OPI Nude Comparisons

We all have those days, going through our stashes and you realize you have possibly three of the same polish. And you keep trying to get a certain one but you grab a near-dupe instead.  That inspired me to do a comp between three OPI polishes: Samoan Sand, Don't Pretzel My Buttons & Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?

The bottle shot sort of washes them all out and makes them look nearly identical, however, on then nail and nail wheel they're a bit different.

Shown above is enough coats of each to make them opaque. Samoan Sand was nearly 6 coats or so, while the other two were three coats. I wanted to show their color; Samoan Sand appears closer to Don't Pretzel My Buttons in the bottle than it does on the nail wheel. Don't Pretzel My Buttons reminds me of band-aids, haha.

Samoan Sand, Don't Pretzel My Buttons & Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?

Samoan Sand, Don't Pretzel My Buttons & Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?

Nail photos are three coats of each over Orly Bonder and sealed with Out the Door.  There was some VNL with Samoan Sand that didn't quite pick up as obvious as it seemed in real life.  The other two are straight up cremes with standard application and coverage, Samoan Sand is what I'd call a sheer jelly.

Zoya Arizona and Wet 'n' Wild Sunny Side Up Comparison

I kept hearing that Zoya Arizona was a dupe for Wet 'n' Wild Sunny Side up, and since I own both I decided to do a swatch comparison.We appear to have what seems to be a dead on dupe!

My bottle of Sunny Side Up is a bit worm but you can see the color similarity in the bottles alone.

"Natural" Light

This is three coats of each over Orly bonder and sealed with Brucci Nail Dryer.  You really can't tell the difference, can you?

"Natural" Light

Flash

As one might expect, Zoya had a much better formula.  It should also be mentioned though that my Zoya was brand new while my Wet 'n' Wild is not.  It was a bit goopier which could've been from air exposure, use, etc.  Aside from that though, Zoya was more opaque which I'm not really sure is affected by use.

Brucci Kathy's Baby Blues vs Essie Something Blue Comparison

I had this as an untried for a while so decided its number was up and put it on. I just love pastel cremes, they're so "Me!" and I love see them on my nails.

"Natural" Light

As usual, not a bad thing to say about Brucci. I'm always impressed with their formulas and price.  This was about $2.35 at my Rite Aid, you can get them online too, ImageBeauty sells them for sure, as I've bought a few from them.

"Natural" Light

This is two coats over Orly Bonder sealed with Out the Door. It went on smoothly, and opaque in two coats! Yay!

Flash

Then I thought it looked a bit like Essie Something Blue, so I did a swatch comparison.

"Natural" Light

Brucci has more green in it, Essie is more of a powder blue.  But pretty, but not dupes!

"Natural" Light

Which do you like better?

Seaweed vs. Da Bush vs. Stranger Tides Comparison

I noticed I had a few of these murky, washed out greens so I decided to do a side by side swatch comparison only to realize they're really almost identical.  The pictures really do speak volumes so the comparison is between Sinful Colors Seaweed, Essie Da Bush and OPI Stranger Tides.

"Natural" Light

This is three coats of each over Orly Bonder and sealed with OTD.

Flash

"Natural" Light

 The OPI and the Essie appear to be dead on dupes; Seaweed appears to be the slightest more green. Maybe. I can't tell what the difference is but it comes off more.. vibrant?  If you own one, you don't need the others. All three formulas were fine; they needed three coats but my coats were thin. Hope this helps!

China Glaze Wicked Style & Fuchsia Fanatic Comparison

Upon swatching the new China Glaze Electropop collection, I noticed two shades are very similar.  Wicked Style and Fuchsia Fanatic are just a tad bit different.  Here are some comparison swatches.

All swatches are 3 coats each over CND Stickey and sealed with OTD.

"Natural" Light

The color difference is more noticeable under the artificial "natural" light than normal light settings.  Nobody could tell I was wearing different colors upon asking.

Flash

The photo with camera flash is a more color accurate example of how close the shades actually are to each other.  Even outdoors you can barely, just barely, tell the difference.  You really have to be looking for it and know there IS a difference to even look for it.

"Natural" Light

It comes down to personal preference on these.  If I had to choose one, I'd pick Wicked Style simply because I like that tone of pink a bit more.  What's your preference?

China Glaze Electropop & For Audrey Comparisons

Two of the blues in the Electropop collection reminded me a bit of For Audrey.  I don't mind having these "back ups" of FA because I really do love that color, but I wanted to share what I've observed.

For Audrey - Aquadelic - Kinetic Candy

What I noticed is Aquadelic has some more green in it than FA, but just a little.  On the nail KC appears much more like a powdery blue in comparison to the bottle shots.

Aquadelic and FA come close but Aquadelic actually stains.  When I swatched my whole hand and upon removing these comparison swatches, it's official.  I'm not sure why it stains, its just a regular old creme.  I like it colorwise the best out of the three, but the staining has me sad.  It's the only one from the Electropop collection that stains, though.

Hope you found this informative (=

More On Revlon Dupes Deborah Lippmann Glitter In The Air + Swatch Comparison

Holy pageviews on my previous post batman!  I went back to Harmon's today to pick up the Revlon Dupe of DL GitA to do swatch comparisons.  They are very very very similar.  Revlon is slightly more opaque, which I think was what people wanted in GitA to begin with.  The difference isn't really noticeable until the 3rd coat.

Side by side bottle comparison - identical, right?

One Coat

Two Coats

Three Coats

For those interested and on the prowl for Whimsical, I took two more pictures of the display.

I hope this was helpful!

the tale of two purples

Purple Pamploma is my first ever OPI so I was very excited to add it to my collection.  I had dinner plans with the boy (well.. he’s not a boy.. actually 5 years older than me, but you get the idea) and had to hurry up the process because I still had to wash my hair.

 The culprits!

Learned a few lessons this week.. such as showering 25 minutes after doing your nails equates to the optical illusion (so-to-speak) of 10 days of tipwear, instantly!  Talk about being royally pissed.  I had top-coated and painstakingly removed ALL excess polish during the clean up and did the impression test and they seemed OK.  Yea, not really at all.  Luck for all of us, I took pictures before I destroyed them (=

A purple creme (= perfect! Totally into purples lately!  Purple Pamploma, according to Wikipedia, looks much like "Byzantium" in the bottle, photographs more like "Fandango".  The flash definitely lightens the color as a whole but it isn't far from the true color.  The sunlight has a similar effect.  Very pretty regardless!
 

Sooooooooooooo after my disastrous shower and dinner date, I came home and redid my mani.  Chose another purple, surprise, and I am a little bit surprised how similar they appear in pictures!

Don't get my wrong, L.A Colors "Nuclear Energy" (I believe, according to their site.  The bottles have no labels and I have long since discarded the packaging!) and PP are completely different.  Nuclear energy is a jelly and PP is a creme.  They also have different a different hue and saturation.  They appear remarkably different in the bottle, but not so remarkably different on the nail.

Caution: slight gore ahead!

 This is another shot of Nuclear energy on my right hand.  I am soooo tired of looking at my nubblette index nail on my left!  Anyways after uploading the pictures I realized what a hackjob my hand looks like O.O

Note the numerical labels;
1. ouch.

2. OUCH.  (You better believe acetone was fun!  AAUUUUEEEEGHH!! Stung like a B*$@! - only inflamed the wound)

3.  That dent is not visible to the naked eye.. really, I can't even see it.  Yet "macro" makes it so apparent.  Thanks, technology!

I've NEVER been a nail biter. But I've always been a nail picker.  I'll pick pick pick and not even realize it until I draw blood.  I think I did this on the way home from my boyfriend's house.  I'm not sure.  I don't even realize that I do it. Luckily, I don't pick my nails when I have polish on them, its some kind of subconscious deterent and that's fine, great actually.  They're usually bloody stumps when I am not up-to-date on my blog, which is why I will continue to blog as long as I have it in me.  However, not so lucky for my cuticles and the skin surrounding my cuticles.  I unintentionally tear it to shreds and the anti-bite nail polish serves no purpose here.  I don't have to be nervous, anxious, upset or angry.. I just habitually pick at my nails.

Mentioned as my two nail related new year's resolutions were better cuticle care and perfecting "the gap".  I think I've done a decent job on the gap part.. still more work to do..

Any advice on how to shed this habit?

a comparison (that i was totally wrong about!)

I own both China Glaze "For Audrey" and Funky Fingers "South Hamptom Seafoam".  I thought that they were similar colors because I played around with both of them separately.  Turns out, they're only in the same color family!  Completely different hues all together though.  Still love both (=

If you could be impartial and didn't know which was which, which color is your honest favorite of the two?