China Glaze Magnetix 2012 Collection Review, Swatches and Photos

A few years ago Lancôme released a set of polishes that were magnetised. The polishes had magnetic fragments, which meant after applying the polish to the nail, if you held a specially designed magnet over the polish it would create a specific design. Unfortunately I never managed to get my hands on those set of polishes, they were only available (from what I remember) in the US 🙁

Then comes China Glaze, which provided an entire set of polishes with the same concept! And so I just had to jump on the opportunity the minute I saw these were available. Now that I’ve had a chance to play, I can say that while these polishes are a fun concept, they aren’t all they are cracked up to be.

After you apply the polish, you need to hold the magnet over your nail for at least 10-15 seconds. But be careful not to hold it too close, the magnet is strong enough to physically pull up the metal in the polish and so you get up getting a little lump on your polish if you leave the magnet hanging for too long. However if you don’t leave it hovering over your nail long enough, the design it creates soon “melts” down and loses it’s sharpness. This wasn’t something I anticipated when purchasing these polishes.

However if you can get it right, the designs (especially the star) looks amazing 🙂 So maybe practice and patience makes perfect! All swatches are only one coat this time, no top coat~

Attraction

A gunmetal shade with silver micro shimmers infused throughout the formula, ORLY’s Sea Gurl was a very close match so long as you aren’t trying to create the magnetic patterns.

Cling On

A yellow based metallic green shimmer shade, Face of Australia’s Verdigris I found to be an almost perfect dupe!

Drawn To You

Instant Chemistry

A shimmery deep plum shade, it took to the magnet much easier than most other polishes. Shade wise, I found Zoya’s Lael to be a crème version and Zoya’s Mikka to be a sheerer version.

Pull Me Close

A blue silver metallic shade, this is one of my favourite shades from the collection, but as you can tell it was also one of the most difficult to use. Color Club’s Masquerading was very similar, only tinged green.

You Move Me

A rich hazelnut metallic shade, I couldn’t find anything similar in my collection. It’s a gorgeous shade that would suit a range of skin tones. Unfortunately as you can see in the swatch, it wasn’t one of the easier polishes to create designs with.