Butter London Password Please set

A few weeks ago I ordered this Butter London set for $9 with free shipping:

There are three mini-size polishes (I think BL calls them "fashion size"), and three even-smaller top-coats, basically nail-art size, plus an "ombre brush." Here it is on the website, but it's apparently sold out. Almost all of these polishes are limited-edition - the only one that's not is Doily (which I keep wanting to call Dolly). I have swatches of all of these - I swatched them in pairs, and I'll go through those below, but here are all the bottles:

This is Hush Hush (pink creme), Doily (white matte glitter topcoat), Password Please (dark purple creme), Spotlight (blue flakie, although they call it holo glitter), Looker (nude shimmer), and Bubbly (gold topcoat) - plus the ombre brush at the end.

This is Doily and Hush Hush:

I threw in an extra polish which is not in the bottle pictures (and not from this set, of course) - I had an unnamed bright-pink sparse glitter that I don't think I'd ever swatched before. That's it at the top alone, and I put it over Hush Hush as well, below that, just to try it out. And then the last pink nail is Doily over Hush Hush.

This is Password Please and Spotlight.

I love flakies, and they can call Spotlight a holo glitter but it looks like a flakie to me, and I'd totally buy a bigger size of it if it was available. Password Please is purple, but when you put Spotlight on top of it, it appears much more blue.

And last, we have Doily again because I swatched it again, this time over Looker, which is in the middle, and then also the last topcoat, which is Bubbly:

I'm not really sure if the ombre brush was necessary because this are pretty much just straightforward top-coats and I doubt that I'm really going to use it. But for $9, this is a deal any way you look at it.

Azalea, Leia

This is Zoya Azalea and Leia (Leia is white so it's all but invisible on the wheel:

I would call Azalea a rose-pink. It has the same finish as Aster, very heavy shimmer. (I left Aster in the picture so you could see that but I don't think the shimmer in Azalea is showing up as much here.) Leia is opalescent; as I said before, it seems to be fairly similar to China Glaze Travel In Colour. They don't call it a shifter like Travel In Colour, though; it does have heavy pinkish shimmer but also seems to have some other colors in there.

These three make up half of the Zoya spring collection, Petals. I bought mine through the Zoya Earth Day sale, which is ending today, I believe - if you get in before midnight eastern you can probably still get in on it!

(For the record, these are not affiliate links.)

Robyn, Aster

Before I get to that, guess what - iPhone SE on the way, with a much-(much-much-)improved camera! Bear in mind that these pictures were all taken with an iPhone 4, and before that it was a circa-2005 low-end Canon. I would think those of you who have been looking at my terrible pictures for years (although they have improved somewhat, I think) might be breathing a sigh of relief.

Here are two of my new Zoyas, Robyn and Aster:

Robyn is one of those older colors that I've been hearing people rave about forever. I'm going to be interested to see if it's flattering to my (admittedly cranky) skintone. I've had shirts this color, and I didn't love them on me. So we'll see. I was unconvinced, I guess that's why I waited so long to buy it. Zoya describes it as "the perfect turquoise cream." Aster is periwinkle purple (not periwinkle blue) - that is, a fairly pale blue-violet that leans toward the violet side of things. And it's shimmery, but not as shimmery on its own as it looks with Leia on top of it. What's Zoya's description (you ask)? "A fresh periwinkle with specks of fuchsia" - which I wouldn't have guessed, the fuchsia part, I mean.

I think I finally gave in on Robyn because I saw it compared somewhere to the blue that's in OPI's new collection, Fearlessly Alice. Although in the pictures it doesn't look all that close. Anyway, I've got it now, and as I said, we'll see.

I already showed the picture of Aster and Leia a couple of entries ago, but just for the heck of it, here it is again:

Leia toned it down just a hair, but I still think it mostly looked slightly paler than it looks here.

Revlon Red, Guys & Galaxies

So this is Revlon Revlon Red (that is, "Revlon Red" is the actual color name) and Nicole by OPI Guys & Galaxies.

Revlon Red is pretty much your basic bright red, but it's a pretty one. (I've tried to google this a couple of times, and you end up with every red that Revlon has ever done, even if you put the name in quotes, so I've given up on that.) I also put Guys & Galaxies really lightly on the top half of the nail swatch. Guys & Galaxies is a holo glitter which apparently was an Ipsy exclusive back in 2014. I almost gave this away and then I swatched it and ended up keeping it instead. It's not really like anything else I have. (Sand & Stilettos, above it on the swatch wheel, might be the closest, but they're not really the same, either. If I can round both of them up again maybe I'll do a direct comparison. This whole swatch project has played hell with being able to find things because I keep moving everything around as I swatch it.

Added: I stumbled onto a reference somewhere about Revlon Red; it turns out to be one of their very oldest colors, as in dating back to the 1930s. I suspected that it was an older one, but didn't expect quite that old. (Revlon was founded around 1930, as I recall.)

Note that OPI proper also has a color called Guys & Galaxies - it was in the 2015 holiday collection - which is completely different.

NOTD: Glee & Aster

Let's see, since last heard from on the manicure front... I did a repeat mani, the Rikki + Locavore one, except that I only did one coat of glitter instead of two. (I really liked it better with two, I was just being lazy.) And then State Of The Art arrived from Sephora, so I put that on next. I left it alone for a day, and then as usual, I was compelled to put something over it. I went looking in my boxes for something that's a similar color, and I ended up with Jesse's Girl Glee.

I didn't remember to take a picture until yesterday, when I had had it on for days, so it's a bit chipped up. But it doesn't look bad considering! (Right after I took this, a big piece flaked right off. But I was already about to take it off by that time, anyway.)

And by that time, the Zoya box had arrived, so now I'm wearing Aster, with Leia on top of it. Leia is really similar to China Glaze Travel In Colour, which if you've been hanging around here for a while, you already know I adore.

I think in most lights it looks a bit paler than it looks here, but it manages not to trip that too-pastel wire where things start being too pale to look good on me. So yay!

Malaga Wine, Black Metal Dahlia

OPI doesn't label their minis, which is annoying, but I know what was in the set that I bought* and so I'm reasonably confident that this is Malaga Wine. The other one is OCC Black Metal Dahlia.

These two look pretty similar in the bottle, but you can see on the wheel that Malaga Wine is not nearly as dark. BMD is darker and, as the name implies, more metallic. (Black Metal Dahlia is not listed on OCC's nail polish page - or on their sale page, either - so I guess it's discontinued. - There's a color called Black Dahlia which says it's blackened red but looks totally purple, so I assume that's actually a different color. I have seen BMD around fairly recently, though, so it may still be findable.)

Added: Here's a swatch of Black Dahlia. I'm thinking it's basically the same color without the metallic finish.

2015 BMD mani here

*The particular set that I bought was called Take Ten, and it was classic OPI colors, basically. You can see on the side of the mini that I now have taken to labeling my unlabeled/unreadable polishes with garage sale neon dots, which are awesome for this. I wish I'd thought of it several years ago.

Zoya Earth Day haul

I almost always let myself get talked into Zoya's Earth Day deal (although I think I skipped last year) - it has a minimum of 6 polishes, so that's what I got. (It's still going on til the 30th: code ZGREEN, 50% off plus free shipping, and you can recycle some old polishes in the bargain.)

I also have some new Butter London polishes, but since Zoya's is a sale that's still ongoing, I'll put it up first.

I don't usually pay a lot of attention to spring collections because I'm not into pastels, but I ended up watching Miss Holly's video (see down at the bottom, I'll link it) about the Zoya Petals collection, so that's what three of the six that I bought are. They are just not all that pastel - that's a plus as far as I'm concerned - plus they have a lot of shimmer, which I have a weakness for. The other three came off my wish list. (I had a huge Zoya wish list a couple of years ago, but I've gradually whittled it down to the point where it's pretty small. I either have ordered them or decided I didn't want them after all and deleted them, so there's not all that much left.)

So here's my six:

Top row is the 3 Petals polishes, the new spring collection: Aster, Azalea, Leia
Bottom row is the wishlist: Frida (which is a jelly), Maya, Robyn

Now I have to say that I opened this and went, "I didn't order an orange!" I knew it was supposed to be coral but I thought Maya was going to be more pink-ish. On my screen, anyway; it looks definitely more pink in their photos. But anyway, I'll try it - it does look slightly more pink on the nail wheel, too, so maybe I'll like it more than I think.

I took separate nail wheel pictures and I'll show those later, but meanwhile note that that is Frida at the bottom of the wheel. It looks nothing like it does in the bottle, but I've got the other two of the three Gloss polishes already so I expected that one.

Oh, and also, Leia is a sheer (opalescent) polish and so I tried it on the tip of most of the other wheel swatches. My first thought on seeing it on a swatch is that it reminds me of my beloved Travel In Colour. It has definite pink leanings.



Here's Holly's video (I'm putting it under a cut because the last one I tried to link was really huge! - although this one doesn't seem to have that same problem.)

Kierra, Elle's Spell

This is Zoya Kierra (which is discontinued) and Barielle Elle's Spell:

I had copied Zoya's descriptions for my older polishes, and what it says for Kierra is that it's brown-based, which surprises me. To be exact, it says "brown-based wine purple with fine metallic mauve shimmer." I would say it reads as a burgundy - it's not notably purple-leaning and not really marsala-type brown leaning either, that I can see. On the other hand, Elle's Spell is still around, so if you don't already have it and you like flakies, I would say hie thee over to Barielle's website and get it. Or at least, get on their mailing list and wait for a sale, if you don't want to pay full price. They do have really good deals from time to time. Elle's Spell is not only a flakie, it's a flakie in a jelly base, which is probably why it looks lighter here. I usually wear it over a base of something else in this color range. It's awesome. (Barielle makes nice polishes and they usually get ignored - it's a shame.)

INRAW, Life Of The Party

In case you're not familiar with the abbreviation, INRAW = I'm Not Really A Waitress, OPI's classic red. Also here we have Essie Life Of The Party. It's hard to find dependable information on these things, but I think that both of these date back to the late 90s. (See the bottom of this entry for a bit more info on dates)

I don't think you'd quite call them dupes, but they are pretty similar. I think of them as "funky reds" - I never could decide whether to buy INRAW because everybody's descriptions of it differ so much. Both of these are kind of darker, kind of oddly pinkish, kind of metallic(ish). Google around and you'll probably find other descriptions applied to INRAW, especially (because it's been out there all this time, whereas Life Of The Party has been discontinued and is newly rereleased, in the anniversary group with Starry Starry Night). I like them both and I was tempted to go buy Life Of The Party in a full-size, but I talked myself out of it. Since I have I'm Not Really A Waitress (which I never did buy for myself: I eventually got it as a gift), I don't really need another polish that's so similar.

Makeup Alley page for INRAW
Daily Varnish review of the Essie Retro Revival collection, including Life Of The Party (she makes the comparison with INRAW as well; she says that Life Of The Party is a little newer than INRAW - it dates to 2002, where INRAW was released in 1999)

Blackberry, Ramblin' Red

This is two polishes that I bought at RiteAid. Both are brands that are not normally available to me in Texas, to my knowledge - Petites Blackberry and Hedy's Ma.nish.ma Ramblin' Red:

These look pretty similar in the bottle, but you can see on the wheel (if you can read my writing, at least) that they are not. Blackberry is the lighter one and Ramblin' Red is below that. They are both pretty colors, but I have to mention that I bought two Ma.nish.ma colors in the course of our many trips to Ohio in the last few years, and I had wear issues with both of them, so I won't be leaping to buy those again, and this is probably going into the destash box if it hasn't already. The Petites polish, on the other hand, is a beautiful color and I had no particular wear issues there, so if I ever get a chance to buy more of those, I won't hesitate to.

Notes:

• 2013 Blackberry mani here
• Also Ramblin' Red is actually gone. (I did this weird art experiment late one night, pouring nail polish onto heavy stock paper to see how it came out. Ramblin' Red is one of the bottles out of my destash box that got sacrificed to that cause.)

Goodies from Sephora & Nordstrom

This is two different Sephora orders, plus one from Nordstrom, with only one nail polish in the whole kaboodle (well, two, actually, but only one is pictured):

The Nordstrom order was the MAC blush (the color is Full Of Joy) - I bought a somewhat darker purple blush a few months ago, and the one I bought wasn't all that dark but I have now learned my lesson that I need blush colors that are quite pale. With that in mind, I've gone on a new quest to find an equivalent for my old favorite, Benefit I Lotus-ed You Looking, which was a sheer violet that's long discontinued. This one is probably at least a little more pink than my discontinued ideal, but it's close enough, I think. So far I really like it. (I thought I had taken a picture of the blush by itself but I can't find it. Well, here it is online, anyway.) (Oh, also? this is my first MAC product ever, believe it or not.)

I had done one Sephora order before I knew about the VIB sale - that was the one with the Jin Soon polish that you've already seen, but some of the odds and ends here are also from that order. Then I did another sale order. In the center is my little birthday freebie box (the Marc Jacobs one) that I was talking about in the last entry. (My birthday isn't til next week, actually, but you can get it any time in your birthday month, so I figured I should go ahead and get that while I was ordering.)

Some of the free samples are ranged around the edges - Nordstrom does three free samples, just like Sephora does - besides that and the items I've already talked about, there is the Lotus mask, and then going across the bottom row, there are two Bliss items which were a set that was on clearance, a smudge brush, a green eyeliner pencil, two bonus items which I'll talk about in a minute, a Formula X polish, State Of The Art, and the egg-shaped thing is a pencil sharpener. (The Dior at bottom right is another sample.)

I had almost 500 Sephora points, which is the level at which there usually are more bonus gift sets available, but I looked at what was available and the 500-point items were all sets of samples from one brand or another. So I had the choice of getting 5 samples for 500 points where I don't have any say on the exact items, or single samples for 100 points each. It seemed better to me to get the 100-point ones and pick my own items. So I picked out these two for now - both hair items, the Alterna CC cream (which a leave-in conditioner) and the Drybar "shot" which is a one-use deep conditioner. I haven't tried the Alterna one yet, but I used the Drybar one today, and I liked it, although I'm not sure I'll buy more at $10 a shot.

I'm sure I'll get around to talking more about the polish State Of The Art later. But let me say now I thought it was going to be more blue than it turned out to be. They called it "turquoise" and that's probably accurate in the sense that I have seen turquoise stones that are close to the greenish-blue color of this polish. However, when most people say "turquoise" this is not the color they're talking about, I think. That said, it's a near-one-coater and it's very pretty, and hey! it's still on sale. Wheel pictures etc to come.

I almost forgot about one last item (pictured with another stray sample that I've already used):

This Boscia sponge is definitely something that I never would have bought if it weren't for having the Play! samples. I bought the cleanser that it came with back in December, and I've been using the little sample konjac sponge all this time - but it finally ended up on the bathroom floor somehow and I decided it was time for a replacement. I probably would have bought a cheaper one (Ecotools has a plain one, no charcoal) if it hadn't been for the VIB sale. I don't actually have much problem with my pores these days but I do really like this. I also really like the Phyto hair mask that's pictured here, but it's really expensive so I doubt that I'll be able to talk myself into that one. (I wonder how many uses you'd get out of 6.7 ounces...)

Added: here's the sharpener and a closer pic of the brush (with a totally unhelpful closeup of the eyeliner, additionally):

The best thing about the sharpener, besides it working for multiple sizes of pencil, is that it holds the shavings. I wanted the smudge brush because I've been playing around with liner a lot. (My current favorite eyeliner is a Lancome purple one that I have no idea where I got. But at least it's not hard to figure out where to find more.)

More sample pictures - the Dior samples were in a whole little portfolio thing with a fancy picture of Natalie Portman on heavy stock. Do you think that helps sell the stuff? I am sort of anti-Natalie generally (for no particular reason, really) so it probably doesn't work on me.

The YSL sample also had a celebrity picture (Cara Delevigne), but not in nearly as large a size so it doesn't seem quite so out-there excessive to me:

(This stuff is much more sheer than you'd think, but not as goopy as a lip gloss. I actually quite like it.)

Intrigue, Forget You Not, Mind The Gap + NOTD layers

I almost forgot about posting this NOTD until I stumbled across the pictures - but I came up with this in the first place because of the wheel pictures, so I'll post those first. This is Revlon Brilliant Strength Intrigue, Lynderella Forget You Not, and Rimmel 60 Seconds Mind The Gap, Victoria:

As you can see clearly on this wheel, none of my blues seem to be much alike (which suggests to me that I don't own as many blues as I think I do, but that's another story). Intrigue, the Brilliant Strength color, is rather grayed-out. Forget You Not is actually a really similar color to that, only in a glitter in what I have come to think of as the "usual" Lynnderella mix (now that I have enough Lynnderellas to compare) of various sizes of glitter. And Rimmel Mind The Gap, Victoria is lighter and brighter - what I'd think of as cornflower blue, more or less.

(As you can also see, I took these pictures right on the comforter on my bed, which has the advantage of preventing the bottles from rolling around as much as they tend to do otherwise. The pattern on the comforter is a little distracting but not too bad, I think, as long as there's plenty of contrast. When I get to the browns it might be more bothersome.)

So, Mind The Gap is brand new to me - I think I ordered it with some other odds and ends from drugstore.com - and I think I may have already had it on my nails by the time I took the picture above. So then I got all inspired about layering. Here's Mind The Gap by itself, and I really like it but it had a tendency to pull just a little bit. I don't think it's at all obvious when my hands are in motion but you can see it a couple of spots in the picture if you're looking for it.

I think this is two coats, and it's not bad. Three might get rid of it altogether. But it was bothering me and so I looked at Forget You Not and thought "A-ha!"

I had already had MTGV on for a day or so, and so now the pulling is covered up but you can still see very minor tipwear.

The tipwear is not what was bothering me here, though - what was bothering me was that this was just too damn subtle. I guess I could have added another coat of glitter and that probably would have taken care of it, but no, instead I kept experimenting, and here is where I came to grief: I added Xtreme Wear Indi-glow on top.

It's very pretty and it can't really be accused of subtlety, either. The problem here was that it wouldn't set. I haven't come across my own notes from when I wore it previously, so far, but I did find other complaints about this polish, I bought mine about the same time Pretty Girl Science bought hers, so this may  be a formula issue, or maybe even just a batch issue. Anyway, it's hardly a tragedy - I just took it all off and started over - but obviously I should have quit while I was ahead.

I couldn't quite bring myself to put Indi-glow in the destash box yet, though - I may give it one more try and just be aware that it needs extra dry-time, and see what happens.

Teigen, Glitterati

This is Zoya Teigen and Illamasqua Glitterati:

Zoya describes Teigen as "pink-toned cranberry" - and it has that liquid metal finish that they did a whole collection of back in fall 2014. Illamasqua calls Glitterati "raspberry glitter" (it's still on their website but it's sold out) - but really to me these look like pretty similar base colors - Glitterati is of course full of holo-glitter and it's darker, but I have trouble seeing the difference between so-called cranberry and raspberry here. (Bear in mind that I was calling this a raspberry wheel, because I think of raspberry as being the borderline between pink and purple. I think of cranberry as being more neutral, and if anything here I might side with Zoya and say both of these are on the more neutral side, so more like cranberry - or maybe just dark red - than raspberry. But that's probably nitpicking.)

Play by Sephora for March

I always say "Sephora Play" but in fact it's the other way around (and it maybe has an exclamation point in it - apparently yes). Anyway, I'm pretty sure everybody knows what I'm talking about either way, or if you don't, saying "Play! by Sephora" is not particularly going to enlighten you. Follow the link up there if you need enlightening. (I've started watching the videos for each month lately, somewhat belatedly, and they're helpful.)

Also that link says that you get a collectible bag each month, which is a new thing if so. (I've had about a six-month vacation from Ipsy bags, I'm ready for some new bags now.) I haven't gotten my April box yet, although I got a notice that it shipped, so that could be starting in April or maybe not til May. But meanwhile I can catch up and show you March.

March's theme was "the perfection collection":

I didn't take as many pictures as I do some months, but I think you can get the idea here.

• Smashbox Photo Finish Primer Oil
• Sephora Collection The Perfectionist Airbrush Sponge
• Murad Invisiblur Perfecting Shield SPF 30
• Kat Von D Tattoo Liner in Trooper
• Fresh Soy Face Cleanser
• Maison Martin Margiela 'Replica' Beach Walk

So far the item that I've used the most is the liner. If you're not already familiar with this, it goes on sort of like a felt-tip pen, which I like. Actually I have at least tried out all of this, which is unusual. There's usually at least one thing that I end up putting aside to give away. I was just sure I would love "Beach Walk" but actually I didn't. I'm not sure what was up with that, but I'm notably picky about scents so you never know. ("bergamot, coconut milk, lemon, pink pepper, and musk" says the website, which is a bit of an odd combination, to my mind.)

Also, if you're interested in trying out the Fresh soy cleanser and your birthday is coming up, you can get it for free, if you're a Beauty Insider. Which means, I believe, that all you have to do is sign up, if you haven't already. I used to buy stuff from Sephora's website long before there was a store in Houston, so I've belonged to that program forever - but this is the first year I've remembered to get my birthday gift. There is a choice this year, either a Fresh set or a Marc Jacobs set - the other item in the Fresh set is a mask, I believe, and the Jacobs set has a mini-lipstick and an eyeliner. Since I already had a cleanser I went for the other choice. (I have other Sephora goodies, which I'll take a picture of when it quits raining. We're kinda having monsoon season here right now.)

Oh, and there's also a little plastic thingy (you can see it at the bottom) that briefly baffled me - it's a tiny container, and if you take it to a Sephora store they are supposed to fill it with foundation for you. I think that's to get you to try out their color-matching thing. I intended to go try it out but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Fruit Punch, Santa Red My List

Here are NYC Fruit Punch and China Glaze Santa Red My List:

These are really not anywhere near being dupes, but at least in this picture, you can't tell a whole lot of difference on the wheel, can you? Fruit Punch is more of a multicolored microglitter in a raspberry-pink base, and Santa Red is more of a metallic. I would also say that what I see here in the bottle is pretty much correct, in that Santa Red My List is more towards a neutral fuchsia (is there such a thing as a neutral fuchsia? less purple, anyway) than Fruit Punch.

Disclaimer: for the record, I did get Santa Red My List for free from China Glaze. It was in a holiday collection a couple of years ago.

NOTD: Vogue, with and without Elle's Spell

I put Square Hue Vogue on Tuesday night and then yesterday I washed my hair. It's really pretty, and it held up pretty well even for the hair-washing, but it did chip a little and there was some noticeable tipwear:

It's not terribly noticeable in this picture, but trust me, it's there. So after work last night I started thinking about what I could put over it, and it occurred to me that Barielle Elle's Spell is a very similar color, really.

So I patched Vogue up and put two coats of Elle's Spell on top and got this:

Well, actually I got better than what you see here, because this is not a great picture, but I like the results a lot. Vogue on its own is not noticeably shimmery but it has a kind of pearly finish to it - I think that shows up in the picture at the top. Elle's Spell replaces that with the sparks from the flakes. I like it a lot both ways, when it comes right down to it.

Hot Stuff, Are You Jelly, Free Spirit, Hasty

Instead of two polishes, as I've been doing, we have here four. (I was tempted to go back and re-take this, but then I'd have to go find everything again. Nah.) This is Orly Hot Stuff, China Glaze Are You Jelly?, Orly Color Blast Free Spirit, and L'Oreal Jet Set Shine Hasty:

Let's start with the comparison part - Free Spirit and Are You Jelly? are noticeably brighter than the Hot Stuff and Hasty, although they're all quite bright. I don't recall noticing how bright Free Spirit was when I wore it. I do remember Are You Jelly? being totally massively bright. (And it is of course actually a jelly. Also I would like to note that in many pictures it looks much more purple than it looks here.) Every time I wear Hot Stuff I can't stop looking at it, so there's that. I haven't worn Hasty in ages but, well, obviously, it's pretty similar.

Incidentally, Free Spirit is part of a Frozen duo - I haven't seen it on its own, but then I can't say I see Color Blast singles around a lot generally. (Or that I pay a lot of attention to them when I do, quite honestly.)

I bought Hot Stuff as part of a set, as well, but I don't think it was exclusively in that set. (Here is the Hot Stuff collection but I guess the fact that Hot Stuff is not actually there means it's discontinued. Probably because bright fuchsias are kind of a dime a dozen, I don't care how pretty they are.) Tiara is one of the polishes that were in that set, I know. Offhand I can't remember the others. (Groupie, maybe. Hmm, actually this is easy enough to check myself on: I only own 4 Orly minis, all of which must have been in the original set that I bought. The fourth one is Razzmatazz, and it's not on that list either, meaning they're likely all discontinued except Tiara.)


I was trying to keep count and I come up with a count of 16 polishes already discussed out of the 20 on that wheel. Now I just have to find the pictures of the other four!

Look At My Bow, Shelby

This picture is a little fuzzy, but it will do for the comparison, I think:

This is Look At My Bow! from the OPI Hello Kitty set (I suppose that's fairly obvious, isn't it?) and Zoya Shelby. They are very close, but not quite dupes, I would say. Look At My Bow has just a slight purple tinge to it that Shelby does not. You can see the difference if they're next to each other, but in real life? Probably not. On the whole I would say that if you already have Shelby, you should spend your polish budget on some other Hello Kitty pink, since there are a number of them.

Vixen, Wicked

I think both of these colors came from the flurry surrounding Chanel Vamp in the 90s: this is Revlon Vixen and Essie Wicked.

My recordkeeping is spotty, here, but I think this is only one coat of each polish on the wheel in this picture. I added a second coat of Vixen later, and with the second coat these two are very nearly dupes. Wicked seemingly manages that in one coat, though. Both are apparently current colors, even after all these years: Wicked, Vixen.

NOTD: Verismo

I'd been eyeing Jin Soon Verismo (I keep wanting to put an extra "i" in this, "Verisimo", but I checked and this spelling is correct) for a while now, and I finally went ahead and got it. I also got a mini of Formula X The Fix, which is one of those pink treatment formulas that everybody's been coming out with ever since Dior Nail Glow came out, what, a couple of years ago now.

Jin Soon's page for this says it's adapted from costumes for the opera Rigoletto (and Sephora's page mentions Erté, which makes sense since he did in fact design costumes for Rigoletto among others).

They call it blackened gold, but it comes out looking more coppery to me. (Which is fine with me because I love copper colors.) I've had this on for a couple of days now, and it's wearing very well. Of course, for what it cost, it ought to. Jin Soon is not an inexpensive brand.

Ignite, Vogue

This is a mini-size of Formula X Ignite (which I believe I got from Ipsy) and Square Hue Vogue, from the 1990s collection from last fall.

You can't really tell much about Ignite in the bottle - it looks darker than it is, seemingly. It's not a bright red but it's not a super-dark one, either. Vogue is plummier, that's clear from the swatches, and is pretty shimmer-packed. (Here it says the shimmer is coppery.)

Added: I've discussed both of these separately since this. More about Ignite here and here (including a reswatch). More about Vogue here.

It's Genius, Dark Side Of The Moon

This is Essie It's Genius, and Deborah Lippmann Dark Side Of The Moon:

These look more similar in the bottle than they do on the wheel - I think they probably have pretty similar base colors, and it's just that one (It's Genius) is lighter and the other (Dark Side Of The Moon, of course) is much darker - raisin vs eggplant, more or less. (Well, except in real life raisins are pretty dark too, so that doesn't especially work as a comparison, does it?) Those links came off the respective brands' websites so they are both presumably current colors as I write this.

Blood Of The Mountain, Victoria

I've long used the rule that for nail polish (unlike for, say, book titles), you capitalize every word in its name, but somehow "Blood Of The Mountain" bothers me more than others do. Nevertheless, by my own rules this is Pahlish Blood Of The Mountain, and NailsInc Victoria.

(I just realized that the Victoria bottle doesn't say NailKale, it just says NailsInc London, even though it came from a Nailkale gift set. - But maybe that's just because it's a mini. The large size seems to be labeled differently.)

I have never loved Blood Of The Mountain, and I just found somebody's post about there having been a defective batch of it a while back. I'm going to have to poke around and see if I might have bought it around the same time she did. (It's dull and I've always thought it looked entirely too much like dried blood for my taste.) Victoria is described as "dark cherry" and that seems accurate. I've only worn it once, I think, but I liked it.

Ruby Without A Cause, India

I wasn't really going to post this one yet but I hit the "publish" button by accident, so I might as well go ahead - this is Sephora by OPI Ruby Without A Cause and Zoya India:

Both are sort of metallic dark reds with some hint of plum tones. Zoya calls their formula "liquid metal" as I recall. (I don't see any indication of multiple coats on that wheel, so I think maybe this was one coat of each.)

(Added: note that I also talk about India here and Ruby Without A Cause here.)

Vestido de Gala, Slammin' Red

This is Jade Vestido de Gala and Studio M Slammin' Red:

These two are not dupes but they're pretty similar, similar colors and similarly packed glitters. Vestido de Gala is a bit more purple. Slammin' Red maybe looks red in some lights but you'll never convince me it's a true red. (I got my Jade polishes from Llarowe so I don't know if there's a US seller for those right now. If you live where there are Meijer stores, that's where you get hooked up with the Studio M's - they have a whole range of these glitters - I just looked and they're still showing up on their website.)

(I did some musing about the translation of this Spanish phrase over here, so scroll down & read it there if that interests you!)

Not that it's hugely different, but here's what I said about them a while back. I'm repeating some pictures that I posted previously, but I like this format where there are only a couple of polishes per post, I'm using these pages as references, so gradually I hope to do all of my polishes in this format. (I'm trying not to post more than a couple a day, though.)

Also note that I got this from KarenD, and here's her post with comparisons between several Studio M glitters.

He Loves Me I Love Him Not, Alegra

For a while Orchid was trying to do funny polish names - I guess riffing off of OPI, thus you get names like He Loves Me, I Love Him - Not! (I think that was how it was punctuated, anyway.) More recently they seem to have given up on that idea. And then with it, another bright microglitter, which is Zoya Alegra.

They seem more alike on the wheel than they do in the bottle, although you can also see that the Orchid polish is considerably more glittery. Alegra is sparkly but not quite so packed. Both of these are super-pretty colors, which I haven't worn much recently because I haven't been wearing pinks all that much. (By the way, I haven't been going on about the fall fashion shows here, because I've mostly been doing it on Twitter instead, but let me give you a tip here: don't pack all your fuchsia/magenta-type colors away when summer is over, this year. These colors were all over the fall fashion shows.)

NOTD: Rikki + Locavore, Cor Blimey + TinC

This was my Easter manicure - grass-green with multi-colored glitter. I liked this one a lot so it may get trotted out again at some point in the future.

My fingers are at a slightly odd angle, which makes my nails look shorter than they actually are, I think. They're pretty short because I cut them down to match the shortest one (the ring-finger) but they're not cut right down to the quick or anything.

Anyway, this is Zoya Rikki, which is the grass-green part, more or less, a fairly pale green metallic, with RBL Locavore on top. Locavore is mixed small glitters - I'm pretty sure I saw green and gold and purple, at least. This is the first time I'd tried Locavore, and I did really like it - although I did end up matte-ing it down, as I usually do these days.


And since Easter was a week ago, here's the one that followed it - first Butter London Cor Blimey, and then Travel in Colour on top of that later on.

I made a mess of this manicure - for one thing it was very slow to dry, which might have had to do with the weather, I don't know. But anyway, you can see the color, which is a very dark purple. It doesn't read as black, though, which is always nice. I did put Seche Vite over this - on its own it's got a definite satin-tone to it, not quite matte but close.

I wore that for a day and then I put Travel In Colour (the China Glaze color-shifter topcoat) on to cover up most of the mess - but then I liked it so much that after a couple more days when that had chipped I did the whole thing over again:

Travel In Colour did its usual thing, which is to shift it towards pink, so that it ends up more of a red-violet. Plus this bottle of TinC was very thick - so much so that I was wondering if I hadn't shut it tightly enough at some point - which made it turn the whole thing much lighter. But I really do like it this way, so it worked out.

Shopping Frenzy, Lilith

This is Sephora by OPI Shopping Frenzy and Zoya Lilith:

These are pretty similar and they are apparently both discontinued. S-OPI is discontinued altogether, of course, so if you were really determined it might be easier to get your hands on the Zoya. (For a long time Zoya hardly ever discontinued anything, but in the past couple of years they seem to have given up on that, and a bunch of the older/presumably lesser-selling polishes have gone by the wayside, including Lilith.) Anyway, these are not true dupes, you can see that from the swatches, but they are both fuchsias that seem to have some blue flash - in Lilith's case, quite a lot of blue flash. I would count both of these among my favorites.

Peru-B-Ruby, Riley, Mad Women

OPI Peru-B-Ruby (from a long-ago South-American-themed collection, I think), Zoya Riley, and Miracle Gel Mad Women:

I'd still call these in "raspberry" territory, but the first two, at least, can read as red some of the time. Peru-B-Ruby is an old favorite of mine - and I found a note where I'd talked about this previously, saying it is a dupe or near-dupe for Chanel Tentation. I don't own any Chanel polishes at all so I can't testify as to that personally, but the link above has a comparison. I'm pretty sure it's long-discontinued, although there are some bottles for sale on Amazon, if you're in love enough to pay those prices. (This was my second bottle and it's still pretty full, so I'm good for the foreseeable future, anyway.) Unlike Peru-B-Ruby, which is pretty shimmer-packed, Riley is just a plain old creme, and once again I failed to be captivated by it. It seemed like I would like it but apparently not; it may be bound for the destash box. I do like Mad Women; it wore well and it's a pretty interesting color. (It seems to me like it might have a just a hint of blue shimmer to it, although I haven't found anything to back me up on that.)

Notes:
OPI current polishes here (Peru-B-Ruby is not there)

February Sephora Play

I more or less took March off from blogging (except for a few NOTD posts), so I'm playing catch-up. Here's the February Sephora Play box, and I also have March coming up. (They don't show up until after the middle of the month, so it'll still be a couple of weeks before April turns up.)

February is called Now & Later:

The copy on the booklet cover: "This month: lip tips, hairstyle savers, purse essentials, and more how-tos for looking your best all day -- and night."

The perfume sample this month is Black Orchid; below that we have Bumble & Bumble Pret-a-Powder. The little silvery box contained a black Lancome pencil, seen below. Then there were two lippies, BareMinerals "Pop of Passion" and a MUFE lipstick. I like the BareMinerals one (which is an oil-balm formula) more, mostly just because I like the brighter color more. The lipstick is Copper Pink, which is much more muted and I wasn't too crazy about it. (Oh, and the other item is a Tarte mascara.)