The blue metallic triarchy

The other day I received a big swap package, actually, I received two. They were from my swap fairies M. and M., and one of them contained China Glaze Blue Bells Ring, which I waved off as “another blue metallic”. So I figured, why not compare it to the “other” blue metallic polishes I have, to see which one I should keep.

Enter: Color Club Cold Metal and Orly Sweet Peacock. Cold Metal looked much darker and less metallic in the bottle, while Sweet Peacock looked a bit more turquoise than Blue Bells Ring. But, as it often is the case with metallics, the bottle impressions can fool you.

From left to right, two coats: Color Club Cold Metal (pinkie, ring finger), China Glaze Blue Bells Ring (middle finger) and Orly Sweet Peacock (pointer).

I used two coats for all of them to be able to give you a uniform look. Blue Bells Ring really doesn’t need two coats, one is sufficient. Overall I don’t think those three polishes are dupes. The smoothest looking one is Blue Bells Ring, Cold Metal is much darker, and Sweet Peacock looks somewhat more grainy; it is also slightly more turquoise than the other two.

In the end Blue Bells Ring won in terms of formula and also I like the color the best.   

If there are any polishes you want me to compare, just let me know!

ANNY Ocean Blue vs. China Glaze Shower together

 

Just a quick comparison post for you today – ANNY Ocean Blue versus my long time lemming China Glaze Shower together.

ANNY is a brand much easier accessible to us Austrian nail polish lovers. They have received quite some attention with their beautiful deep red polish The answer is love. I decided that this looked very close to China Glaze Shower together, one of my favorite medium ocean blues. Shower together has a bit of a teal-ish look depending on how the light hits, and the formula is just great.

Can you tell which one is which? The picture above is made in sunlight, the picture below shows the tealish side of Shower together a bit better – it was made inside, under a regular lamp light. Shower together is on my pinky and ring finger. 

In the flash light you can tell them apart if you know what to look for, but the ANNY polish is holding up very well. In terms of formula, I preferred the China Glaze, but it was only marginally better to apply than the ANNY polish. I think we might have two polishes so close, that we could call them dupes!

essence TR Snow Jam

Today I don’t only have the new-ish essence Snow Jam Trend Edition for you, but also a rather comprehensive comparison. When I saw the colors, I was thinking, yay, same old colors again, but then I decided to check if I really had dupes for them all. I was quite surprised by the outcome of my comparison…!

Let’s start with essence top of the ice stream. What I see is a sheer boring jelly-ish white with blue shimmer, that basically never manages to be opaque and one that will always look as if all the color ran to my tips and dried there in one big ugly blotch. I used three coats.

What I thought: I must have at least three million dupes from essence alone.
What I came up with: zero.
Compared here are:
essence frosted champaign – essence top of the ice stream – essence sparkling water lily

essence goofy blue – I figured this would be the same as China Glaze Rainstorm, only with glassflecks in there. I used two coats, and this is definitely one of the most beautiful periwinkle polishes I own. It radiates calm.

What I thought: I must have at least ten million dupes for this. I love periwinkle after all.
What I came up with: zero exact matches.
Compared here are, from left to right:
OPI I don’t give a Rotterdam - essie smooth sailing – Zoya Skylar - essence goofy blue - China Glaze Rainstorm - essence I’m bluetiful – Zoya Jo  - H&M Peppermint Fusion – essence blues of being cool 

My least favorite are always the purples (and those ugly peach colors, and browns) – lilac is my style – not. Well, it is a very vivid color, one that you would expect girls in their teenage years to wear in the form of super cool and hip skiing jackets with matching helmets and skis/boards. I’m certain that many of you will love this purple, just not me.

What I thought: essence has done this color before. What was it called again? 
What I came up with: Oh wow, I really don’t like this color. I have very few warm purples like this!
Compared here are, from left to right:  
Joe Fresh Violet – SpaRitual Heliotrope – KIKO 316 – Finger Paints Raspberry Tafetta – Orly Frolic – IsaDora Persian Princess – essence break through -  essence lilac is my style – wet’n'wild Through the Grapewine – catrice Bird of Paradise – flormar 441 – IsaDora Pure Purple – Zoya Carly

Last but not least, my favorite of the collection, Life is a freeride (although I dispute this connotation, life is generally neither free, nor a ride). It’s a beautiful medium blue, which is vivid and shines from within. I detect the slightest hints of green in this polish, but that may be mainly due to the effect the microglitter has. Two coats, but honestly, one can get away with one.What I thought: duh, I love this color, let’s find the dupes.
What I came up with: Oh wow, I really this color. I don’t have an exact match , but many that come close! It’s one of my favorite colors for my toes in summer!
Compared here are, from left to right:  
H&M No Mambo Jumbo - Cult Nails Let me Fly -p2 funky - SOPI Who let the dorks out? – Catrice San Francisco – Maybelline Shocking Seas – essence life is a free ride – SOPI Skinny Jeans -  OPI Teal the Cows come home – essence shopping @ Portobello Road – Catrice Birds Flying High – YSL La Lacque 137 – Illamasqua Muse – essence bonnie – Catrice No Snow Petrol -

 So, what do you say?

SOPI What’s your Poison? vs. Zoya Astra

 

So I hopeyou enjoyed some free time from my nail polish adventures? I returned back to Vienna this past weekend and started my job literally a day after I arrived, so between all the unpacking, the early work hours and just plainly the fact, that my vacation is over, I have been rather dead tired.

Nevertheless, I found more red glitter polishes to compare, namely Sephora by OPI What’s your poison and Zoya Astra.

First up, 3 coats of SOPI What’s your poison by itself – it’s a mix of tiny red and silver and magenta glitters in a red jelly base.

And here is what it looks like compared to Zoya Astra (also 3 coats) – Astra is on the pinkie and ring finger, What’s your poison? is on pointer and middlefinger. Astra has a darker base color and more silver glitters throughout the glitter mix. What’s your poison? is also more red, and Astra tends towards a berry color. I wouldn’t be able to say which one I like better, but I think Astra fits me better. What do you think?

Red glitters Comparison

I haven’t gotten over glitters, and I assume I never really will. There are periods when I wear less of it, but despite the removal issue, I am still very fond of glitters, especially the glitter polishes that consist of small glitters and can therefore be worn alone. Hence it is not surprising that I have a generous amount of polishes that look similar, and I went on a dupe hunt for you.

I have never shown you Revlon Glitz and Glam before – it is a dark red jelly leaning towards pink filled with silver glitters. I used three coats of it for the swatches below.

 

I have two polishes that I thought would be similar, but well, judge for yourselves – I don’t think they are very much alike.
Sally Hansen Lady Luck on my middle finger and index finger is a dark red jelly like the one from Revlon, but there’s no silver glitter. Instead, is is filled with glitter the same base as the jelly and sparser holographic glitters.
Nicole by OPI Sensational Scarlet – on my pinkie and ring finger – has a differently colored base even, it is more of a ripe tomato red color, hence “scarlet”, and it is filled with red and iridescent glitters. No dupes here, I’d say! I used three coats for both polishes. 

Which glitters do you like best?

OPI Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous vs. OPI How’s it Snowin’? vs. Orly Stone Cold

 

 

Today I want to show you  how I cannot say goodbye to some of my nail polishes. I have a lot of those stone grey polishes, and I love them a lot, but I don’t wear them a lot, especially not in the summer. So I thought to myself that I could get rid of one or the other grey.

I started of by comparing OPI Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous (one of my first OPIs! Yeah, I know!) to OPI How’s it Snowin’? Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous is on my pointer and middle finger, How’s it Snowin’? is on my pinkie and ring finger. I used two coats of each.

The two polishes certainly don’t look alike, as How’s it Snowin’? is much more rough, as it has glitters in a grey base, while Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous is a charcoal grey metallic.

So what I decided on is that I would keep them both. Next I tried to compare OPI Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous to Orly Sea Gurl. I realized that Orly Sea Gurl is a grey leaning towards brown as in Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous is a charcoal grey. Also, Sea Gurl looks smoother. Hence, I had to keep Sea Gurl as well, because obviously, they are totally different.

 

Are you think I’m crazy or do you see what I mean?

SOPI Skinny Jeans vs. SOPI Tempted by Teal

 

Today I have another comparison post for you. I thought that SOPI Skinny Jeans looked very much like SOPI Tempted by Teal, so I figured I’d only needed to keep one. I’m only writing SOPI, but the brand is Sephora by OPI.

I use two coats for each, and I had a teensy bit of VNL with SOPI Skinny Jeans, but only if I looked closely. Skinny Jeans is a bit lighter and a bit more blue than Tempted by Teal, and also the shimmer in Skinny Jeans is greenish which makes the whole polish look a bit cooler. Tempted by Teal shows all these super tiny glitter particles in the bottle, and these give the polish a touch of a metallic finish.

Below: Tempted by Teal and (below) Skinny Jeans in daylight

Below: Tempted by Teal and (below) Skinny Jeans in artificial light

Below: Tempted by Teal and (below) Skinny Jeans with flash

Which one do you like better? I prefer Tempted by Teal, and have since relocated Skinny Jeans

Sephora by OPI ‘Sue vs Shoe’ vs. ‘Opening Night’

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone else having the Monday Blues? Well, I have two blues for you on this fine Monday! I had a great weekend. I had two visitors, free concerts here in Paris in front of the Hôtel De Ville, good food thanks to leftovers from Fauchon, and just generally a lot of fun. And you?

Back to the polish. Today, two blues are battling for a place in my nail polish drawer, and only one can win: SOPI Sue vs. Shue and SOPI Opening Night. 

Above: Opening Night in daylight. Below: Sue vs. Shue in daylight

I used two coats of each. Both Sue vs. Shue and Opening Night are dark blues with shimmer. I’d call it a prussian blue. 

 

You can’t see much of a difference when you look at the two in artificial light: above: Opening Night, below: Sue vs. Shue

I don’t think there is enough difference between the two polishes to keep them both. Sue vs. Shue looks a bit deeper, because it is less shimmery and more glassflecky in its finish, and Opening Night leans more towards a frosty finish. Never the less, the difference is marginal, and since I rarely wear dark blues, I am only going to keep one.

above: Opening Night, with flash. Below: Sue vs. Shue with flash.

I am definitely keeping Sue vs. Shue because: It’s a mini bottle and it’s unlikely I will ever empty even a mini bottle; it belongs to the other 6 mini Glee collection SOPIs and I like the finish just a tad better than the one from Opening Night. Would you have decided the same?

Who let the Dorks out? vs. You’re S-teal the One

Don’t ask me why, but when I was looking at those two colors in the bottle, I thought they might be similar:

Sephora by OPI Who let the Dorks out? and Nicole by OPI You’re S-teal the one.

Who let the Dorks out is a green-leaning teal, very shimmery and rather sheer, while You’re S-teal the one is a bright medium blue, between frost and metallic, which gives the impression of maybe being a duo chrome in the bottle (it isn’t). Both colors obviously aren’t the same….

below: daylight (First: You’re S-teal the one, second: Who let the Dorks out?)

Below: Both colors in artificial light 

Lastly I tried to show this slightest tiniest least amount of duo chrome both of them try to have. This was seriously the best I got out of them!

Which one do you like better?

Illamasqua Nomad and his friends

I’m guessing you’ve all seen Nomad, one of the two new Illamasqua nail polishes. As mint and pistachio greens are super hip this summer, I couldn’t pass on Nomad. Also, whenever Illamasqua releases their new colours, I have huge fights with my bank account until he (yes, he.) gives in, and I can order at least one! This time it turned out to be Nomad. The other colour, Stance, didn’t excite me too much because it’s purple.

So when I received Nomad, I thought, hey, I have to have at least one dupe for that, considering these greens are my weakness (as well as lime greens and pink, but I thought I wouldn’t mention that here). And so I dug through my stash and came up with these:

Illamasqua Nomad – Trind CC 140 – p2 jetset – essence in the jungle (which is a ‘pedicure’ colour… whatever.)

So, I was utterly wrong. I do not have a single dupe for Illamasqua Nomad. All of those4 are two coats; from left (index) to right (pinkie): Illamasqua Nomad,Trind CC 140 – p2 jetset – essence in the jungle. The one coming closest is essence in the jungle, but Nomad is much more vibrant and looks somewhat happier. I guess a polish-non-professional, or PNP, wouldn’t mind the small colour difference and instead opt for the cheaper variante (aka the essence polish). I however consider myself difficult to please – women, huh?! – and I love the Illamasqua bottles and formula, so I’m sticking with Nomad.

above: daylight. Below: artificial light, no flash.below: flash (here you can really see the difference!)

I can’t leave stuff alone, so I layered Coastal Scents “Tweedia” over my comparison manicure (which I actually wore for a day, because I liked the different greens together). I don’t really know what to think about it though. Alone, Tweedia is a bit boring, and over those greens… it somehow takes wawy the livelyness of the green and hangs over it fog-like. Maybe I should have layered it over something else. What do you think?