My latest (and short lived) manicures...

I have not had much luck with my previous two manicures.

My manicures usually last at least two days with minimal chipping and only slight tip wear.

So on Friday night I decided to paint my nails for the weekend and I dived into my untrieds basket and found a stunner of a polish that I have had for quite a while - China Glaze Stone Cold.

CG Stone Cold is from last year's Hunger Games collection and is a matte charcoal gray/black with silver shimmer.

I have mentioned before that I am not a fan of the matte look and while I originally thought I'd give it a go as a matte, I caved very early (I hadn't even left my nail room!) and decided to add top coat.

It applied flawlessly - like most China Glaze polishes - and due to its matte properties it also dried very quickly.  Unfortunately, also due to its matte properties, it also chipped very quickly.  I noticed my first chip less than 3 hours after application, and this is with a top coat and wrapping my tips!  I fixed up the teeny chip on my thumb, however by early afternoon the next day, there were some more chips and I decided I had to remove it.  Unfortunate, as this polish truly is stunning,

After removing Stone Cold I decided to choose another simple (but stunning) polish and also have a go at rhinestones.

The polish I chose is my one and only A England.  Lady of Shalott.  Another awesome gift from my birthday group.

Lady of Shalott is a blue shimmer in a blackened base with micro particles of blue and pink/purple.  It is AMAZING.

Application was fairly simple, though it wasn't as 'smooth' or 'thin' as I would have preferred and I might just add a teeny bit of thinner next time.

I loved this polish with the rhinestones, and can't wait to play with my rhinestones some more.

Unfortunately, this manicure barely lasted six hours...  A couple of hours after I had applied it, I was being lazy and putting some strappy sandals on and instead of unbuckling them like a normal person, I tried to pull them on and the polish smudged off my middle finger!  I tried to fix it but it looked lumpy and... yuck.  Then when I got home, one of my rhinestones fell off.  So this manicure was removed before I went to bed.  Bugger!