Hi everyone!
I hope you are all doing really well. I've finally made it to my week off work, am off on my hols tomorrow woohoo! Of course I'm taking my laptop so I'm hoping I might even get some cheeky blogging in :-)
So, I was having a rant a while back on Twitter about my work printer taking a million clicks to print one page, and I called the printer a "beige git". I finished this with a disclaimer stating I wasn't beige-ist, which led to a bit of a discussion with Liloo of Le Petit Jardin of Liloo (link) about whether I was beige-ist or not, all tongue in cheek of course! If you haven't checked out her blog before, you should give it a look, especially if you're into make-up as well as nails, it's fab, and she's beautiful inside and out, I love her and her blog. :-) Anyway, this conversation led round to a chain of thought, because I'd bought Barry M Lychee the previous week and not used it yet, and it's kind of beige.
I got to wondering how close it was in colour to My Vampire is Buff by OPI. And usually, if I've wondered it, other people have too. And because I own both I thought I would do a quick comparison and review for you.
So here we have the polishes side by side:
You can immediately see that they're close, but in no way dupes. The Barry M is more of a taupe, whereas the OPI is whiter and pinker, although the pink hue doesn't come out very well in photos, it is there in real life, just the slightest blush tone.
So here they are side by side on my nails:
Lychee is on my index and middle finger, and My Vampire is Buff is on my ring and little (pinkie) finger. Both two coats.
I think this shows the difference in tone better than it shows in the bottle. But of course, if it was just a case of choosing which colour we like best, there would be no need at all for nail polish reviews, would there? So how do they compare in application?
MVIB: First coat a bit streaky and still some visible nail line
Lychee: Not as streaky and shinier
MVIB: Consistency just right, easy to apply
Lychee: A bit runnier, need to be careful about leaving polish on stalk as it could drip, but still easy to apply
MVIB: Not as self levelling as some Nails Inc cremes but still OK
Lychee: More self levelling, pretty good
MVIB: Brush typical OPI brush, just right softness, nice shape
Lychee: Main let down, too square at top so made shaping at cuticles more difficult, and a bit too stiff, although released polish well
MVIB: One coat touch dry time 3 min 45 sec
Lychee: One coat touch dry time 3 minutes
MVIB: 2 coats left only very slight nail line
Lychee: 2 coats left no nail line, could be a one coater with medium thickness application
MVIB: £7.85 from Amazon UK (link)
Lychee: £3.99 from Amazon UK (link)
So lets have full swatches then. Here's Barry M Gelly Lychee swatched on all fingers:
And here's OPI my Vampire is Buff swatched on all fingers:
So which is the winner? Lets recap:
Barry M Gelly in Lychee dries faster, is more opaque, is more shiny, and importantly it costs less.
OPI My Vampire is Buff has a slightly better formula and much better brush. So there's pros and cons to each.
At the end of the day then, for me it comes down to which colour I prefer. I personally prefer My Vampire is Buff, because I like white-based polishes, and I find Lychee a little bit uninspiring.
However, the happy news is that to polish nuts like me, they're different enough to justify owning both, which is always a good thing. They're not the same, they're SIMILAR ;-)
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
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~
Hi there again,
A happy Sunday to you. I hope you're having a good day. Mine has mainly involved driving round car sales garages looking at cars for other half. He's finally decided which one he wants now and my taxi-ing days will soon be over. It's not been too bad actually because he doesn't work too far from home and it's just meant getting up 15 or 20 minutes earlier so no big deal.
Unfortunately for me, now I've seen a car I want too! Typically it's just slightly outside my budget and they won't budge on the price. I could stretch to it, but am not sure if I should. I know that my current car is getting pretty decrepit, and it's at the stage now where it's going to need some pretty serious money spending on it if I want to keep it, so I'm wondering if I'm just better off putting that money towards this new(er) car instead.... decisions decisions!
The sun has finally put in an appearance today so I can come up with some decent nail swatches. Luckily for me this has coincided with my most bargainous nail find ever! I was in TK Maxx (unsurprisingly) yesterday, and was lamenting again about how they've hardly had any polishes in since Christmas. My TX Maxx was always awesome for polishes, with Nails Inc, Orly, OPI, and Color Club collections all knocking about, and the occasional Leighton Denny in there as well. So, as recently usual there was hardly anything, so I went to the tweezers and brushes section, and was just having a root about, when I realised my nose was nearly touching a plastic wallet with three Nails Inc polishes in. So I had a look and it was priced at £4.99!! Well, of course I had it off that hook quicker than you can say 'bargain'. It must have been marked up wrong as the RRP was £18, and as we all know Nails Incs sell for £11 each.
To be honest, I knew I already owned one of these. That was the light pink Elizabeth Street, because I got that when it was free on the front of Glamour Magazine, and I knew I didn't like it. But hey ho, it's still £4.99 for 2 polishes and the other two were nice. It wasn't until I got them home I thought, hey, they look similar to the two Barry M polishes I bought a couple of weeks ago, and when I came to check, lo and behold, pretty much dupes! So I thought I'd make this a comparison/Barry M swatch fest too. Hence this is a pretty picture heavy post.
So without further ado, let's get on with it. I'll show them in the order I swatched them, so here's Elizabeth Street in sunlight:
This is a pale pink sheer with a pearly shimmer. The first coat was streaky. It strikes me as a very 'there but not there' office appropriate colour which would be good for french manicures. The dry time was medium, and it was self levelling. Still slightly patchy at coat two. Maybe at three I could get away with it VNL-wise, but I didn't try as I know that if it needs three coats I'll never bother with it.
Here's how it looked in the shade:
So, I knew I wouldn't like this, and I don't haha.
Onto the next one, All Saints Road. A vibrant cobalt blue. Here it is in sunshine:
It's the usual nice glossy nails inc formula. With careful application this could be a one coat wonder. I did two coats though for all of these swatches. Dry time was medium/fast. It dries slightly darker than the bottle colour and did require a little bit of clean up.
Here it is in the shade:
A lovely colour, but I realised when I got it home, I already had Barry M Cobalt Blue. So how does it compare? Well let's see:
Almost the same! So let's get it onto my nails and see how it fares, is it still a dupe?
Yep! The Barry M is sliiiiiightly darker, but there's hardly anything in it. As you can see, my index and middle still have the Nails Inc on, and I took it off my ring and little finger to put the Barry M on. Formula wise, Barry M Cobalt Blue has a thinner formula, but similar opacity. A bit more difficult to get neat with one swipe. It has a slower medium-ish drying time. This is 2 coats. Here's a comparison of the brushes:
So which did I prefer? Well I found the Nails Inc slightly easier to apply and a little bit faster drying, so if they were the same price I'd go for the Nails Inc. But seeing as the usual price for a Nails Inc is £11 and the usual price for a Barry M is £2.99 I would definitely recommend the Barry M. Unless of course you got the deal of the week like I did and got your Nails Inc for £1.67 haha.
So, onto the third and final Nails Inc polish I got in my set, Belgrave Place. A royal bluey purple (blurple?). Here's the sunshine swatch (try saying that after a few G&T's!):
It was a thinner than usual formula, but still opaque and could be a one coater. My thumb got bubbles as I'd shaken bottle vigorously, this is not usually an issue with Nails Inc because of the thicker formula. In some lights it looks inky blue, and in other lights it looks like a rich purple. The dry time was medium/medium-fast. a lovely glossy finish, but it did stain my cuticles on removal. Here's a shade pic:
So, when I was getting my Barry M Cobalt Blue out of my stash, I came across a dupe for this one as well! Barry M Indigo. Here's the bottles side by side:
Pretty similar right? Here they are on my nail. Again I took the Nails Inc off my ring and little finger and put the Barry M on. In sunshine:
And shade:
The Barry M was a slightly less opaque formula, and I got some bubbling on my little finger. Indigo is faster drying than Cobalt, med/fast dry time with a whisper of VNL at two coats. Colour wise it's virtually a spot on dupe. So which do I prefer? There's so little to choose between them, that again I would recommend the Barry M purely on price.
Here's the brushes:
And there we have it! One swatchathon done and dusted. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Whats been your best nail polish bargain? Have you done a post on it? Post a link to it in the comments if you have, would love to see!
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
