Dupe Or No Dupe: Julep Ciara vs. Orly Galaxy Girl (Featuring Nubby The Problem-child Nail)

Hello!!

A few days back, I showed you Julep Ciara, which I love, and mentioned that it reminded me of Orly Galaxy Girl...and I promised you a dupe post about it. The only problem is...I broke the middle finger nail on my dupe hand, and I'm still in that denial phase of nubbin-ness where you only file down your other nails so much because you can't accept that they have to go yet again because this darn nail constantly breaks on you...and so you have those uneven nails while you come to grips with it all...or maybe that's just me, and these pictures will be a sad, tragic tribute to my own neuroses. ::sigh::

What were we talking about? Oh yes. Dupes.

Here are the two polishes in the bottle:

Julep Ciara vs. Orly Galaxy Girl

The shapes of these bottles make this a little hard to interpret. There does seem to be less of the purple edge on the Ciara, but that might just be because of the rectangular shape...So on to the swatches, says I!


Here are the two polishes next to one another:

Julep Ciara vs. Orly Galaxy Girl

 

I have two coats each of Julep Ciara on my index and ring fingers, and Orly Galaxy Girl on Nubby and my pinkie. What's the verdict? Welllll.....I'm gonna go with No Dupe. You can tell a clear difference between the two--Ciara is darker and has more of the blue shimmer. Galaxy Girl is has more of the raisin color showing, and a bit less of the blue showing directly. I qualify it with that crazy 'well' because I think the colors would be a bit closer if Galaxy Girl had three coats...But regardless, that makes them not complete dupes.

Are they similar enough that you don't need both? Sure. You can create similar-enough looks with the two of these, so if you want to avoid things that are too close, you can definitely just grab one of these. Are they different enough to justify buying both? Sure. If you're looking for a justification, I officially just gave it to you. ::wink, wink::

I hope this helps anyone who was wondering about these two, and I apologize for Nubby's cameo appearance!

Hugs and loves,
M.

Comparison post: Black & White glitters, done Halloween style!

Hello!

Ages ago, a reader asked if I could do a comparison post on my black-and-white glitters. I said I would, but then it got pushed back and backer. I have it today, and I hope it's not too late to be useful! And to make it festive, I've given it a Halloween twist by putting them over Misa Um You're Too Delicious.


Let's take a look! Here's what I have:

Thumb: China Glaze Whirled Away
Index: Laquerlicious Zebra Kisses
Middle: Me.Lissa QR Code
Ring: InDecisive Nail Lacquer Newspaper
Pinkie: Dandy Nails Colorblind Squared

China Glaze Whirled Away; Laquerlicious Zebra Kisses; Me.Lissa QR Code; InDecisive Nail Lacquer Newspaper; Dandy Nails Colorblind Squared

China Glaze Whirled Away

Laquerlicious Zebra Kisses; Me.Lissa QR Code; InDecisive Nail Lacquer Newspaper; Dandy Nails Colorblind Squared

Many of you are probably saying that a girl really only needs one black-and-white glitter, and certainly doesn't need 5 of them. To that, I say the following:

....la la la la I'm not listening la la la la la...... Did you say something?

Anyhow, hee hee, here are my thoughts on each of them, because I truly do love each and every one:

China Glaze Whirled Away: I know this got a lot of thumbs-down in the blogosphere, but I truly love it. I love the different sized hexes and yes, I even love the bar glitter. It's really fun and has a circus-like feel to it.

Laquerlicious Zebra Kisses: Shards, shards, shards!! And shards that behave well! They don't stick up or snag, and they add pizzazz to any manicure.

Me.Lissa Lacquer QR Code: I adore square and rectangle glitter to start with. Give it a variety of sizes, and it looks like someone took a chess board and blew it up in space, so the bits are just floating around. And it may be the most perfectly named polish ever.

InDecisive Nail Lacquer Newspaper: What I love best about this is that it's black-white-and-gray; the addition of the gray gives it an extra textural feel. I also love that the glitter in this is smaller, so I can create a more dense visual feel when I want it.

Dandy Nails Colorblind Squared: This was my first black-and-white, and I was so happy to get it. It also has a smaller feel to it, when I want to add something to the manicure, but don't want it to become the sole focus--but in this case I can do it with squares, and I think I've already established where I stand on squares. :)

My apologies again that it took so long to get this up--I try to be fast with reader requests, but this one just kicked my tushie!

Hugs and loves,
M.

Zoya PixieDust - To Coat or Not to Coat!

A Zoya PixieDust Comparison by Vanity Rouge

One of the most frequently asked questions about the textured, matte and sparkling Zoya PixieDust formula is, "why shouldn't you use a base and/or top coat?" The answer, is simple. A top and base coat affects how the finish looks once it dries. Vanity Rouge compares what Zoya PixieDust in Stevie looks like WITHOUT a base and top coat, WITH a base coat, and WITH a top coat. So, why do we recommend you steer clear of the base and top coats when using this textured lacquer? 

Here's why: The Zoya PixieDust textured formula naturally adheres to the nail bed, because the glitter settles in the lacquer base. It fills any ridges & creates a strong bond between the polish and surface of the nail bed - this is why it is so long lasting! When you use a basecoat in particular, you do not get this settling because you are layering the polish over a smooth surface.

"I used two coats of Stevie in the above photos and the first nail shows no topcoat and no basecoat.  For the topcoat nail I had to use two coats of a thick shiny topcoat (the first one was sucked up a bit by the texture of the PixieDust)." - Vanity Rouge

Read the rest of Vanity Rouge's post on the comparison here!

To get the best results, watch the How-To Apply Zoya PixieDust video. Love how Zoya Nail Polish in Stevie looks? Check out the entire selection of Zoya PixieDust collection shades!

ZOYA IS THE NEW COLOR OF FASHION!
www.zoya.com

Comparison Before & After: Zoya blues sing the blues :)

Hello there!

This has been a hectic weekend and week, and it's not going to get any better tomorrow, so I decided rather to do a two-fer post today. Recently Katrina asked to see a comparison of my Zoya blue cremes, and I wanted to get that up as soon as possible. I'm also overdue for my Cheeky Challenge Twin Post with Dina of Secretary's Nail Art, so I thought I'd combine the two. :)

As it turns out, I only have three Zoya blues, and one of them has a green undertone to it, so I decided to round out my four fingers with a very light green that almost feels blue in some lights. So today I'm going to compare for you these 4 polishes:

Zoya Neely, Wednesday, Rocky, and Breezi

 From left to right:

Zoya Neely
Zoya Wednesday
Zoya Rocky
Zoya Breezi


Here is how they compare on the nail, in the same order:

Zoya Neely, Wednesday, Rocky, Breezi

Zoya Neelie is technically described as a light green. However, the only reason I know that is because the Zoya website tells me so--most of the time I have an on-going debate with myself when wearing this about whether or not this is a green-leaning blue, or a blue-leaning green. So I guess it sort of depends on what you want it to be and what you wear it with. :)

On my middle finger is the lovely Zoya Wednesday. This is a turquoise with a 'green undertone'. It's a soft turquoise, so if you like the color but don't want to go all the way out with a bold, bright turquoise, this is the color for you. I love it, and I'm not usually a turquoise fan.

On my ring finger, we have Zoya Rocky. This is a sky, robin's-egg blue that screams happy summer day. It's a keeper for wearing on its own, but I particularly love it as a base for nail art.

Finally, on my pinkie we have Zoya Breezi. This is a slightly muted cerulean type of blue; this is more of the type of blue I'm likely to have in my wardobe, so this is a complete winner for me.

More often than not, I struggle with the formula on Zoya cremes. But something interesting happened when I swatched these today. Because I'm trying everything I can to get my nails to de-nub, I used my Sally Hansen Hard As Wraps as my base polish...and the cremes went on smoothly. So if you also struggle with Zoya cremes, you might want to try changing up your base polish, and maybe try the Hard As Wraps. :)

Okay, so. The next thing I wanted to do here was a manicure with Cheeky summer plate 51, for my twin post with Dina. The image we agreed on was the one with different symbols on it for fast-forward, play, stop, etc., like you find on a DVD player, VCR, or in the case relevant to my mani, a cassette player (back in the day). For some reason, though, I just couldn't get inspired, and I think my final design reflects that. It's cute, but it's nothing super special.

I started by masking off slanted strips of nail, and stamping the image over them. Then, to create a music theme, I stamped cassette tapes, a boom box, and a guitar onto the bottoms of the nails (these images are from the same set, on Cheeky plate 30). I used Konad Black for the target image (I'm starting to really despise Konad Black because it's just too smeary, no matter what I do), and Barry M Silver Foil for the other images:

Zoya blues sing the blues

Seriously, I give up on Konad black. GGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrr.

Hope you enjoyed the polish comparison and the spirit, if not the execution, of the nail art! And I hope your week is going well. Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs,
M.

Comparison post: Fleck-finish greens

Hello!!

I've had a few requests for comparison posts and dupe posts, and it's a good reminder that it's been a while since I've done either. So I decided to pull this forward in my rotation a bit, and show you a comparison of 8 green fleck-finish polishes that I own. :)

Here is the bottle shot for the first 5:

Hard Candy Crush On Ivy; Zoya Rikki; Brash Sergeant Khaki; Zoya Ivanka; Zoya Logan

I wanted to do with comparison initially because I suspected Hard Candy Crush On Ivy and Zoya Rikki might be dupes, so I wanted to put these two together; can you guess which two they are, lol?:

From left to right we have:

Zoya Ivanka
Brash Sergeant Khaki
Zoya Rikki
Hard Candy Crush On Ivy

As best I can tell, Zoya Rikki and Hard Candy Crush on Ivy are not quite dupes, but they're close; they both sage green but Rikki has gold flecks in it that Crush On Ivy don't have, and I love that (Rikki also has a slightly better formula, imo). But, they're close enough that if you have one, you can easily skip the other.

As for the other polishes, Brash's Sergeant Khaki is true to its name and has a much deeper, more olive color, while Ivanka is a brighter, more grass-green polish. SK has a wonderful formula and is a one coater; did I mention it was only $2.99 at Payless Shoe Source? They have a whole line of polishes there, and I never had a clue about that before stumbling on this (actually, a friend I was shopping with noticed them and called me over!). I can't find any information about whether or not they're cruelty-free, which is why I haven't bought anymore--I can't say for sure they aren't, but I can't find anything saying they are, either.

But wait, didn't I say 5 polishes? Oh yeah:

On my thumb I have Zoya Logan, which is a more forest green with subtle gold flecks. This was from their holiday collection and is certainly a pretty, Christmassy green. The color is so rich, it actually washed out the other colors in the picture. I love love love the play of yellow-gold and green in this polish. :)

To continue on the comparison over both hands so you can see how they all compare to one another, I swatched Zoya Rikki on the pinkie of my other hand, then put on the final three polishes. Here is the bottle shot first:

Julep Etta; Zoya Meg, Apple and Rikki

Here they are on the nail:

From left to right:

Julep Etta
Zoya Meg
Zoya Apple
Zoya Rikki (again)

Zoya Apple turns out to be well named, as it's a pretty green-apple color; the formula on this was very thin and with two coats it was still patchy and needed a third; this is really the only one of the bunch I probably wouldn't buy again. Zoya Meg had no such problem--her formula was wonderful and she was nearly a one-coater. Her brand of green is more of the lime persuasion, and I could look at that color all day ::sigh::. Finally, Julep Etta is an almost yellow avocado sort of green; she also had a good formula.

And that concludes my first comparison/dupe combination post! I hope it was helpful. What are your favorites? And which color/finish would you like to see me compare next?

Hugs and loves,
M.

Nail Plate Size Comparison Chart

Hello!

For ages, I've been promising to give you a post comparing the relative size of different nail plate images. I don't know why, but I keep having some mental block about it and keep forgetting to post it. So right now, while I'm thinking about it, before I can forget, I'm going to schedule it. :)

First, a wonderful, awesome, amazing fellow blogger made the job so much easier for me; she created these comparison charts and gave me permission to post them here. Please, if you like them, show her some love by visiting her blog by clicking here:

These give visual comparisons and centimeter measurements for most of the well-known nail-plate brands. You can use this in several ways:

1) Visual inspection: if you know that Konad will fit your nails, you can do a quick look to see which are the same size or larger.

2) If you know the length of your nails, you can find an image size here in centimeters that is long enough to cover.

3) If you're looking at a new brand and have the image size dimensions, you can look at this to see which it's closes to before buying.

There are three brands that I routinely review which aren't included here. One is LeaLac, and they have the biggest images in the business (that I've found so far). By my measurements, they are one inch square, which converts to 2.54 cm on each side! So you can see how much bigger that is even than Fun 1&2 shown above. The other brand is Drikk; these are 7/8th of an inch tall (2.22cm) and 6/8th of an inch wide (1.90cm). Finally, I have reviewed plates I got from Magno Nails (you can also find these other places, but I refer to them by that name since that's where I bought them), and they come in at 7/8ths tall (2.22cm) and 5/8th of an inch wide (approx. 1.60cm); so they are about the same size as the Nail Craze images, but a titch taller.

I hope this has been a help to you! Thanks for your patience waiting for so long for this while I continually forgot to post it. If there are any other brands that you have questions about let me know and I'll try to find out the information for you. :)

And thanks again to Posh Nail Art for the amazing chart!!!

Thanks for looking! Big hugs,
M.