SICKA THAN AVERAGE

When you look at the print ads for China Glaze's Up & Away collection, you literally feel a smile creeping up on your face. There's of course the conspicuous references to Disney-Pixar's Up, with a cluster of balloons in colors so perky and bright they'd make the contents of a Skittles bag look muted in comparison. Since it's a spring collection, most of the colors are festive pastels (from the orchid lilac shade Something Sweet to the margarine yellow Lemon Fizz and the mint chocolate chip ice cream-colored Re-fresh Mint), but these hues are accompanied by the occasional pops of cheerful incandescent color (such as the Four Leaf Clover, a fun green shade that would make Boston Celtics fans swoon, or the Heli-Yum, a creamy bright pink that will remind you of a candy rock stick).

The collection includes twelve shades — in addition to the aforementioned shades, there's: Grape Pop (a Welch's soda-ish purple); Happy Go Lucky, a sunny yellow; Flyin' High, a teal color; High Horses, a salmon pink-meets-coral shade; Peachy Keen, a creamy shade like the one you'd see in a peach rose bouquet; Light As Air, a pale lavender purple; and Sugar Candy, a Pink Panther-esque hue.

I tried three of the shades in the collection: Peachy Keen, Heli-Yum, and Happy Go Lucky. Now, I'll keep it funky: I wanted to love these shades, like on some "sitting on a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g" tip. Unfortunately, these Up & Away shades didn't quite reach the necessary heights for me. Both the Peachy Keen and the Happy Go Lucky are fairly light shades, so you'll need to apply and layer several coats for the color to really cover each nail appropriately. The problem: the polishes are so creamy and the texture so thick that they border on goopy. It took me several tries to actually get the colors to look right. The key is to be extremely careful and precise with the polish brush, using the bare minimum of polish for each coat, and to let each and every coat dry thoroughly (and I do mean thoroughly) — otherwise, you're going to have a huge mess on your hands (quite literally).

As far as the colors themselves, I'd say the Happy Go Lucky is the type of yellow you'd associate with Marshmallow Peeps (which I loved since the sunny color brightens up any mood) while the Peachy Keen makes me think of flirty bridesmaid dresses (not quite my style, but pretty nonetheless). The Heli-Yum polish was probably the easiest to maneuver since it wasn't as prone to clumping, and the consistency wasn't quite as thick. The color itself is a plucky hot pink, similar to Zoya's Ali shade — it's not the most distinctive of the three colors, but it's definitely versatile, bright, and fun.

Check out the photos below so you can see what the colors look like on actual nails!

Peachy Keen on nails: