dark, dramatic eyes!  Of course, you can go as dramatic as you want; you can apply the shimmery white shade all over your lid for a subtler look, too.  I love the gray shade, because it’s not black but it isn’t too light either.  Available at Nordstrom.com.

See the inside and swatches!

Harmony is a rich royal purple shade with lots of shimmer and a lovely finish. You won’t have trouble with brush strokes with this one; it applies better than the average Romantique color does. The shade itself is a great purple–there’s no blue or pink cast to it; it’s just purple.

Admire is a cool-toned pastel pink that has such a lovely chrome-metallic finish that differentiates it from the typical pink polish.

Devotion is a bright silvery metallic shade. It’s my least favorite, because it’s not original at all. I feel like this is an easy color to find in any range. Also, since there is already a darker gray, I didn’t see this as a necessary color to round off the twelve polishes.

Since these are just swatches for color, they are far from perfect, but they should help you get the idea of what colors might interest you!

Admire

Devotion

Awaken is a deep metallic gray color; not a black-gray, but not a medium or light gray. I like that it casts darker depending on how the light hits it.

Adore is hard to say no to, because who can resist such a perfect jewel-toned teal? I also really loved how well this one applied: smoothly and without a fuss.

Cherish is a minty, pastel green with a cool tone to it. I know that there are some dupes out there for this, but this is my first minty green, so I’m a happy camper

Since these are just swatches for color, they are far from perfect, but they should help you get the idea of what colors might interest you!

Adore

Cherish

Delight is a deeper, burnished brown with a little bit of metallic copper in its undertones. I found this one applied better than the majority of the polishes–it felt thicker, but not too loose.

Emotion is a fun, girly pink. There’s just no other way to describe it! It’s very feminine and elegant, without being a hot pink or a pastel.

Joy is a deep, purple jewel-tone color with subtle shimmer. This one applied like a dream–no fuss at all. Plus, no visible brush strokes in the least bit either!

Since these are just swatches for color, they are far from perfect, but they should help you get the idea of what colors might interest you!

Emotion

Joy

Passion is a antique gold, very lovely — and as you can see in the swatch, very easy to over-apply because of the looseness of the polish formula. You really have to use thin coats and then do two or three for the perfect manicure.

Magical is a taupe-y brown shade. There’s almost a little bit of mauve or pink in it, with a grayish cash. It’s a great subdued shade, something you can wear at the office, too.

Poetic is a muted copper-pink shade with similar application problems as Passion. The shade works really well as something festive but not too bright, like a red.

Since these are just swatches for color, they are far from perfect, but they should help you get the idea of what colors might interest you!

Magical

Poetic

China Glaze recently launched their Romantique Collection, which features six warm-toned and six cool-toned polishes for a total of twelve for this winter season. Since there are so many, I’m going to be sharing all of them with you throughout today. Keep checking back so you don’t miss any of them.

Romantique polishes are very similar in texture, formula, feel, pay off, etc. The only real difference between the polishes is the color, otherwise I feel they are the same. The colors are very different from the typical holdiay/winter polishes we see–which is a great refresher. It also makes these polishes great for other seasons, too. The colors themselves aren’t incredibly bright (a few are, but most aren’t); they’re almost a pastel metallic-chrome color. The finish resembles chrome/metallic, and you will see some brush strokes if you apply in a hurry.

One huge problem I encountered with these is the formula is quite loose, even though it’s still thick–almost goopy–and with quick swatches? The polish did not go on so well. You really need to make sure you only have a little bit of lacquer on the brush applicator or else you’ll find it too thick to be able to apply neatly. Brush strokes are also easy to leave behind when there is too much laquer, but I would say you still have to be careful to avoid them even with the proper amount of polish per coat.

China Glaze is one of my favorite lacquers because of how well pigmented their polishes are, and I also love how they apply.  Despite the application being trickier with the Romantique polishes, the pigmentation is still fabulous.  The chrome-y finish in the end is also a really fun look for nails!

I’ll break down the colors as I post their close-up photos and swatches! Stay tuned.