Manic.Monday: Keep calm and paint on + Winner of international giveaway

Before we talk about this Manic.Monday's beautiful nail polishes I want to quickly mention that the international giveaway to celebrate 1000 followers has been closed. Thank you very VERY much for all the lovely comments of support and to everyone who entered the giveaway, I'm so happy that there were so many entries. I'm very happy to announce that the lucky person to win the five L'Oréal Glam Shine Balmy Glosses is Anastasiya Klimova - massive congratulations to you, and I hope you'll enjoy the balmy glosses!

I think it's safe to say that I've shed the dark and vampy berry Winter nail polish shades and have moved on to lighter brighter and happier shades, I guess I'm celebrating Spring a tad bit early. When it comes to clothes I'm not really a pastel girl and while I think it looks fabulous on others I'm more into mono chrome or earthy tones, but pastels on my nails - that's a different story altogether and you could say that I'm an equal polish shade opportunity girl. This year I've been organised enough to plan ahead a little bit so in the sales I managed to pick up some gorgeous shades that will be right on trend this Spring & Summer and one of those bargains is the lovely China Glaze Keep calm and paint on (£6.36).

I discovered China Glaze fairly recently and was so impressed by it that I quickly got myself another couple of polishes - after all there are more than 300 shades to choose from so there's bound to be something for everyone and for a polish-aholic like myself it's an absolute dream brand. The formula is great and easy to work with; it has just the right consistency and a wonderful wide brush - the type that fans out covering more or less the entire nail, which means that you get a lovely and even coverage in one quick brush stroke. This was the first lighter shade I had tried from China Glaze so I was a bit worried that it would be very sheer, however I soon discovered that it has the same rich pigmentation as the darker colors so it quickly gives a nice opaque finish. You could wear just one coat even of this lighter shade, however as you'll know by now I like my finish nice and solid so in the photo I'm wearing two coats. The China Glaze nail polishes contain China Clay, which is a high shine ingredient which also strengthens the nails, so you won't really need a separate top coat and it lasts 4-5 days before it starts to chip, which is above average in my book. Keep calm and paint on (love that name...) is a gorgeous pastel shade - a shimmery mint green with a blue undertone that looks so crisp and fresh without being sugary sweet and I know that this is going to be one of my favorite shades this season.

To add another dimension to this fresh and clean look I've applied a coat of the Ciaté Confetti (£9) which is a stunning glitter polish with millions of tiny holographic sparkles that give a brilliant shine and radiance. The glitter is so dense in this polish that it's easy to spread it evenly across the nail and you also only need one coat for a highly luminous finish and you can use this either as a top coat or on it's own (I would recommend using at least two coats) for a truly gleaming look. Since the particles in the polish are so fine, it's surprisingly easy to remove this glitter coat - no need to bring out the strongest, nastiest acetone or to use other tricks to get rid of it. It's such a pretty effect polish and I don't think there's a base shade in the world that it wouldn't work great with.

If you were to only have one single glitter polish, for me it would need to be Confetti because of the amazing lustre, and if you were to have only one single nail polish for Spring - I would be very happy with this beautiful crisp honeydew color, and since I have both I'll just follow the advice; Keep Calm and Paint On!