Cords. Metallic warm grey shimmer. This one reminds me a lot of China Glaze Stone Age and also perhaps Beatnik. I call this a warm grey because it seems to pull out the warm tones in my skin. 
Cruisin'. Sheer golden orange shimmer. This one gave me problems. Four coats. This is sort of an orangey, coppery golden frosty shimmer. The shimmer in it is very fine. This color is quite sheer and watery.
Drive-In. Red shimmer. I really like the shimmer in these, it looks like little pearls. This is a red shimmer, it seems to be on the cool side... Not much else to say about this one!
Far Out. Warm golden tan mauve shimmer. This is an odd color. It's mauve, but it's also brown, but it has strong gold shimmer. It reminds me of something from last year's Rodeo Diva, but I can't remember what. 
Free Love. Bold orange shimmer. Ooh, I love it! It's a bright, punchy, fiery orange with gold shimmer. A lot of the colors in this collection have that 'lit-from-within' look where they seem to be glowing in the center and darker on the edges- this is a light version of one of those shades. 
Let's Groove. Deep purple shimmer. This picture is pulling much more blue-purple than it really is. It's a Zoya Yasmeen type purple. Extremely gorgeous. It doesn't look like much in the bottle, but once it's on your nails it really shines.
Short And Sassy. Deep vampy cranberry shimmer. An unexpected favorite! It's deep and velvety looking, very vampy. Another lit-from-within color, this one really does look like it's glowing. 
Skate Night. Magenta shimmer. This is magenta, right? If it's not magenta, I'd call it a light toned purple that leans waaaay red.
Stella. Warm purple shimmer. Another amazing purple! I love it! I can never get enough purple. This one is lighter than Let's Groove and also more red toned. Really nice. I love purple so this one really appeals to me.
Street Racing. Nearly duochrome reddish rose gold metallic. I say nearly duochrome because it doesn't really flash between two colors, but it does show two distinctly different tones when exposed to different lighting. It's mostly that light red/orange/copper color but also has a lot of cooler gold in it.
Stroll. Deep burgundy with golden shimmer/glitter. Four coats. Glitter!! This glitter is really different, it's not traditional glitter. It's like paper thin little flakes of gold. Very reflective golden glitter in a rich wine-like sheer (but not really jelly) base. I still had visible nail line at three coats, so I did four. 
Thunderbird. Glowing blackened red. One more lit-from-within shade. The edges look black and the middle looks like molten red metal. Beautiful. The formula on these was so-so. It was pretty three-freeish, thick and watery at the same time. These shades weren't as thick as the past few China Glaze collections, so the formula seems to be improving, but they were still runny. I didn't get a chance to gauge the drying time on these. None were dry by the time I was done taking the pictures, so I'd say that based on that observation alone, these have a slightly longer dry time.
These aren't really the type of shades I was expecting when I heard about the Retro Diva collection! I was thinking... Avocado... Orange... Chocolate... Almond... Brady Bunch type colors. This seems to be a more 70's themed collection, but I'll admit that I all I know about 70's colors, I learned from my in-laws' kitchen. So, maybe there was a lot of red stuff in the 60's and 70's... But, I also think of disco and glitter and outrageous hair and makeup and outfits. I feel like they could have ditched half the reds and oranges and added in a little more variety.
But, overall, not too bad. I really love the purples and the glowy vampy wine shades. My favorites are Let's Groove, Stella, Stroll, Free Love, Short and Sassy and Street Racing. While there are a lot of really nice interesting colors in here, I feel that they're very safe and not 100% unique. I would wear almost all of these, but I would have liked to see some ugly 1970's appliance shades in here!
What do you think? Does it say 'retro' to you? I didn't exist in the 60's and 70's so I have no insight into how truly retro this is. But hey, I love purple, glitter and vampies, so I can't complain too much!
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