China Glaze Def Defying vs Sinful Colors Innocent - dupe?

Hi there everyone,
 
Hope you're well today, and enjoying the holiday break, if you're getting one.  I'm all out of sorts and can't decide what day it is because I got Friday off, so today feels like Sunday.  The clocks go forward tomorrow night, so that's going to be even more confusing!  Typically, because I'm on leave, I woke up this morning at 7am and couldn't go back to sleep.
 
However, I've had a lovely day, I went shopping with my friend, and we had lunch at a fab pub.  I had a HUMUNGOUS burger, it felt quite wrong eating meat though as I hardly ever do, other half's veggie and we don't have meat at home.  Still, it was tasty.
 
So there I was, wandering round Boots, and PING!  A Sinful Colors display!!  I've never seen this brand in there (or anywhere) before, there were loads of colours and of course I was excited.  Then when I saw the price, only £1.99 per bottle, and a 3 for 2 offer, I was even more excited!  Needless to say, I picked up 6 haha. 
 
I'll swatch them all at some point, but will probably wait until this middle finger cuticle has healed, it's such a pain covering it up in the photos, and it makes my editing take twice as long, grrr.  I've got some other reviews and stuff I want to do anyway, so it'll be a good chance to get those done.  It's a heck of a lot better than it was due to a LOT of TLC, and I reckon it'll be better in a week or so, so not long for me to wait.
 
So anyway, I got all my lovely Sinful Colors haul home, and what do I notice?  That one shade I bought, Innocent, is suspiciously similar to the China Glaze color I bought not so long ago, Def Defying.  I keep calling it Hi Def, I have no idea why.  So I thought I would do a comparison post in case anyone else is wondering about it, and swatch and review both colours at the same time, so covering everything in one post.
 
So first up, let's go with the China Glaze Def Defying swatches, just because.  Firstly in the sun:

It has to be said, I've had an awful time capturing these polishes.  They are more neon than they're showing here.  I've tried to colour correct them as far as I can, but this is as far as I can go without giving myself alien fingers.  The formula was ok, it didn't flood my cuticles and was thin enough to do thin coats if you like to apply it that way.  I did find it a little bit runny.  First coat was streaky, and this is two, with no topcoat.  A beautiful acid green colour, it reminds me of the 60's, not that I was there, but you know what I mean.
 
Here it is in the shade:

Dry time was medium to fast and the brush was pretty good.  I like it.
 
Now we come along to Sinful Colors Innocent.  You can see why I thought of the dupe:

I actually preferred the formula on this one.  It was still runny, and it's one of those where you have to make sure you clean off the stalk or it blobs off onto whatever you're leaning on.  However, it was more opaque than the China Glaze.  First coat patchy rather than streaky, and this is two, with no top coat. I think it might be good for stamping.
 
Here it is in the shade:

As you can see, it dries a touch brighter than it shows in the bottle.  The only downer on this polish is that compared to the fast dry polishes we're used to these days, this one is only medium speed drying, and I did smudge a couple of nails while I was waiting for them to dry and had to re-apply.  One day I will learn to sit still and wait for my polish to dry.  Today is not that day.  Of course a coat of Seche would rectify it, but I like to show polishes in reviews with no top coat.  Otherwise I don't think it can be a fair showing of the finish that the actual nail polish has.
 
So without further ado, lets get on with the comparison / dupe check:
 
Here's a pic in the sun, hopefully I've made it pretty obvious which finger is which:

Can you guess?  That's right!  Def Defying on index and middle finger, and Innocent on ring and little finger.
 
As you can see, in the sunlight there's not much in it.  Sinful Colors is slightly paler than China Glaze, but I think if you weren't seeing them side by side like this you wouldn't really notice a difference.
 
Here they are in the shade:

Again, I would say the China Glaze is perhaps one shade richer than the Sinful Colors one.
 
I would say though, that these pictures don't show the true 'almost neon' brightness of these nail polishes.  The only thing that would capture it is my iphone, and as it's only a 3gs (upgrade due soon woohoo!), the resolution is not good.  However here's a pic taken against my monitor showing one of these pics before I've colour adjusted them to give you an idea of the size of the task:

As you can see, my camera decided it didn't want you to see the true nail polish colours, sigh.  I think I got them as close as I could though.  This iphone picture is pretty much spot on for colour, with no adjusting.  There's no way my OCD-ness would allow me to put up these blurry pics as swatches though haha.
 
Here's a picture of the bottles and brushes side by side:

As you can see, there's pretty much the same amount of polish in both bottles too.  So, I preferred the formula of Innocent, but I preferred the brush on Def Defying.
 
Now we come to price.  I bought my Def Defying on Amazon UK (here) for £7.45 including shipping.  I bought my Innocent in this Boots deal for £1.33.  Over three times less.  The usual price without the deal is still only £1.99.  You can order it online from Boots (here) but they do charge shipping.  However, of course if you can't get to a shop, it's still alot cheaper, even taking the shipping into account.

So what so I think?  Not exact dupes, but very very close.  Quite frankly China Glaze Def Defying isn't better by enough to justify paying for it over Sinful Colors Innocent.

So Sinful Colors wins.  If you don't own either, and you want an acid lime polish, I recommend Innocent.  And of course, because you've saved your money, you can have the other two bottles you get at the same time 'for free'. ;-)
 
Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~