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

Posts tagged ‘comparison’

OPI Fly and comparisons

At the risk of making it seem like all I post is OPI, here’s yet another one! This is OPI Fly from their recently released Nicki Minaj collection. I wasn’t going to get any polishes from this collection but when I saw them in store I couldn’t resist getting Fly. I’m powerless against turquoise!

I didn’t have any good light for swatching but I figured I’d just do it anyway. This is two coats of Fly, no top coat, in natural overcast light.
OPI Fly, overcast natural light

With Flash:
OPI Fly, with flash

Since I’m a total sucker for this kind of colour, I (of course) already had a polish that is very, very close to Fly, that polish being Milani’s Fresh Teal, which is one of their neons. I also added Kleancolor Catch Me to my comparison, since it’s fairly similar as well.

These are all two coats, no top coat – index and ring: OPI Fly, middle and pinky: Milani Fresh Teal, thumb: Kleancolor Catch Me.

In overcast natural light:
OPI Fly, Milani Fresh Teal, Kleancolor Catch Me, overcast natural light

With flash:
OPI Fly, Milani Fresh Teal, Kleancolor Catch Me, with flash

OPI Fly, Milani Fresh Teal, Kleancolor Catch Me, with flash

OPI Fly, Milani Fresh Teal, Kleancolor Catch Me, with flash

Milani Fresh Teal is just a tiny smidgen brighter and greener than Fly. I found the Milani more opaque than the OPI at one coat (it could probably be a one-coater if you use a thick coat). Both applied really well and were self-leveling.

The Kleancolor is similar to Fresh Teal in terms of hue but is a few shades lighter (and is the most opaque of these three polishes, easily a one-coater, like a lot of Kleancolor cremes are); I just thought I’d add it for comparison’s sake.

I should probably redo this comparison when there’s sun to do a better job of showing the differences, as the flash tends to wash things out…

My preference/recommendation between Fly and Fresh Teal is Fresh Teal. Not only is it less expensive it’s also a bit more opaque and brighter.

Category:

Kleancolor, Milani, OPI

Tagged with:

Dark teal comparison featuring Nicole by OPI

Someone on a nail board I frequent asked for a comparison of Zoya Cynthia, from last fall’s Smoke collection, and Nicole by OPI Khloe had a Little Lam-Lam from their new Kardashian collection. (Now let me just say that I don’t know anything about the Kardashians except that their names all start with K and they’re on the cover of a lot of magazines in the supermarket checkout line. So, I really don’t know what this polish’s name refers to, but anyway… I’ll just refer to it here as Khloe!)

Cynthia is definitely darker (almost looks black in low light), and has less green in it. I found another polish in my collection that’s much closer to Khloe, Joe Fresh Hunter. I also added LA Colors Jungle to the comparison, but it’s a significantly lighter teal than the others.
dark teal creme comparison: Zoya Cynthia, NOPI Khloe, Joe Fresh Hunter, LA Colors Jungle

Here are the four polishes at one coat, under my Ott light. From left to right, Zoya Cynthia, Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam, Joe Fresh Hunter, and LA Colors Jungle.

dark teal creme comparison: Zoya Cynthia, NOPI Khloe, Joe Fresh Hunter, LA Colors Jungle

Cynthia is the darkest of the bunch and the least green; it’s a blackened teal but it could also pass for navy. At one coat it also has a pretty cloudy texture to it.

Two coats (no top coat), overcast natural light:
dark teal creme comparison: Zoya Cynthia, NOPI Khloe, Joe Fresh Hunter, LA Colors Jungle

Khloe has a really smooth formula, great application. Joe Fresh Hunter is nearly identical in colour, though I prefer Khloe’s formula and brush. Not that Hunter’s formula is bad either. My brush on Hunter was a little screwy though; it has one bristle just slightly longer than the others. I’ll have to trim it… The brushes are fairly similar in shape though, both wide and flat, which I personally prefer in a brush shape.

Two coats, still without topcoat, setting sun:
dark teal creme comparison: Zoya Cynthia, NOPI Khloe, Joe Fresh Hunter, LA Colors Jungle

dark teal creme comparison: Zoya Cynthia, NOPI Khloe, Joe Fresh Hunter, LA Colors Jungle

At first I was going to say that Hunter is maybe a hair darker and less green than Khloe, but I don’t know if that’s even accurate (it almost looks like Hunter is slightly lighter in these photos – apologies that they aren’t the greatest; I did what I could with the light I had!) Either way, it’s really hard to pinpoint any differences in the two colours. Khloe does dry glossier before top coat, though.

So there you have it, a less expensive alternative to Khloe for those of us who have access to Joe Fresh polishes, although Khloe’s formula is slightly better and the bottle contains more polish (a standard 15 ml, versus 6 ml).

Category:

Joe Fresh, LA Colors, Nicole by OPI, Zoya

Tagged with:

Cult Nails Fall 2011

Since Cult Nails’ winter collection is already up for pre-sale on their website (until November 11th), I realized that it’s well past time for me to post my swatches of their fall collection!

Cult Nails Fall 2011 collection

I originally bought these polishes in the last pre-sale and received and swatched them in August, but wasn’t happy with some of the photos (hmmm, seems like I’ve said that before…) so I recently redid the swatches for Awakening and Enigmatic. So if my nails and the conditions of the photos look different, it’s because they are!

Awakening

This is a muted teal creme; I love this kind of colour. The formula is thin and it’s sheer and a little streaky on the first coat, but with three coats as shown here, it evens out to a smooth creme finish.

Cult Nails Awakening
Cult Nails Awakening

Enigmatic

This is a vampy raisin coloured polish; it has a sheer brownish base with plum coloured shimmer that has flashes of reddish and bluish shimmer particles when the light hits it. An interesting complex colour, but like Awakwning, the formula is very thin and sheer, and it was streaky at one and two coats. This is three coats in the photos, and to be honest I think it might have benefited from a fourth.
Cult Nails Enigmatic
Cult Nails Enigmatic
Cult Nails Enigmatic

In a Trance

This is an army green with gold shimmer. I love this!! This one had a great formula, the best of the collection. It was smooth, self-leveling, and easy to apply. This is three coats.
Cult Nails In a Trance
I also wanted to see how this compared to OPI At Your Quebec and Call and a few other olive green polishes I have. From the bottle comparison it was clear that they aren’t dupes, but they are similar.
Cult Nails In a Trance comparison with OPI At Your Quebec and Call

Here is the comparison photo, from thumb to pinkie: Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Swamp Thing ( a creme, but I wanted to see how the base colour compared), Zoya Yara, In a Trance, OPI At Your Quebec and Call, and China Glaze Cat’s Eye. All are three coats, all have good application. As usual, you can click on the photo (and any of the other photos) to see more detail.
Cult Nails In a Trance comparison
The base colour of Swamp Thing is indeed close to In a Trance’s base colour, although Swamp Thing is a bit darker. Zoya Yara has more of a blue-grey tone to it so it’s not close at all. At Your Quebec and Call is the closest to In a Trance, but the OPI is slightly more sheer, has a denser shimmer/slight frostiness. The reflection from the denser shimmer makes it look a tad lighter overall. China Glaze Cat’s Eye is lighter and more yellow than In a Trance, and is frostier than the OPI.

Hypnotize Me

This is a pretty unique polish! Sheer aqua blue-green with duochrome aqua/violet glitter (although these photos didn’t capture the violet, it’s quite obvious on the nail when seen at an angle). It’s got a jelly finish, but it dries fairly matte. For the photos I used Nubar Diamont as top coat, but it also makes a great accent nail as-is for any satiny-matte polish. Without topcoat, when dry, it’s not completely smooth but it’s not bumpy either; more like a very fine sandpaper. With topcoat it becomes smooth. The polish has a kind of weird goopy texture, but the application isn’t problematic at all. It’s meant to be a layering polish but I like it by itself too. This is three coats in the pictures.
Cult Nails Hypnotize Me
Cult Nails Hypnotize Me
And here it is layered (one coat) over the other polishes in the collection: from top, In a Trance, Enigmatic, Awakening. It looks great over all three of them!
Cult Nails Hypnotize Me, layered

Overall this is a great collection; I really love the colour choices! I’m looking forward to their winter collection…

Category:

Cult Nails

Tagged with: