China Glaze Tongue & Chic

Tongue & Chic was released by China Glaze as part of the Autumn Nights collection for fall 2013, described as a "playful emerald shimmer." Marketing speak just kills me. Why can't they have concept and design people describe the polish? Of course, in the best of all possible worlds they'd be hiring polish enthusiasts to write the descriptors. Film at eleven.

I was inspired to seek out Tongue & Chic while looking at Rach's post about it on stuff i swatched. It's almost impossible for me to see one of Rach's manicures and NOT want the polish, but her photos of this one provoked such an exaggerated covet response that I had to go buy Tongue & Chic on ebay before I'd even finished reading the whole post. It's a gorgeous darkened blue-green shimmer polish, a teal shade with a strong cerulean vibe and beaucoup superfine metallic silver particulate shimmers that give it it a gentle semi-metallic aspect. It's one of those silky, lustrous, lit-from-within shimmers that brighten along the axis of light and deepen dramatically around the edges, giving the polish a sensational crepe de chine kind of chromatic dimensionality. We've seen a lot of these deep blue-green/skobeloff/pine shades this fall, and Tongue & Chic's variation of it might be just that except for a certain ornate quality that sets it apart. Its blackened look and the subtleties of its shimmer make for a sort of Victorian sensibility. On the nail, it has a formal, almost restrained feel to me that I find quite unusual for a teal, even one as deep as this.

Application was really wonderful. The consistency of Tongue & Chic is fluid, smooth and dense with a velvety glide over the nail and a beautifully balanced viscosity for painting.  Pigmentation is outstanding -- this is an easy one-coater for those with smooth, regular nail beds. My ridges required three coats to camouflage completely, due in part to the polish's tendency to go on in thin coats. Cleanup is fraught with pigment travel as you might expect from such a saturated blue-green. I could have been more careful with the process -- I thought I'd done a pretty swell job until I saw the photos. Oh macro, you are cruel! Tongue & Chic dries naturally in fairly good time to a smooth, slightly flat finish that wants a good topcoat to look its best.

Photos show three coats of Tongue & Chic over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. 

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

China Glaze Tongue & Chic

If you notice, I have yet to bring down the nail length on my left hand so that it matches the right. Apparently, I am now vain enough about my photos to tolerate the obvious indiscretion of displaying varying nail lengths... but for how long? I mean, surely some sense of propriety will hit me at some point.

Ya think? 

love,
Liz