comparison | Vegan Claws

A vegan nail polish blog. A celebration of colour and light, as well as of justice for nonhuman animals.

Posts tagged ‘comparison’

China Glaze Desert Sun and Comparisons

Desert Sun is one of three shades I picked up from China Glaze’s new On Safari collection. I’ve got another post in the works featuring the other two polishes but I’ll start with this one!

This is one of those “ugly-pretty” shades I love so much. It’s a medium orangey-brown creme. It actually turned out to be a bit more orange than I expected.

I found the formula a little thin, but no big application issues. This is two coats. In the background of this next photo is Azrael; she’s standing on top of a covered litterbox that’s next to the solarium window where I take my pics…

I compared this shade to some similar ones I have. From index to pinkie, we have OPI Ginger Bells, China Glaze Desert Sun, OPI & Apple Pie, and Joe Fresh Pumpkin. Each swatch is two coats of polish, no top coat.

Desert Sun is very similar to OPI & Apple Pie, but Apple Pie is slightly more brown. I found the formula to be better on Desert Sun, as OPI & Apple Pie was thinner & seemed more prone to bald spots. Apple Pie is also an older OPI from before they went “big 3 free” so it has DBP, toluene, etc in it as well as the old skinny brush.

As you can see Ginger Bells is darker and has more of a red tone than the others, and Pumpkin is the least brown of these shades.

If I had realized that Apple Pie was going to be a bit browner than Desert Sun, I would have switched their places and turned this comparison swatch into an ombre mani!

Category:

China Glaze, Joe Fresh, OPI

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Cult Nails Enticing and comparisons

I’ve been meaning to get this post up for a while and finally here it is. This is Enticing from Cult Nails’ second-to-last collection, Divas and Drama. I took these photos when the collection was just released, so you can see why I say “finally” since a whole other collection has come out since then!

I used a base of Milani Smoothe ridge-filling base coat, then two thick coats of Enticing. I didn’t have any problems with streaks applying this way.

As you can see it’s a pale milky pink with fleck-type shimmer in it, and is somewhat jellyish.

I have the other polishes in this collection as well but haven’t swatched them yet (strangely enough, in a collection with a coral, a minty blue, and a flakie, the first one I wore was the less-exciting sheer pale pink!)

These photos are all taken in sunlight.

I compared Enticing to other pale pink polishes that I have, from left, Kleancolor Sheer Pastel Pink, China Glaze Encouragement, Cult Nails Enticing, Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely in Love, and Zoya Audrey.

Kleancolor Sheer Pastel Pink, on my thumb, is much more of a bubblegum shade than the others. The other polishes, index to pinkie, follow the same order as the bottle pic: China Glaze Encouragement, Cult Nails Enticing, Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely in Love, Zoya Audrey. Each swatch is two thick-ish coats over Milani Smoothe.

The base colour of the China Glaze, Cult Nails, and Nicole are very similar, but the shimmer and application distinguish them. China Glaze has shimmer that is coarser than Enticing, while Nicole has coarser shimmer that is actually blue, although that doesn’t always show up very obviously on the nails. In terms of application, the Nicole polish was the streakiest/most prone to bald spots of these three, followed by the China Glaze, and the Cult Nails polish had the least-streaky application.

Zoya Audrey, on my pinkie, is a warmer shade of pink than the other three. This polish came from one of Zoya’s two limited edition New York Fashion Week trios that came out a few months ago, this one being the Peter Som trio, so it isn’t readily available anymore as far as I know. It’s also a little streaky on application.

So there you go, in terms of formula the Cult Nails polish is the clear winner here, although I do prefer the blue shimmer in the Nicole polish. Just wish there was more of it so that it’d be more visible, and that the formula was more like Cult Nails’!

At any rate, Enticing is a great choice if you’re in the market for a milky pale pink with a bit of shimmer. Hopefully I’ll get to swatch the rest of the Divas and Drama collection soon (adding it to the long list of swatches and comparisons that I want to get around to “really soon”! haha)

Category:

China Glaze, Cult Nails, Kleancolor, Nicole by OPI, Zoya

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White Creme Comparison

Today I’ve got a comparison to show you of the plain white creme polishes that I own. As you’ll see, one of the four is the clear winner in terms of opacity and formula!

From left to right, we have: Color Club French Tip, Kleancolor White, Sally Girl Pure, and Milani White on the Spot. This is the order in which I acquired these polishes, and getting the Milani from their fast-dry line with its supposed “one coat formula” is what prompted the comparison. I was skeptical and figured that was total BS since white cremes are notoriously streaky and badly-behaved, but as it turns out, the Milani white is actually *almost* a one-coater so the claim is only a slight exaggeration!

This first photo shows one coat of each polish, index to pinkie (bottom to top) in the same order as the bottles. I applied them all with a fairly thick coat (basically just not wiping off the brush on the bottle rim before applying), since whites and pastels usually benefit from a light touch rather than applying a lot of very thin coats which tend to go on streakier.

As you can see, the Milani on the pinkie is actually not bad, some bald areas but not too streaky looking! The other three polishes were very similar to one another (in terms of how the photo looks, the Sally Girl on my ring finger has an unfair disadvantage here, since that nail has the most ridges and for some reason has more of an orange stain than the others!). They were streakier and less self-leveling than the Milani. My mini bottle of Kleancolor needed a few drops of thinner in it, but that was no doubt just due to the fact that it’s the one I’ve actually used the most. I actually prefer the Kleancolor’s thick consistency among those three other polishes.

Here they are at two coats (without top coat). You can see that the Milani on my pinkie is the most opaque and smoothest; the others are slightly ridged lengthwise since they don’t self-level as well as the Milani. In terms of drying time, I didn’t really notice the Milani being much quicker than the others or anything, but they all dried fairly quickly.

Next I wanted to compare them in terms of how well they do for stamping. As a base I used one coat of Kleancolor Plum (followed by some quick dry top coat), then I used a design from Konad plate M15 and stamped on each polish in the same order as before (here, left to right). Please disregard the smudged/missing and crooked parts (augh, that pinkie!); that’s just user error and not the polishes!! They all worked pretty similarly but the Milani and the Color Club gave a slightly brighter white image.

Next I stamped using the French tip designs from Konad M86. (Polishes are in the same order index to pinkie, so now, right to left.) As you can see they don’t work so well for these larger-area images, though the actual gaps in the design are more user error than anything else. None of them leaves a very opaque image though; the stamps all have a sort of rippled look to them. Not sure if that could be reduced a bit by using a lighter touch when transferring the image onto the stamper. Again the Milani and Color Club give a slightly brighter result.

After stamping on the French tips I carefully went over them again with polish, just brushing it on, to fill them in and attempt to make them somewhat presentable. Here’s the result; all of them worked fine for this but the Milani did give the smoothest result. In terms of brushes, I should mention that the Fast Dry Milanis have a flat wide brush, similar to OPI and Kleancolor brushes. (Even the Kleancolor minis have a flat brush, though on a smaller scale. The other two polishes here have skinny round brushes.)

Another photo featuring Wade in the background!

So there you have it; best white creme polish in my (albeit limited) experience is definitely Milani’s White on the Spot!

Category:

Color Club, Kleancolor, Konad (stamping plates), Milani, Sally Girl

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Soulstice Spa Harbour Island and Cape Cod

Soulstice Spa has released four new polish shades into their collection for spring 2012, and today I have two of them to show you, complete with comparisons to a couple other polishes I have.

The two polishes I got are Cape Cod, a light, slightly muted blue with pearly shimmer, and Harbour Island, a pale, sheer peachy-pink-nude jelly with holographic glitter in it! As a bonus, a couple of adorable kitties will be making an appearance in today’s photos! 😉 All photos are taken in direct sunlight.

These next photos are three coats of Cape Cod. At first I found the formula to be thick so I was having trouble evening out my coats but I added a little Beauty Secrets thinner and that helped a lot.

I really like this shade of blue and the fine pearly shimmer!

The shimmer has a sort of blueish glow to it in the sunlight, very cool!

This polish reminded me of Milani Antique, another light blue with the same type of finish, so I did a little comparison. Index and ring are Antique, middle and pinkie are Cape Cod, three coats each. As you can see the Milani is a couple shades darker than Cape Cod.

And here is my boy Thor checking out the comparison, haha!

Next up, Harbour Island. These photos are also three coats.

The formula was really smooth and easy to apply but it’s a sheer and the third coat adds more sparkle and reflectivity.

The base colour of this polish is pale peach with a bit of a pinkish tone.

The holo glitter does dry slightly rough, but top coat easily takes care of that (these photos include top coat).

As always you can click on any of these photos to see the sparkly holo glitter in better detail!

I can’t say that I have any other peach/nude jellies with holo glitter! But here is a comparison to the closest thing I have, LA Splash Sparkling Jellyfish. Sparkling Jellyfish, in the middle in the following photo, is significantly deeper, brighter and more pink.

And finally, Harbour Island makes a great layering polish; here it is over China Glaze V, a light orange-coral creme. Hanging out in the photo is my boy Wade! (Wade lost an eye to a severe upper respiratory infection as a kitten when he first arrived at the shelter, but it doesn’t slow him down in the slightest! Nor does it prevent him from being the alpha male in our little feline “colony”!)

The other two polishes in this release, which I don’t have (yet, at least!), are St. Tropez, a beige nude that looks to have pearly shimmer similar to Cape Cod, and Kauai, a berry pink with golden shimmer. If you’re curious about them, blogger Glazed Talons reviewed them both here. These shades are available directly through Soulstice Spa on their website; Nail Polish Canada also sells Soulstice but they don’t have these new shades in stock yet as of the time I’m posting this.

Disclosure: the Soulstice Spa polishes in this post were provided to me for review. All opinions are my own honest opinions. (The other polishes in this post were purchased by me. The cats were rescued from the street and adopted from a shelter, respectively. :P)

Category:

China Glaze, LA Splash, Milani, Soulstice Spa

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Color Club Metamorphosis and comparison

Today I have Color Club Metamorphosis to show you, and a comparison to Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus which I previously blogged about here. These two are very close dupes!

Metamorphosis is from Color Club’s recently released Take Wing collection for summer 2012. It’s a teal glass-fleck with blue/violet duochrome.

Here it is at two coats in natural overcast light. Formula was great.

And here are the two polishes side-by-side in the bottle.

On the nail, two coats each. Index and ring are Metamorphosis, middle and pinky are Iceberg Lotus. The only difference I saw is that Metamorphosis is slightly denser/more opaque.

Two coats each over one coat of Kleancolor Black, again index and ring are Metamorphosis, middle and pinky are Iceberg Lotus. It doesn’t really show in the pictures, but Iceberg Lotus seemed to show very slightly more duochrome, probably because it’s slightly more sheer.

So there you have it; I’d say these are definitely dupes! Good thing they’re awesome! 😀

Category:

Color Club, Kleancolor, Nicole by OPI

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Comparison: FingerPaints Circus Peanuts and China Glaze Peachy Keen

I recently got four polishes from the FingerPaints spring 2012 collection, Gumdrops and Lollipops, and today I have Circus Peanuts to show you. I love the colour; it’s a pinky, pastel coral peach creme shade. The formula isn’t the greatest but not the worst either. It’s quite thick and very pigmented like most FingerPaints cremes are, but it’s also a little streaky like a lot of pastels are. I ended up using three coats to even out a few slightly patchy spots I could still see after two coats. I’m thinking that adding some thinner to this polish will help with the application.

When this first came out I wondered how it compared to China Glaze Peachy Keen. Turns out they’re in the same colour family but not really all that close.

Circus Peanuts is a bit lighter and definitely pinker; Peachy Keen is more of an orangey peach. This photo shows three coats of each.

FingerPaints Circus Peanuts and China Glaze Peachy Keen

FingerPaints Circus Peanuts (index and ring) and China Glaze Peachy Keen (middle and pinky)

The formula on Peachy Keen is streaky and significantly more difficult than Circus Peanuts’ in my opinion. While I used three coats for each, the third was definitely necessary on Peachy Keen whereas I felt that I could have gotten away with two for Circus Peanuts if I had been a bit more careful. Shown below is the result after three streaky coats (with top coat but after about a day and a half of wear). This polish, while not quite as thick as Circus Peanuts, definitely could benefit from a good dose of thinner just to attempt to make it less streaky. I really love the colour though, so I think it’s worth the hassle of its application!

Category:

China Glaze, FingerPaints

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Cult Nails Let’s Get Nekkid Collection

Today I have swatches of the latest Cult Nails collection to show you! The collection is called Let’s Get Nekkid and consists of four nude shades for a wide variety of skin tones as well as a green glittery flakie polish. The nudes are all named after nude beaches. As usual, you can click on any of the photos to see more detail.

I’ll go from lightest to darkest for the nudes, so first up is Mazo. This one works best as a nude on my pale self. It’s a sheer beige base with lots of golden shimmer. The shimmer is the large flake-type shimmer particle. Shown is three coats, but it was already smooth and even at only one coat (this one has the best formula in the collection in my opinion), so the choice of how many coats to use is strictly based on how sheer you want it to be.

Next is Baker, a deeper and more opaque tan beige with orange tones in it and with similar golden shimmer. The formula seemed a little thicker than Mazo but was still fairly smooth and even and could probably be used at one coat for a sheer wash of colour. I used three coats for the photos (it’s more opaque than Mazo, still a relatively sheer polish though, so I used three coats since my nails are a bit stained).

Tulum is a dusty chocolately medium taupe-brown with golden shimmer that doesn’t show up as much as it does in the first two polishes; I’m not sure if that’s just because the base is more opaque or if the particles themselves are different. This one was a little streaky on the first coat, and the formula was a little thin and threatened to run down the brush stem and flood the nail if I wasn’t careful. Adjusting to that, a second thicker coat on top of the first evened out the polish.

I did a comparison to Power Thief from Cult Nails’ previous collection (which I reviewed here), and as you can see, Power Thief (on the left) has more of a reddish-pink undertone and has denser shimmer that shows up more on the nail. The shimmer in Power Thief is silvery and flashes little sparkles of blue and pink in the light.

Cult Nails Power Thief (left) and Tulum (right)

The final nude shade is Swanbourne, a very deep neutral brown, again with golden shimmer. Like Tulum, this shade is opaque and the shimmers don’t show up as much as they do in the first two shades. Shown are two coats.

Last but not least we have the green flakie, Toxic Seaweed. This is a blue-toned green jelly with lots of small glitter and flakies that shift from red to yellow to green. This one has the same ingredient issue as Clairvoyant does, so unless they can find a new supplier or substitute for that ingredient, it will be limited edition. So, if you like this one, get it while you can; it’s still available on Cult Nails’ website as of the time I’m publishing this post!

The formula on this one was thinner than I expected, but only because I imagined it would be super-thick and it wasn’t. It applied just fine and this was two coats. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about this one; I love it at an angle when the flakes are reflecting yellow, but straight on it can have a red-and-green kind of Christmasy look to it that isn’t really my favourite.

Since I usually show the glitter or flakie polish over the others when I review Cult Nails collections, I did it again here although it’s not really as appropriate in this case – Mazo is too light to change its look, Baker just kind of makes the colour more muted by removing the blue tone, over Tulum it becomes sort of a swampy looking thing (kind of interesting, actually) – layering it over Swanbourne makes the most sense! This photo shows one coat of Toxic Seaweed layered over Mazo, Baker, Tulum and Swanbourne (left to right).

My overall impression of this collection is great; I love nudes and these ones have golden shimmer which makes me love them even more! Those with cool, pink-toned skin may not be quite as thrilled with this collection as I am, but I can see Mazo becoming a go-to nude polish for me since it matches my skin tone quite well and looks good at one coat (or at least it would without the stained nails!!) as well as at two or three! Baker is another favourite; I love the golden orangey-peachy tan tone. All of these shades are pretty unique in my collection. I do recommend waiting a couple minutes between coats when applying the darker among these polishes to prevent dragging and bald spots.

Category:

Cult Nails

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Sally Girl TTFN and comparisons

If you’ve been to a Sally Beauty Supply store lately you may have noticed that they have five new shades in their Sally Girl line of mini nail polishes. I got a couple of the new ones, including this one called TTFN. And guess what, these new ones actually show the names on the bottles! At the top right of the little sticker along the side. No more cross-referencing the 6-digit number on the sally.com site to try to figure out what the polish’s name is, haha!

Two coats of TTFN. It was a little streaky on the first coat, but a second thicker coat evened everything out. Colour-wise, this slightly dusty, minty sage green is in between Orly Ancient Jade (which is a tiny bit deeper and brighter), and Misa Catch a Flick (which is a little lighter), as the following photo shows (top to bottom, Catch a Flick, TTFN, Ancient Jade).

In terms of formula, Ancient Jade had a formula that was thinner than TTFN but was also more pigmented and opaque. Catch a Flick had a formula similar to TTFN, a little streaky on the first coat but evening up at the second.

I also compared a couple of other colours for reference. Thumb to pinky, NYX Girls Algae, much darker and bluer, Orly Ancient Jade, Sally Girl TTFN, Misa Catch a Flick, and Nubar Vogue Vert, lighter and more of a dusty yellow-based sage.

Category:

Misa, Nubar, NYX, Orly, Sally Girl

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Cult Nails Super Powers Collection

Today I have for you Cult Nails’ Super Powers Collection, released for Winter 2011-2012. This contains the flakie polish Clairvoyant, which was formerly a limited edition called Unicorn Puke. I was lucky that I bought the collection during its pre-sale, because Clairvoyant is now sold out and they’re not sure if they’re going to be able to make more, since one of the flakie ingredients was discontinued by the manufacturer. Hopefully they’ll find a new source!!

Clairvoyant:

This is three coats of Clairvoyant (no top coat), a medium purple jelly with multicoloured iridescent flakes. The flakies are pretty similar in colour to the new Fingerpaints Twisted flakie, but with the obvious difference of the purple base. Love this polish, hope it isn’t gone for good!

Power Thief:

Power Thief, a neutral medium chocolatey brown with silvery shimmer flecks that sort of reflect different colours in the light. This was two coats (no top coat) and the formula was thick but smooth. Another favourite from this collection.

Time Traveler:

Tardis-blue jelly! This was the thickest of the collection. One thick coat might even be enough, but I did two regular coats. No top coat here; look at that shine! Deep yet bright blue, love it!

Mind Control:

Sheer charcoal with duochrome purple shimmer flakes that shift to greenish-gold in the light. This one had the thinnest formula of the collection; this is three coats (no top coat), and it did need the third. It wasn’t especially difficult to apply, though. I decided to do a comparison with two other polishes I have.

Index to ring: NYX Deep Space, Cult Nails Mind Control, Color Club Alias

These all have fairly thin formulas (in fact I’d say Mind Control has the thickest of the three), and all are shown with three coats. The NYX has larger, but more sparse shimmer flakes than Mind Control does. Color Club Alias has a noticeably more purple base (as the second photo shows) and has denser sparkle than the others. Alias is my favourite of the three, but I haven’t really been into these sorts of charcoal/purple shades lately. They’re all very nice polishes with decent formulas, though.

Finally, I have some photos of Clairvoyant layered over the other three polishes in the collection! Index is two coats of Power Thief, middle 3 coats of Mind Control, and ring one coat of Time Traveler. All have one coat of Clairvoyant over top. The sun was starting to set here so that affected the colouring of the photos a bit.

Overall, a great collection! The polishes range in consistency but all were easy to work with. Looking forward to their next collection. Which coincidentally has just been announced today on Maria’s blog (Maria is the creator of Cult Nails). It’s called Let’s Get Nekkid and features four nude shades with golden shimmer and a (sadly, limited edition due to the ingredient issue) aqua-green flakie! Looking forward to it!!

Category:

Color Club, Cult Nails, NYX

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Multi-Coloured Glitter Comparison

When I reviewed Soulstice Spa’s LA in October, I mentioned that I would do a comparison with several other multi-coloured glitter polishes I have. It’s been a while but here is that comparison. I don’t own the famous “original” glitter of this type, Deborah Lippmann’s Happy Birthday, but here are the ones I do have.

From left, OPI Rainbow Connection, Soulstice Spa LA, Essence Circus Confetti, NYX Girls Carnival, Wet n Wild Party of 5 Glitters. Click on any of these photos to see more detail in the larger versions. And please excuse the pink-stained nails! All of these polishes have clear bases and any pink or orangey colour you see is just the evidence of my most recent manicures.

Here they are at one coat, thumb to pinky in the same order as above: thumb OPI Rainbow Conncetion, index Soulstice Spa LA, middle Essence Circus Confetti, ring NYX Girls Carnival, pinky Wet n Wild Party of 5 Glitters. OPI and Essence are clearly the densest of the bunch, followed by the Soulstice.

At two coats:

And at three coats:

As mentioned above the OPI and NYX are denser than the others, and the Essence and Wet n Wild are least dense. The OPI is different in that it has larger hex glitters in addition to the small and medium.

Colour-wise, the Wet n Wild is the most different among them since it has fewer colours and lacks any yellow or warm-toned orangey red glitter. It’s also my least favourite of these polishes for that reason. The Essence polish has more pink glitter than any of the others, including some lighter pink, and has some darker blue as well. NYX Girls Carnival is missing the light pink and dark blue of the Essence, but also has small cool-toned cherry-red glitter that the others aside from Wet n Wild don’t. OPI Rainbow Connection and Soulstice Spa LA are similar colour-wise to the NYX Girls but without the cool-toned cherry red. I’d say the NYX also has a higher concentration of yellow glitter, and the Soulstice has a lower concentration of pink glitter. The yellow glitter in Essence is a paler than the yellows in all the others, more of a gold.

My picks from these are, well, the denser ones/ones with the most yellow glitter – NYX Girls Carnival and OPI Rainbow Connection, followed by Soulstice LA!

Category:

Essence, NYX, OPI, Soulstice Spa, Wet n Wild

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Vegan Claws

A vegan nail polish blog. A celebration of colour and light, as well as of justice for nonhuman animals.

Posts tagged ‘comparison’

China Glaze Desert Sun and Comparisons

Cult Nails Enticing and comparisons

White Creme Comparison

Soulstice Spa Harbour Island and Cape Cod

Color Club Metamorphosis and comparison

Comparison: FingerPaints Circus Peanuts and China Glaze Peachy Keen

Cult Nails Let’s Get Nekkid Collection

Sally Girl TTFN and comparisons

Cult Nails Super Powers Collection

Multi-Coloured Glitter Comparison

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