Showing posts with label Swatch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Swatch. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Sinful Colors Blue by You vs. ORLY Royal Navy comparison and video

As I sit here writing this blog post I am reminded why I want my own stretch of land far, far away from anyone else. Today is a perfectly lovely day, nice breeze blowing and some clouds. Oh yeah, and then there is my neighbor across the street with the doors on his beat up jeep wide open, blaring "music" so dang loud that my walls and windows are rattling.

I am going to repeat that just so there is no confusion: the walls and windows of my house, are RATTLING. Because some inconsiderate window licking douche nozzle has decided it is ok to flood the world with "musical" noxious clouds of obscenities and misogynistic hate.

Anyway, this ex-con isn't going to change any time soon; this is NOT the first time this has happened. I'll just have to hope his meth lab gets discovered... or blows up. He's woken me up so many times now that I'll take either one. #sarcasm (kind of...)

ANYWHO!

I have another video up! Yay! Click here for a direct link! 

This video is comparing Sinful Colors Blue By You to ORLY Royal Navy. Sometimes I will look at colors in my collection and think "I already have you... why do I have more than one of you in different brands?!" The answer is because I am a nail polish addict. 

I am CEO, Queen and Grand Royal Empress of La Lacquer League.

That doesn't mean that Her Royal Highness doesn't like a good deal! And I KNOW I can't be the only one! So I am going to be swatching different colors in my collection side by side to see if they really are dups for each other. Just because they look the same in the bottle doesn't mean that they actually are. We are all familiar with finding a polish that is BEAUTIFUL in the bottle and suddenly an evil stepsister when it gets on your nail. 

I also don't believe that being the same color in the end constitutes a dupe. At least not in my book. The end result might be similar, or exactly the same, but what if the higher end polish only required 1-2 coats while the lower end polish required 4-5. Personally, that is a big enough gap that I would still purchase the higher end product. We all know how long it takes for 4+ coats of polish to dry!

That is why I am not just going to show you final results but actually record videos of the application process. You can see exactly how it applies and then judge the final result for yourself. 

 Left: Sinful Colors Blue by You, Right: ORLY Royal Navy
 I truly had to try very hard to get this picture. The ORLY polish IS darker than the Sinful Colors polish, but it is by such a small amount that it is hardly noticeable. The Sinful Colors polish is not a perfect dupe for the ORLY polish, however, I feel that it is close enough.

 
Based on the price, application, color and finish, I suggest the Sinful Colors polish. The ORLY polish is so much more expensive and I did not feel like it truly delivered something that was worth the increase in price. Unless you are truly on a journey of collecting polish, you will be just fine with only one of these in your stash.

You can always check out my nail polish collection on google docs here: My nail polish collection

If you see any polishes in particular that you would like me to swatch, review or compare just let me know!

 

Monday, September 16, 2013

ORLY Matte FX Flakie Polish Application/Swatch review on Youtube

I can't be the only person who has an obsession with flakie polishes. I would say it started with Zoya Fleck Effect and snowballed from there. Actually my first Zoya polishes were when Zoya was having a huge sale on 3 bottles for $10.00, no shipping. I went bananas! Now Zoya and I are good friends haha

So when I stopped by Sally's and saw that there was a new display for a matte collection and it included two flakie polishes, I just about squealed.

 As you can see there are 4 polishes in this collection, with the two on the right being the flakie polishes. There is also  a slot for ORLY's matte top coat if you just want to grab that for over any of your polishes.

 Here are the two beauties I snagged up! The one on the right is called Green Flakie Topcoat and the one on the right is Pink Flakie Topcoat. I'm not going to say that I buy polishes for the names, but... Come ON ORLY! Such a big nail polish brand, amazing polishes and absolutely NO imagination or attention put into the polish names? Pretty disappointing. Plus, "Green Flakie" is really stretching things. Even in the bottle it looks blue.


Here are the polishes swatched on a nail wheel over two coats of Wet n' Wild black. Green Flakie is on the left, pink flakie is on the right.

If you would like to see a video of the application, as well as the polish in different light settings, check out my newest youtube video: Click here for a direct link to the video or click on the embedded video below.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Swatch + Application video of Salon Perfect 901 Kaboom






Price: $3.98
Product Amount: 0.5FL OZ 14ml
Can be bought at: Walmart
Lowest Price Found:  Walmart
Layered Over: None
Coats: 5.5
Similar To: None that I can say for sure right off the top of my head. I do know that it reminds me of some indi polishes I saw on Etsy a while back, but I can't remember the name exactly. Overall I haven't seen any other main stream brands do this. 

In some ways it does remind me of feather polishes. However, the particles in this polish are all round, rather than long, thin rectangles.

This was such a fun manicure! I got a lot of compliments on it as well as people asking how I had done it. Imagine their shock when I said it was only one polish! 

Now the only thing is that in order to get it to full opacity, like it is shown here, I did have to use about 5.5 coats, plus base and top coat. The particles are suspended in a clear base so it takes patients to build it up.
Of course this could be used as a layering polish as well. The first 2 coats were certainly thin and sparse enough to be able to still see a base color. Now there are a few things to note when using this polish:
 

Having to use so many coats isn't my main concern. I am not overly concerned about the world supply of nail polish, or even my own for that matter, but this polish SNAGS ON EVERYTHING. If you watch the video (link down below), I mention that the polish settled right before my free edge,so I had to seal my free edge even more than usual. Well the polish dries to a matte, textured finish, and that texture was really obnoxious on my free edge. 

I have never had any textured polish give me problems with snagging. OPI Liquid Sand, Sally Hansen Sugar Nails and Zoya PixiDust are just a few of the textured polishes that I have used that have never given me any problems with snagging, and I don't use them with a top coat! I did use a top coat on Kaboom and yet it still snagged horribly. I ended up lightly filing the tips, but this doesn't just fix the snagging issue, it can also decrease the life of your manicure because you are breaking the seal between the polish and you nail. So I prefer not to have to file the edges of my manicure.

I really suggest watching my application video (for a direct link click HERE), or just click the play button below, so that you can have an idea as to how it applies.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Swatch: Revlon Nail Enamel - 260 Girly

 
Revlon Nail Enamel:
260 Girly






Price: $3.97-$7.49
Product Amount: 0.5FL OZ 14.7ml
Can be bought at: Walgreens, Walmart, CVS, Target, Kmart
Lowest Price Found:  Walmart - $3.97
Layered Over: Nothing
Coats: 4
Similar To: None that I know of. I have yet to find something similar to Girly, but if you know of one please let me know!
 
Girly is what has started my love for milky, multi glitter/multi dimensional polish. Notice what I said there: MILKY. This means that it is extremely sheer and takes quite a few coats to build up opacity. But it can be done! You can even see in the bottle that the milky base is what makes it have so much dimension because if it was a cream, the glitter would not be able to show through the way it does.
 
I have seen other swatches of Girly just layered over another pink cream polish that has a similar base color, but I prefer to just build it up. Being able to layer it over other polishes is great, but I feel like it just looks so flat. It loses all the depth that makes it such a great polish.
 
So what do you think of Girly? Do you have it? Do you prefer to build up the coverage or layer it over another polish?
 

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure: 

120 Golden Rule


Price: $6.00-$8.00
Product Amount: 0.5FL OZ 14.7ml
Can be bought at: Walgreens, Walmart, CVS, Target
Lowest Price Found:  Walmart
Layered Over: Finger Paints - Key To My Art
Coats: Two
Similar To: Orly in Halo and Kardashian Cabana (some still say Khroma) in Fairy Dust
Please remember that prices vary on location, so the prices in my area may be lower or higher than those in yours. 

The first thing I want to say is that I LOVE this polish! As far as I am concerned this is the perfect gold glitter polish! It is not thick, chunky hex glitter, but it is also not extremely fine milled sparkle polish. The size of the glitter is much smaller than traditional chunky glitter and it is densely packed in a clear base.

Application is E.A.S.Y! It is so smooth and best of all, it evens itself out! Glitter polish is notorious for drying lumpy and catching things but this polish does not. Because of this, this is a great polish to have in your collection for layering. A halfmoon mani would look great with this underneath and you wouldn't have to worry about your polish being uneven.

I did layer two coats of Golden Rule over a coat of Finger Paints Key To My Art because I was worried it wouldn't be opaque enough on its own. But to be honest I don't think it was really needed. I will be doing another manicure only using Golden Rule and will be sure to post pictures. 

For a similar polish I suggested Orly Halo and Kardashian Fairy Dust (swatches to come). The biggest differences are that Halo has MUCH more silver than gold, is not very dense (though with patients it could be built up to a good opacity), is harder to find and is more expensive.  Fairy Dust is part of the Kardashian line and I have only seen it at Ulta, for $5.99. It is not as densely packed and has more yellow in the gold.

What do you think of Sally Hansen Golden Rule? What is your favorite gold glitter?