Top Shelf Ingrid

Ingrid by China Glaze, and Top Shelf by Color Club

Ingrid is a very sophisticated deep brown color. In the bottle it appears to have some gold shimmer, but on the nail it is all cream and no sparkle. Despite the difference, it is one of my favorite neutral colors, and I wear it often for work.

Here Ingrid is shown stamped with Color Club's Top Shelf, which is a champagne gold color. I got this as a sample in my monthly Birchbox last year, and I use it for nail art all the time. It has great coverage in a very thin layer as you can see from the vivid stamping designs above, so it also works well with dotting tools to create your own free-form designs.

These stamps were created with Mash plate #65 which is covered in Egyptian hieroglyphic style designs. Between the two hands, I was able to use every design on the plate. The plate is etched well and I had no trouble stamping with it. The sun design was difficult to stamp without it becoming wobbly due to the C-curve of my nails, but with practice it'd be better. I was surprised by how much I loved the French tip stamp seen on the tip of both ring fingers, and will definitely use that again in another manicure.

China Glaze is not the most inexpensive of polishes, but I consider them mid-range and you get a lot of wear for your money. The coverage is great and Ingrid achieves opacity in 1-2 coats. The wear on this is about average. I've had experiences where it chipped on day 2 or where it lasted for a week without any chips. Ingrid comes off easily and doesn't stain your skin, but if you use pure acetone it will melt into your cuticles during removal and make them a bit brownish so extra clean-up is needed. The color in the bottle and on the hand are not identical, and if you bought this expecting the golden shimmer you see in the bottle, you'd be very disappointed.

I give Ingrid 7 out of 10.

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Color Club is average in price and good quality. I've gotten quite a few sample size bottles from Birchbox, and found deals online for other brand new sample size bottles for as little as fifty cents. Top Shelf's coverage is great and achieves opacity in 1-2 coats. When I used Top Shelf by itself for a manicure it had great staying power and wore for quite a while without chips. This color comes off easily and doesn't stain, and the color in the bottle and on the hand exactly the same.

Final score for Top Shelf is 9 out of 10.