China Glaze – Surreal Appeal Comparison

I had to get Surreal Appeal from the Cirque collection. It turned out to be the perfect pinkish coral creme that is bright but not a neon.

I grabbed 3 other China Glaze pinks and compared them all. The pinky nail is actually Flip Flop Fantasy but I hate that the camera can NOT capture that color no matter what I try. I went to Google Images to search for an accurate Flip Flop Fantasy swatch and there aren’t any! They all look like their cameras freaked out as well, so all I can say is…. go get it, its one of my most favorite polishes ever and you just don’t know what its like until you put it on your own nails. 🙂

Anyway, the others came out really accurately though! The bottle is Surreal Appeal, so you can see it ends up darker on the nail.

Here is a shadier swatch, followed by one with a little more light. Its Wicked Style, Sugar High, Surreal Appeal. Let’s just ignore the pinky. 🙂

After comparing these, I found I don’t even like Sugar High as much anymore, its a little too blue-ish for my skin tone.

4 Browns Swatched – With OPI Shim-merry Chic

Its so hard to wait for these 2 broken nails to grow… I want to get swatching again!

So I’ll just apologize for the first 2 screwed up nails and post anyway.

Here is (from pointer to pinky) LA Colors – Chocolate Shimmer, OPI – Amarillo Almondine, Essie – Armed and Ready, and the pinky and bottle are OPI – Shim-merry Chic:

Shim-merry Chic came out a while ago with Merry Midnight. It has flakies that are a goldish-green, a blueish-purple, and the rest is mostly a neutral brown color.

Armed and Ready ended up looking very dark gray. When you can catch the shimmer, you see the gold flash, but it is a very hidden shimmer.

I love Chocolate Shimmer, so that’s a keeper for sure. Amarillo Almondine might be a little too light for my taste!

China Glaze – Blue Without U and a Forever 21 Polish

First of all… I’m getting married in EIGHT days! 8 days!!
And I’m moving this weekend.

So if you try to read this from a feed reader or shimmerspark.com, it might choke sometime over the next day or so. It means my server is either on a moving truck or its taking a while to set it up with my new IP in a new place to get it back online. I didn’t disappear. 🙂 I’ll make sure all of these posts are imported to the wordpress.com version of my blog that is always online, although some of the images won’t show temporarily anyway because they are on my server! haha

Anyway, onto the swatching!

I did a quick swatch of Blue Without U before, but my MUA friend Gemma sent me this gorgeous polish from Forever 21 because it reminded her of my wedding color palette, and they looked so similar!

They are both this really shimmery baby blue with specks of other colors all through it.

This is what happens when you put them over black! How crazy is that? Blue Without U turns pink and the Forever 21 polish turns bronze! I did them on alternating nails in case they were going to look so similar you’d need both sides to compare to, but what happened was definitely nothing like that.

I wish I could tell you how to get this Forever 21 polish, but I can’t. When she sent it, I tried looking it up by the SKU number and got absolutely nowhere. And since they don’t have names, how can you ever search for them on swap sites or ebay, or blog sales, etc!?

In case you do know a way, here is the label for you! 🙂

If you like Blue Without U, I’ll post an excerpt from the blog post about this one swatched alone, over black, and over white:
Here it is by itself on the index and middle fingers, over white on the ring finger, and over black on the pinky – Its almost kind of ugly by itself, but over white it is a really pretty blue… and over black, all you can see is the pink!

Okay… well, I’M SO EXCITED about my wedding next week!!
If you don’t hear from me for a few weeks, other than announcing the Spring Giveaway Winners, its because I’ll be on my honeymoon!!! Hawaii here we come, and we couldn’t need it more than right NOW when we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to finish 100 wedding details with all of these wedding vendors AND packing and moving in together!
xoxo

OPI – Dutch Ya Just Love OPI vs Zoya – Tru

These are so exactly the same, I can’t get over it. Just when I thought I might like one more than the other, I realize oops, no it was just the light angle because when I tilt back this way, its the same as the other afterall…

That is the OPI on the index and ring fingers, the Zoya on the middle and pinky.

They do look the same in the bottles as well! The best part about these is the hidden shimmer of course!

Unfortunately they were too bright purple-toned for my liking, because we know how I am so picky about purples, so they are both up on my MUA swap list.

I need to do a blog sale though very soon in case any of you want to just buy them at a discounted price with paypal or a check. I have so many I could put in a blog sale, I just need to make the time to sit here and do that. I must soon!

Ozotic Pro 505 vs 506

These can be hard to tell apart because I found there is only one flash angle where they differ.

They look the same to me at most angles. Here is 506 on index and ring, 505 on middle and pinky (over black, of course!):

(Bottle is 505)

Here are the two in the bottle… 506 on top, 505 on the bottom:

But this is the reason why 505 is my favorite! I prefer the greenish blue flash in the 505 over the midnight blue flash in the 506.

I’m holding the 505 in this picture so you can really see that gorgeous teal-ish flash toward the top of the bottle and on my middle nail:

So it just depends on what shade of blue you prefer if you can’t decide between the two of these. 🙂

China Glaze – Urban Night, Makeup Factory – 375, NARS – Tallulah

These 3 dark purples looked so similar to me in the bottle, so I wanted to do a comparison.

Here are China Glaze Urban Night (index and pinky), Makeup Factory 375 (middle), and NARS Tallulah (ring):

The Makeup Factory one got really dark but the NARS and the China Glaze look exactly alike!

5 Pink Fine-Particle Holos Over Black Comparison

I did only one coat of each, in case you like really rich fine particles for stamping!

Also, I think finer particles have the biggest rainbow effect.

This is the order:
Thumb – Golden Rose 108, Index – Sally Hansen Prisms Pink Rose Diamond, Middle – s-he stylezone 427, Ring – Catherine Arley 666, Pinky – Nfu Oh 064

 

In this one you can really see how the Nfu Oh is the richest and has a huge rainbow effect!

Aside from loving the rainbow effect, I think my Golden Rose 108 is my prettiest darker shade of pink and the s-he 427 is the prettiest baby pink.

Dark Teal Comparison

I have so many dark teal polishes that I’ve built up a pile of lately, I wanted to put them all together so you can see the differences up close!

I tried to take them in sun, shade, at different angles…

Here are the polishes on the wheel clockwise + the 3 I cut to put next to them:
Nicole – Too Rich For You, Sally Hansen – Tealy Fast, Essie – Trophy Wife, Zoya – Akyra, BB Couture – Playboy, OPI – Cuckoo For This Color, Catrice – After 8, Deborah Milano – Emerald Bijou, Maybelline – Blackened Teal, Pure Ice – Iced Teal, China Glaze – Blk Bila Bong, Urban Decay – Grunge, OPI – Unripened, Maybelline – Cool Couture, Essie – Dive Bar (1 coat), Essie – Dive Bar (2 coats), and Sinful Colors – See You Soon

Click them to zoom way in!

Trying a Neon Comparison…

Why is it so impossible to photograph neon polishes? Even when I do everything manually and set white balance, color balance, etc while I’m shooting…

I’ll give this a go anyway in case you were curious if some neon pinks/reds are more orange than another!

I did this to help me choose my neon konad which I’ll post next!

China Glaze – Shocking Pink, BYS – UV Tension Rising, Color Club – Screamin Fuschia, American Apparel – Neon Red:

I tried taking it in a dark corner of my room, but the colors still look like they are just blaring and not true to what they really look like. Wahhh!

You can see my engagement ring a little better though! 🙂

Misa – When U Say My Name

This is one of my favorite dark browns, it is SO gorgeous!

In case most of you have China Glaze – Goin My Way, I compared it to that one. I was surprised to see it was quite a bit darker, although not so dark that it looks black! 🙂

Also, Goin My Way goes on a little sheer with the first coat, but When U Say My Name is opaque on the first coat.

Orly Space Cadet vs Claire's Venemous

A lot of people say that these are close to being dupes. Sometimes I’d see swatches of them together and they did look similar so I was confused and had to do it myself! Plus, I wanted to show the awesome missgreencurry, who sent me Space Cadet. 🙂

I know they have a similar eggplant to olive type of effect, but to me they always looked pretty different. My swatch really showed how different they are.

Space Cadet on index and ring fingers, Venemous on middle and pinky:

They look awesome in the bottles!

I guess if you love duochrome that has a purple to green shift, then these are both similar and both awesome, so I can see the comparison, but some swatches like this one from stephscloset make them look like almost exact dupes, that’s where I got confused. Maybe at a certain angle they do look alike!

If you want to see some awesome close-ups of Space Cadet, I love this post on lacquerized.com! (Her blog is sooo amazing by the way if you haven’t seen it, I always thought her pictures and swatches were the best quality by far!)

Julep – Holly and other blush pinks

I was thinking about giving Julep polishes a try and their facebook page was offering a few dollars off. So I went to look and found one named Holly. So, I had to. It was literally calling my name.

Ever since I tried Misa – Blush Hour, I’ve been in love with these opaque super light pinks that have a greyish tone rather than a blue or coral tone. My other favorite is Butter London – Teddy Girl. Orly – Kiss the Bride is another that is almost exactly the same as Blush Hour but a tiny bit brighter.

So when I got Julep – Holly, I compared it to 3 others that have been in my “new” pile waiting to be swatched!

Sinful Colors – Easy Going, French Tip Dip’s unnamed pink, Essie – Fiji, Julep – Holly

Here they are swatched!

Julep – Holly is the only one with shimmer to it. I can’t wait to get Play the Peonies so I can compare those two.

Essie Fiji is what I decided to wear today. Its really opaque and harder to apply than the others, but it has the benefit of not having thick layers that take longer to dry, which is good since I’m doing this before work! haha!

The French Tip Dip ended up being more of a slightly darker jellyish gray pink, so although its awesome, I put it up for swap on MUA.

Sinful Colors – Easy Going is great. Its a little more glossy and makes thicker layers, which is better for when I have more time to let it dry, so I’m keeping that one too!

Essence – Speed of Light Blue & King of Mints (And Nfu Oh Restocked!)

First of all, Fabulous Street restocked their Nfu Oh holo polishes, flakies, Aqua Base Coat… go get some quickly! 🙂

I was just informed a couple of hours ago, so I hope I’m telling you soon enough for you to stock up. I had to get some of their holos just now for the first time. I also threw in a “Jelly Syrup”, a flakie, and a glittery jelly along with my 2 Aqua Base coat bottles. I knew they wouldn’t last long on that site!

Back to the You Rock collection… here are the two blue-greens! Speed of Light Blue is on the left, that one is my favorite of the whole collection!

These both apply really well… better than the Chanel polishes they are dupes for.

Silver Holographic Comparison

I don’t have China Glaze OMG or the Nfu Oh one, but I would think they can’t be better than the GOSH Holographic, right?

The love & beauty one (from Forever 21) was surprisingly gorgeous! The particles are big like glitter, but for the price, its pretty awesome.

The China Glaze Holographic one wasn’t that holographic compared to the others, and the Golden Rose is another one that is really awesome for the price… it has a pretty good holo effect and its only about 3 dollars!

Golden Rose – 102, China Glaze – Hologram, love & beauty – Disco Nights, GOSH – Holographic

GOSH Holographic is seriously holographic, especially over an aqua base coat, which I will also swatch soon, so I can show a comparison of with and without the aqua base coat!

China Glaze – Hyper Haute and some Golden Rose Holos

I had to try the Golden Rose Holographics, so I compared 3 of them here to a Tronica polish, Hyper Haute. Golden Rose polishes have a stronger holo effect than the Tronica set (but not the OMG set), and they come in a lot of colors. AND they are so cheap and easy to buy online.

(Ooops, I just realized their site says they’ve exceeded their monthly bandwith! haha! I’m sure it’ll be fine tomorrow again, on the 1st. Its http://www.goldenroseusa.com if you’re in the US.)

Here I have China Glaze – Hyper Haute, then Golden Rose 108, 110, and 112:

I LOVE 108, its such a great color!!!

I also have Golden Rose 103, I’ll post that one tomorrow!

I had a great birthday, thanks so much for all of the birthday wishes here and on facebook and twitter! 🙂 You guys are some of the nicest people ever and I’m so glad I got to come across you because of our nail polish obsession!!

(My fiance bought me a Nintendo 3DS! Yay!)

OPI – Berry Good Dancers, Diva of Geneva, Bastille My Heart, Romeo & Joliet

I had to swatch these a little quickly for ya!

From left to right, they are Berry Good Dancers, Diva of Geneva, Bastille My Heart, and Romeo & Joliet

The only one I didn’t keep was Bastille My Heart! They’re all lovely but Diva of Geneva is really complex with lots of pink shimmer inside.

Nail Polish Collection!

Okay, so my video turned into 3 since it was like 35 minutes long, whew!

I’ll embed the first part here, but you can see all 3 parts by either clicking my youtube icon on the right sidebar, or clicking HERE! 🙂

Of course this might change soon, I get new ones, try my hardest to swap ones I think I love so much but have to try and give up because I don’t wear it as much, etc.

Hopefully this doesn’t look too crazy? haha!

Priti NYC – Lady Killer Crocus & Iberica Iris

First of all, I started a Flickr Group for brown nail polish! If you’re on Flickr and have any photos with brown nail polish, please upload them! Or if you just like it, please join! 🙂
http://www.flickr.com/groups/brown-nail-polish-yum

Onto today’s polish… I had always wanted to try Priti NYC polishes, so I tried my hardest to pick from their bottle pictures, which is tough… and there aren’t many swatches out there.

When they got to me, I unwrapped the bottles and loved one and was grossed out by the other!

I was surprised though when they were actually on the nail!

I thought the polish in the Iberica Iris bottle was gorgeous, and I thought the Lady Killer Crocus in the bottle looked so hideous. I was so disappointed. But look at how pretty Lady Killer Crocus is on the nail!! As it turned out, the Iberica Iris almost matched the Lady Killer Crocus bottle, so I ended up lovvvvving the LKC and putting II up for swap.

You just never know until you swatch it!

OPI – Over the Taupe & Chocolate Moose vs Essie – Mink Muffs

While trying to figure out which to keep and which to swap, I did this comparison.

Mink Muffs turned out to be quite a bit darker than Over the Taupe and much darker than Chocolate Moose! I have to send Chocolate Moose off to someone else who likes these lighter ones more than I do…

Life has been a little crazy for me the last couple of weeks. I left the job that I’ve been at for 8 years now for another job… a better job! I start the new one on June 13th so I have a good week to just relax with no work responsibilities at all, just a fresh, clean slate!

Holo glitters! Nicole – Make A Comet-ment & Savina – Fairy Dust

I thought the dark burgundy and gray I had on would be a good base to swatch these holo glitters with.

Right now at Nordstrom Rack, they have a huge variety of OPI and Savina polishes. The OPI is about 8 dollars, but the Savina was only about 3 dollars!

Is it just me or do the bottles look a lot like China Glaze? And the holo glitter China Glaze has is also called Fairy Dust.

Anyway, I can NOT tell a difference between these at all, so if you’re lemming the Nicole by OPI because it is a Target Exclusive, then here you have an alternate! 🙂

Happy Memorial Day, and as always, I thank every veteran and every soldier for what they’ve done for us.