China Glaze Hologlam Strap On Your Moonboots - swatch and review

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots

This is such a wonderful colour! As I'm sitting here, typing in a darkish room with an overhead light, the colours are quite mesmerising as my fingers are moving around.

I used two coats of China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots over Nfu.oh Aquabase. No top coat. If you've not used an aquabase before, it's a basecoat which dries to a super-shiny finish and is a recommended base for more difficult holo polishes. When I swatched When Stars Collide and Infra Red I just applied the polishes to my bare nails and I was perfectly happy with the results, but a reader asked me if I thought they needed an aquabase so I'm using it this time round. It makes application really smooth and if you have an aquabase to hand (and time for it to dry - aquabase takes about 20 minutes to dry properly) I'd say go ahead and use it. But if you don't have one, you can certainly use these polishes without.

These first pictures are taken near a window, with an overhead light in the background. We don't have anything like full sun here today, but I guess this is the sort of effect you'd get in full sun. I'm really looking forward to wearing this polish in the summer!

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots 

The base colour is a dark, slightly teal-leaning blue, but the holographic flare seems to range from greenish to a very dark purple.  Here are some pictures in indirect light, just showing the base colour. This is how the polish would look on an overcast day; the I like the base colour a lot and it is something I'd choose to wear in it's own right, quite apart from the holo awesomeness! There is no streakiness at all in this, the finish looks soft and velvety.

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots - Low light

Finally, just because I could, I took a few pictures in direct light, to show how striking the colour shifts in this holo can be! Obviously, don't expect the polish to look like this all the time. But when you catch the light like this, it's amazing!

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots - Direct Light

I guess the question in everybody's mind when there is a new dark blue holo is 'but how does it compare to OPI DS Glamour?'  Well, the two polishes are a different style of holo; Strap On Your Moonboots is a very fine linear holo, while DS Glamour is a scattered holo, with much bigger particles. The base colours are slightly different too - DS Glamour is more of  a straight-up blue where Strap On Your Moonboots leans slightly teal. In low light the don't look *that* much different - you can see the tonal differences in the base colour and OPI DS Glamour has a sparkly feel where China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots is more of a velvety metallic finish.

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots  / OPI DS Glamour - Low light

Move into strong light and the differences between the linear and scattered holo become more pronounced -

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots  / OPI DS Glamour - Direct Light 

To be honest, I don't know which I prefer! I'm very fond of OPI DS Glamour, so I didn't expect there to any contest but I'm surprised how much I like Strap On Your Moonboots. I think they are different enough to justify owning both :)

I purchased China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots from Faith Cosmetics at Amazon.co.uk. OPI DS Glamour is long discontinued I'm afraid, although it occasionally turns up on ebay, or you might be lucky enough to find a bottle lurking on a back shelf at a shop or salon.