New Cirque Kawaii Collection (part 1)!!

I was a very happy bunny this month as Annette of Rainbow Connection very kindly sent me six polishes to swatch from the upcoming Kawaii Collection by Cirque Colors. There are ten polishes in total, one being a topper. They are beautiful polishes and I had a lot of fun with them.

Before I get into the review/swatches I want to talk for a moment about the re-branding that happened in time for this collection. The previous bottle and box (shown below) were a beloved part of the brand by Cirque’s many, many fans and followers.

Personally, I liked the gothic look of the bottle and the black box was plain but not boring. However, I honestly do like the new packaging and bottle font.

It is simple and fresh and I like the way that three boxes line up to spell out ‘Cirque Colors’ (yes, I am easily pleased!).

Anyhoo, lets get on to the polishes themselves. I must warn you that this will get quite photo heavy, basically as I just had too much fun playing with all of the pretty colours! 🙂

First up is ‘Killer Kitsch’, a hot pink holo polish with a beautiful coral shimmer through it. I loved this polish as soon as I took it out of the box as, in the mid-afternoon sun, it looked quite coral with pink and orange undertones. However, stood in my bathroom that night it looked super hot pink. It just changes so much colour-wise and it is stunning. This polish will stamp (see picture at the bottom of this post) and watermarbles nicely.

Killer Kitsch, two coats plus top coat.

Killer Kitsch, L-R: top coat, no top coat, matte top coat, stamped with black and white.

Next up is ‘Happy Monday’. This is a violet polish with a teal shimmer running through it which, at times, flashes bright blue. This too has holo and is simply a gorgeous polish that stamps and watermarbles well.

 Happy Monday, two coats plus top coat.

Happy Monday, L-R: top coat, no top coat, matte top coat, stamped with black and white.

’24k Affair’ is basically a very shiny, sparkly, gold version of ‘Halcyon’ but with added holo. This polish has a slight bronzed appearance in lower light and is blindingly gorgeous in the sunshine. I don’t really wear gold polish as it is one colour that you have to match to your skin tone, however, this looked fantastic and I am deathly pale! 🙂 This stamps nicely but isn’t super bold so white is a good choice of base. The flakies mean that this is not one for watermarbling 😦

24k Affair, two coats plus top coat.
24k Affair, L-R: top coat, no top coat, matte top coat, stamped with black and white.

The next polish is called ‘Lolly Lips’ and it’s a ‘wow’ polish. A bright, raspberry pink with holo flakies, it just sparkles away. Looking at it, you would think that it would dry very rough but those flakies lie flat and dry to give a lovely smooth finish. Those flakes however, do stop it from watermarbling but it stamps nicely.

Lolly Lips, two coats and top coat.
Lolly Lips, L-R: top coat, no top coat, matte top coat, stamped with black and white.

‘Star Child’ is up next. This is a teal base with holo AND opal glitters. It is so very sparkly that my camera had a bit of a rough time trying to focus on the polish as the glitters sent it a bit crazy! This is quite a sheer one and needed 3 coats to cover any bare patches that seemed to appear due to the amount of glitter in there. Rest assured, it is definitely worth doing three coats, this is beautiful and shimmery when you have done. I didn’t manage to get around to stamping or watermarbling with this polish but I would bet that it wouldn’t stamp very well because of the sheer base and those glitters will not work for watermarbling.

Star Child, three coats plus top coat.

Star Child, L-R: top coat, no top coat, matte top coat, stamped with black and white.

The last of the polishes I received was ‘Crystal Tokyo’. This is a rainbow glitter topper. Now, i’m not normally a fan of toppers but I had great fun with this one. I think it was down to the rainbow glitters as it would really go with everything, as shown in the picture below.

Top/bottom: without/with Crystal Tokyo. L-R: 24k Affair, Happy Monday, Star Child, Lolly Lips, Killer Kitsch.

Then I wondered if it would layer-up to cover like a normal polish but although it did, it was very chunky so I would recommend sticking to the one, two or three coats as shown below.

And the same over black:

Stamping!! As I mentioned before I had a lot of fun playing around with these polishes! You can see here that over a white base the colours really pop, even the gold looks great.

Over black however, the colours don’t stand out very well but the shimmer and holo shines beautifully. Sadly Lolly Lips doesn’t fair well over black so I would stick to a white base for that one.

Ok then, thoughts on these polishes:

Formula: The application of all of the polishes was flawless, no streaking with the shimmer polishes, a smooth finish with the flake polishes and even the more glittery polishes (Star Child and Crystal Tokyo) went on smoothly.

Colours: There is a good range of colours even in just these six that I received. Nothing too similar, even the pink polishes are completely different. What is even better is that the topper polish goes nicely with all of the polishes giving you more colour options.

Overall: When I think of kawaii I think of cute cartoon-style animals, coy girls in elaborate outfits and chibi-style characters. This collection doesn’t scream ‘kawaii’ to me however it is massively cute in it’s own way. Light and bright colours, holo and glitters mean that there is a polish for everyone here.

I really did love this collection, so much so that I have just purchased the remaining four polishes so look out for another review with swatches for those!

If you would like to purchase your own Kawaii Collection polishes they are available right now at Rainbow Connection and Cirque Colors.

Let me know what you thought of the new collection and which your favourite polish is in the comments below! Thanks for reading, ’til next time.. x x

 

****Press sample: I was sent these polishes to swatch and photograph but the opinions expressed above are my own****