Comparison: China Glaze Fast Track vs. Catrice Clay-ton My Hero

How I thought these two were similar I still do not know. Scrangie said Fast Track reminds her of Essence Irreplaceable and in my head Essence and Catrice are close enough not to own them both. As you will see in the pictures, they are not really similar. Actually, they're not very close either. My skin had a rough time when I made this comparison. Luckily now it's much much better, thanks to my hand cremes and oils. It was dried up and I got a major cut on my pinky, like a paper cut, only a bit thicker and longer, it hurt like a papercut though. I was able to cut it out from the pictures, so I'll spare you the view. ;)

Clay-ton My Hero is a taupe with golden shimmer, while Fast Track is beige with golden glass flecks. I suck at describing colours, but I guess that's close enough. :) Naturally they don't look at all similar, I guess the concept of making could be, although I think China Glaze wanted the golden glass flecks to really pop out, whine Clay-ton My Hero is very work appropriate with shyer shimmer. 

Two coats of Catrice, three of China Glaze, both polishes have a wonderful formula and wonderful brushes.  I like them both, I was on the verge of giving Clayton away, but there is something awesome on it that I really like. So I kept it. Glad to know I don't have any dupes of it! :)

Do you have any of the two? Which one do you prefer?

Thank you for reading!

Comparison: A England vs. Depend vs. GOSH

Hello everyone! How have you been? I'm back on my study time. Did I ever mention how much I dislike that? Not just because I can't blog as often, but my far the most because my spare time gets incredibly limited, which means less time with my friends and boyfriend. It sucks. So I've gotten myself 3 more MAC eyeshadows and a Venomous Villains lip gloss with Cruella de Vill, as comfort make up. Does that count? It has less calories than comfort food. Sucks big on the wallet though, even if it was a total bargain. ;) 

 

I owe you this comparison post. I love bright blues and I love glass fleck, so you can imagine I have a few. I compared A England Order of the Garter with GOSH Blue Monday and Depend 252, they felt the closest to A England. I also have Moyra 89, which is much much darker, and Revlon Mint Fizz, which is closer to the base colour of Blue Monday but has much larger particles. So i didn't include them.

Photos taken in the grey light of Ljubljana, like A England pictures were. But I went out on snow without jacket for ya, so snow helped a bit. ;)

 Enlarge this one, it's pretty good.

The photos are left fairly large, so you can see the details better. All of them need three coats for full opacity, Depend too, I don't know what happened on the edges of my nail, it looked fine IRL. GOSH would need a fourth one for my taste though. Which is funny, I remember when wearing it as a full mani three were more than enough ... go figure.

Anyway. Not dupes, of course, very obviously not. Depend 252 is the brightest, GOSH Blue Monday the tealest and A England Order of the Garter the truest blue. The particles differ too, you can see that best on the first picture.

Formula wise A England has no faults, the same goes for Depend. Fantastic formula on both of them, very easy application. GOSH however went a bit diva on me. For some odd reason it gathers on the edges, making my nails look thick. This happened every time with full mani too and I really hate that effect. Plus it would need the fourth coat. It also dries the slowest. Still, i love the colour. I love all three colours, actually. Very good varnishes, I do suggest you get them. :)

Which one is your favourite? Do you have any of them, did any of you have the same problem with Blue Monday?

Thank you for reading!

Comparison: Nubar Vino vs. Jumpy 140

Heya people! How are you on this cold day? We have a little bit of snow in Ljubljana. Nothing major, but it stuck to the ground for a day. Souther Balkan has some serious snow troubles though, as much as I saw, I'm worried that it will get to us too, brrr. 

So, when I wore Jumpy 140, it looked a bit familiar. I knew I didn't have anything like it for sure, but still, it bugged me. Then I remembered why. I think I wore Nubar Vino just days before and the base colour looked very close. So I compared them. 

 Aren't they cute? ^.^

 On these upper pictures, made outside, you can see the base colour is quite close. They're not the same, Jumpy is brighter, but close enough that when you're not wearing them at the same time, they remind you of each other. But here's the thing that Vino doesn't have and that makes Jumpy own his ass:

The mighty DUOCHROME!! Yes!! Jumpy is a duochrome, Vino is not. Here's a seriously bad blurry picture with a bad position of nails, just to show you the difference better:

See it see it see it?

Although I think both colours are fantastic, Jumpy 140 is cleary the winner for me. It's also enough for me to remove Nubar Vino off my WL. The base colours get close enough for my taste, and well, could you say no to the duochrome on top of everything? :) My thanks go to Tevta for letting me play with her Nubars.:)

Thank you for reading!

Essence Into The Dark vs. Bourjois 10 Days 18 comparison

Heya people! First post this year, woohoo! Hope you had a wonderful entrance and start of the year 2012. I know I said I'll be back on the 4th, but I feel like posting this now. Lovely MissDoll asked me in my last entry how close does Bourjois 18 get to Essence Into The Dark. I haven't worn Into The Dark yet, but luckily I did get my greedy little fingers on it. And you know how much I love to do a comparison for ya, so I did it today while changing the polish on my nails, because the one I put on yesterday seriously wasn't working for me.

 A big close up of the bottles, to see the difference in the shade of blue and size of the shimmer more clearly.

 The only half decent picture of the nails outside. Dead gloomy weather, bah.

The difference in colour is quite obvious, Into The Dark is darker, with bigger silver shimmer - it's seen also on weak light, while Bourjois' silver shimmer is so fine it almost gets lost in weaker lightning. They are both beautiful, although I prefer Into The Dark, it's fantastic, can't wait to wear it as a full mani!

Other stuff: application of Essence one is good, the formula is a bit thicker, but nicely manageable, two coats are more than enough. Bourjois has more watery formula, but I prefer that in general. The big fault of Bourjois is the brush. What. The. Hell. I did manage to get it on better this time, I guess there is a learning curve here too, but it's such an unnecessary experiment with the brush. Essence has a great, flatter brush, I love it. 

I did three coats of Bourjois, because I had bald spots, also the shimmer is more obvious with three (if you check my other entry where I had only two you'll see it). Essence is insanely pigmented, I did two coats, but if you're careful enough and use thicker coats, you can get away with one.

Into the Dark is a part of Essence limited edition Vampire's Love and is no longer available, but it costed under 2€. Bourjois 10 Days 18 is still available, here it costs around 5€. 

I love both colours, but if I have to pick a winner, it would be Essence Into The Dark. If you have it, don't let go of it!

Which one do you prefer?

Thank you for reading!

Búk 116 with Nfu Oh & Essence flakie comparison

Hey darlings! What's in the news today? I'm having a coffee day today, first a coffee/tea time with a couple of friends, including one of the darlings that came to Slovenia for a couple of days (she went to Spain for a year) and then another later in the evening, so I'm really happy about that. :) 

Today I want to show you my roadtrip mani. This baby lasted for three days and I still didn't get tired of it, but the mani got so chipped I just had to remove it. BTW; being tired as hell and in a hotel room isn't really the best motivation for a foil removal. The first time I regreted putting a flakie on my nails. 

I also compared Essence Waking up in Vegas with Nfu Oh 49 on this mani, I wondered how close they get. 

If you see any kind of difference between them, your sight is better than mine. I didn't see any difference, they are both the same. In general Nfu Oh has a bit bigger flakies, but that's the only difference I could find. They're both amazing, don't you think? 

My base colour was Búk 116, the only polish from Lithuania that I haven't tried yet. I've already talked about it, the brand is a local Lithuanian brand with a nice brush and an old but good formula. 116 is a bit disappointing though. It looks SO awesome in the bottle, sadly the shimmer is much much weaker on the nails. If it would be so strong as it is in the bottle this colour would rock.

Even in lightbox the shimmer is poor, on softer light it disappears completely. This was three coats, the formula is a bit runny and smelly, but all in all a very well behaved polish. I just wish the shimmer would be more visible. Still, it's an excellent base for the flakies! :) 

What do you think about these babies? Did you get any of the top coats from Re-mix your style LE?

Thank you for reading!

Long Time No See: O.P.I. Who The Shrek Are You with lime green comparison

Oh, the title is so long. I hate when that happens. Who The Shrek Are You? is probably one of my favourite OPIs ever. I love the green. My BF hates it, but I love it, hehe. I saw the colour on a blog and immediately thought to myself "it's about damn time I wear it again!". Hence the Long Time No See label. As my stash is gettting bigger and bigger I'm starting to forget about the seriously cool and loved colours in it. Sad.

Since it's my kind of green I do have a couple that get close to it too, so I did a quick comparison for ya.

• Index and pinky: O.P.I. Who The Shrek Are You?
• Middle finger: Brucci Stephanie's Go Lime
• Ring finger: Sinful Colors Innocent

As you all know, Who The Shrek Are You? is a part of O.P.I. Shrek Forever After Collection for Spring 2010, but I told you that once more anyway. What you probably don't know is, I'm a big Shrek fan. And that's because of Shrek himself. "Ogres are like onion." I love his grumpy yet loving attitude, you know. And, although it's almost a cliché now not to love clichés, I love the unusual heros in the stories. I hate blond princes who save the so-passive-it's-already-insulting ladies. Well, bond guys were never my type anyway. ;) 

Ok, now that I've gone completely OT on you, how about a few info on polish? Shrek is a three coater for me, I cannot get rid of bold spots otherwise. It's insanely glossy and dries fast.

His cousins are not dupes, as you can see. Stephanie's Go Lime (what's with that name??) is much more yellow, and Innocent something in between. I love SGL better, since it's more different form WTSAY? (as you know I don't like having dupes) and also the forumula is much better than of Sinful Colors. While SGL needs three coats and Innocent only two, Innocent has the worst brush of them all. 

I advise you two coats of base coat for this type of green, if you don't like your nails stained. Otherwise you'll have seriously yellow nails. I checked. -.-

What do you think about this kind of green? Too fugly for you? Did you get any colours from Shrek Forever After collection?

Thank you for reading!

Khaki/cool military green comparison: 4

Hey everyone! How are you doing? I'm headachy, again and I'm craving something sweet, ghah! I have a requested comparison for you today. I felt like doing it and then posting it right away, so here it is. KarenD (I love her nail wheel posts, I always go through them like a madman, nail per nail and her display pics, so I can see what's going on in USAs drugstores) asked me in the Enter The Undergrowth post to compare the Catrice with Models Own and Essie. I then added a few pictures with H&M too. 

• Index: Essie - Sew Psyched
• Middle: Catrice - Enter The Undergrowth
• Ring: Models Own - Grace Green
• Little: Catrice Enter The Undergrowth

I tried to take pictures in many lightnings, sadly there was no sun today in Ljubljana. Then I removed Grace Green, since it's the most off of them all and put on H&M Hunt Me Down.

Flash, to make the differences more obvoious.

They are all two coaters, all dry extremly fast and are very easy to work with, I'm quite impressed! Even Hunt Me Down behaved extremely nicely today, unlike the first time I wore it. 

Aside from the application, which was, again, very nice on all four, the colour differences are obvious from the pictures, but lets write it down anyway.

Grace green from Models Own is the lightest green of them all. Gorgeous, I can't wait to wear it as a full mani, and the most different of them all, it's less "military" green, it has a more gentle feeling to it, if that makes sence.

Essie Sew Psyched is the darkest of them all, plus it's the only one that's not a creme, it has a very fine silver shimmer, that is visible only if you have some sort of lighting on your nails (like standing next to a window or something). So I would say it's different enough, a shade or two darker, bit more grey and with the shimmer, hardly visible, but still there.

The closest you get to Catrice Enter The Undergrowth is with H&M Hunt Me Down. You have to look really really close to see that H&M is a shade or two lighter than Catrice. It's also much more glossy. Still, I hate the H&M handle, it's really clumsy and I think Catrice has a totally winner of a brush, so it's my winner in this dual.

To a non-khaki green fan(atic) I think any of the trio Essie-Catrice-H&M would suffice. You just have your pick between darker, lighter and something in between. :) I'm glad to have all four of them. But if you don't count the silver shimmer in Essie, I think any of the three would be enough, quite honestly. If you're like me, and think Essie is different enough, you can pick between Catrice Enter The Undergrowth and H&M Hunt Me Down, they are really really close. 

What do you think? Close enough? Would you have all 4 of them? I don't mind, but then again, I'm a green freak. ;) 

Thank you for reading!

Alice, meet your sister Dorothy

Heya people! Today I want to show you my newest crush. I've already talked about Absolutely Alice in my posts about special hauls. I got it with major help from the lovely Nola (Hedonism, Limited blog, check her gorgeous nails out!) and in that post one of my lovely readers, AngieP, suggested I do a comparison with Dorothy Who? from China Glaze. Actually, she was wondering how close they get and since I wondered that myself and I have Tevta's Dorothy Who? at home, I said lets put them nail to nail. 

What I thought it will be a comparison post it ended up as an accent mani (Dorothy Who? is on my ring finger only), so this post is picture heavy. I did pictures from 1 to 4 coats and then a few with final mani. Hope you'll enjoy it, I'll talk more about them after the pictures. I put the final mani first, then the comparison pictures after the bottle shot. I also did a video, but after trying a few times I'm giving up on blogger, it just won't upload the damn thing for some reason. If you'd still like to see it, let me know in the comments, I'll try to put it on again later.

 I suggest you enlarge this one, the last two nails are a bit blurry and they show the differences beautifuly. Plus, I love the photo. :)

 

Direct sunlight really kills the differences between the two and it also kills most of their beauty IMO.

Comparison pictures: 

 At this point I needed to hold something in my hand because I knew I wouldnt' distinguish the 4 coats from 3.

Still with me after all the photos? Trust me, this is the lowest number I can make myself to post. I am simply in love with Absolutely Alice. It turns out to be so much more than what I expected, and I expected A LOT, seriously!

The info:

Absolutely Alice is from the O.P.I. Alice In Wonderland Collection for Spring 2010, Dorothy Who is a part of legendary China Glaze collection Wizard Of Ooh Ahz, that got rereleased in year 2009, originally it was released in 2001. 

They both need 3 coats. I have no idea how some bloggers got AA to be a two coater. Are my nails really that big? o.O Anyway ... I put the fourth one just so I covered the tips on AA completely but three will do. They both dry with texture, especially AA. I used two coats of TC on AA and one on DW and they are still rough, although DW is smoother.

Brushes are perfection, of course. China Glaze and O.P.I. get major love from me for their brushes, the application is always a bliss. They dry  fast too, but you need to put TC on for smoothing purposes anyway. 

How close they get? Well, on sunlight they get very close, because the sun kills the gold glitter in AA. But on normal lighting they are only sisters, related in facts they are both blue and both glitter polish. Otherwise they are very different. DW blue jelly base with silver  glitter as main one, AA clear base glitter with brighter blue and gold glitter. It is quite obvious they're not the same, that's why I'm wearing it now as an accent mani.

They are both so utterly gorgeous! SO GORGEOUS! But, like I said, Absolutely Alice is the complete winner for me. I don't care about the bitchy removal or three coats or two coats of TC or even if I discover that it stains my nails. This is one of the colours that go into my section of "so beautiful it could make me cry". There aren't many in there, since this is a seriously seldom reaction from me. But Absolutely Alice does that. No wonder it's so hard to find.

What do you think? Are you a glitter fan, would you like to have them both or even have them both? Like I said, I'm in love with Absolutely Alice, but I surely wouldn't mind having Dorothy Who? too. I can't imagine removing it off my nails, it's been three days since I applied it and I'm not bored one bit. Plus the tip wear is minimal. Thanks again to Nola for all the help with getting a bottle of Alice and thanks to my dear Tevta for letting me play with her China Glaze collection!

Thank you for reading!

Essence - Choose me! with Halley's Comet comparison

You're probably really sick of this one, aren't you? Plus I'm an era or two late with this comparison, but I did it a long time ago and I said what the hell, let's show it for the 64132158th time. Choose me! was the first Essence I actually tried. Crazy, eh? So you can imagine my immense surprise at the facts that the brush simply rocks, the formula of the polish is wonderful and it is a beyond awesome colour. All for 1,49€. FTW

No idea how, but I somehow managed to pick the insane duochrome effect up to a maximum, it looks insane, on the first pic is looks like I did a gradient mani with green and blue. Well, I didn't. No words neccessary for this one, you know it well, together with all the dupes. It's gorgeous, it needs three coats to be fully opaque and it stains, two coats of base coat are highly recommended. It also dries really fast, i didn't use any top coat and I had it on for a couple of days, smudge free.

The comparison with Orly Halley's Comet was made when I got my Choose me! bottle, hence the different nail lenght. I did the comparison because back then I was comparing the Cosmic FX collection and I wanted to see how close they get. They are rather close, the blurry picture only shows the minor difference between them. Still, I don't think you need them both, unless you're really crazy about the colour and would want a back up, since Essence bottle is small. Both brushes are fantastic and both need three coats.

Which one of the Charla-Catch Me In Your Net-Halley's Comet-Choose Me!-two or three more I can't remember from the top of my head-dupe circle did you get? Do you have more of them? Which one do you use the most often then?

Thank you for reading, have a great Saturday!