Here’s a combination of three different Spring 2011 collections: Zoya’s Caitlin, Essie’s Kisses and Bises and China Glaze’s Broken Hearted.  Caitlin is my favorite from Zoya’s Intimate Collection , and it’s a subtle color that is still office appropriate (see my reviews here: Zoya Intimate Part 1, Zoya Intimate Part 2).  So I started there.

Caitlin is a purple-gray color with a lot of blue in it as well, lighter than Zoya’s Kelly but a little bit similar.

Then, I added two coats of Essie’s Kisses and Bises, a pearly sheer with red shimmer.  The shimmer can look a little gold in certain lights in the bottle, but on my nails I just see the shimmer as pinkish red.  It’s so pretty, it makes Caitlin flashier and more feminine.  I think it would look nice on almost any of the spring colors–since it’s subtle and the slight milkiness tones down the base color a bit, it won’t clash with anything.  It looks romantic.

Then, the next day I added a coat of China Glaze’s Broken Hearted, from the Crackle Collection.  It’s a bright, slightly purple-ish medium pink.  I used a fairly thin coat and was happy with the crackling I got.   I like the amount of contrast between the base and Broken Hearted–it’s not the maximum contrast, so it’s a little more tonal and texture-y instead.  I think that adding Kisses and Bises on top of Caitlin also reduced the contrast effect with Broken Hearted, since it makes Caitlin softer and shimmery and tones down the purple/blue.

It seems kind of flowery and springy to me.  It’s so different than the looks with Black Shatter, right?