OPI Nicki Minaj Swatches and Comparisons

Taking a day's break from the 31 Day Challenge to bring you swatches and comparisons for the OPI Nicki Minaj collection while the launch is still hot on its heels. I did these swatches at BHG and just stood there painting my nails while two other ladies painted theirs too! HAHA! So I didn't feel as guilty being so thick skinned!

I had to photoshop the colours to correct them to as accurate as they are because Fly just refused to come out looking aqua.



From thumb to pinkie: Fly, Did It On 'Em, Metallic 4 Life, Pink Friday and Save Me. All the swatches were done with 2 coats.

I've "stolen" a few pictures from other blogs that I think are the most accurate out there.


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Fly is a gorgeous aqua that covered well in 2 coats. It is unlike any polish I own. Here are the closest colours I have in my stash:



Fly is on my thumb and from top to bottom on the nail wheel, China Glaze Flyin' High, Couleur Inc Grus 106 and Sally Hansen Fairy Teal. The moment I saw the promo pics, I really wanted to know how close Flyin' High is and no one has compared the two so far so I really wanted to know! Flyin' High is so much bluer and dustier, while Grus is so much greener. Fairy Teal was the closest but it was a shade darker so no dupes here. From other swatches I've seen, Fly is close to China Glaze Towel Boy but Towel Boy has a subtle shimmer to it so they're not really dupes either. I really love Fly a lot and even though I have so many similar colours, I really feel the need to get a full sized bottle.


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Did It On 'Em can be described as a chartreuse and from the swatches I have seen, it sits nicely between Who The Shrek Are You and Fiercely Fiona. I have neither of the two so I'm gonna compare it to the only chartreuse shade I have, Essence Lime Up!



I'm glad to say the two are REALLY close and Essence only costs $2.80! I'm so happy I picked it up before it all sold out! Lime Up is a tiny tiny bit duller but I'm sure if I do a normal-person test (i.e. asking a normal non-polish addict if they can tell the difference between the two polishes), they wouldn't be able to tell the two apart so I'm gonna call this one a dupe! That said, I still think I'm gonna get a full sized bottled because I love how unique the shade is and my Essence bottle is only 5ml!


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Metallic 4 Life is a polish with multi-sized hexagonal and round glitter suspended in a grey jelly base. I did two coats in my swatch (first picture) but it could have used another coat. The tester bottle I used had a goopy consistency but I'm not sure if it's because the polish was originally like that, or got that way due to people opening the bottle and painting their nails in the shop but the consistency made it hard for me to control the glitter particle which was why I only got hexagonal glitters on the right side of my nail. But it should most probably be me because most swatches I've seen online, including the one above has a pretty even spread of glitter. I really liked this one and I think I'm gonna get a full sized bottle of this baby too!


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Pink Friday is a bright, bubblegum pink creme polish and although in the swatch above, it has Deborah Lippmamm Candy Shop layered on top, the pink you see in the picture is what Pink Friday looks like. It's not quite Barbie pink but it's still VERY pink and girly and just not my cup of tea. That being said, I know a couple of girls who would fall head over heels in love with this shade so it depends on your polish taste. I'm just not a pink polish person. That's all.


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Last but not least, we have Save Me, which has blue and holographic bar glitters, and smaller silver round glitters. I think it's meant to be worn as a glitter top coat but if you do 3 coats, you can wear it on its own. This is a very unique polish because so far, we haven't seen a lot of bar glitter polishes arounds but I'm just not feeling it so I'll probably pass on this one too.

Now, I didn't try the purple shatter because frankly, I'm kinda over the shatter trend and I've got enough shatter polishes to last me my lifetime but from what I know, it is a glittery shatter and is redder than most purple shatters out there so if you're a die hard shatter fan, you'll probably want it!

I hope the swatches and comparisons have been useful in helping you decide which polishes to get, if you're intending to save some money and get the ones you liked! Me? I'll probably get Fly, Metallic 4 Life and if I can afford it, Did It On 'Em.

Mischief Managed

This was the mani I had on while study for the bulk of my papers! I was rampaging through my mum's polish stash and I found this baby! It's Mischief 27 from Couleur Inc and it's a real good nude. It's the closest thing I've found that'll give me mannequin nails! Here it is in natural sunlight.



And this one's with flash



This polish was such a dream to work with! It glided onto my nails and the brush was pretty nice too. Not as wide as OPI but not as thin as Essie, and it was able to fan out so painting was so much easier! The polish was also pretty pigmented and all I needed were 2 coats to achieve opacity! Best thing of all? It only costs $3.50 (usual price is $4.30 I think, but I bought it at a Robinsons / John Little Expo Sale).

I used Sally Hansen Double Duty Strengthening Base and Top Coat for both my base and top and I must say, the mani lasted really well! 4 days and all I had was minor tipwear. I don't know if it's due to the Sally Hansen Base and Top Coat or the polish itself. Or maybe even due to the fact that I was only flipping pages and writing the entire day so I didn't subject my nails to any potentially chipping activities! One drawback to the Sally Hansen Base and Top Coat was that as a top coat, it took FOREVER to dry. I could still kinda squish my nail polish around even after hours of painting so unless you have time to wait it out, use a different top coat! As a base coat, it was still pretty good, it applied smoothly and actually look less time to dry!
I may be wearing shades like this frequently during my internship cuz the office seems really strict on dress code! Byebye blues and greens, hello nude colours!

PS: Etude House at Bugis is having a 30% storewide till Sunday (tmr) and the polishes are going at pretty good prices! Got 3 yesterday after work so if you were eyeing some but they were too expensive, go get them now!

Collective Haul!

I've been buying so many polishes lately and this is a collective haul from 3 or 4 different occasions within the last few weeks!

Overall picture (I forgot to add some polishes in here but I'll show you all the polishes in more detail later on)!

 

Top row (L-R): Essie Merino Cool, Silky Girl Mauve Dreams, OPI Kreme de la Kremlin, Silky Girl Naturally Nude

Second row (L-R): China Glaze Pelican Grey, Color Club Worth the Risque, Color Club Revvvolution, Essie Body Language, China Glaze Fairy Dust

Bottom row (L-R): China Glaze Secrect Peri-wink-le (no, I did not spell it wrongly!), Color Club Take Me to Your Chateau

Now, I've group them into groups of similar colours. I've also added a brief colour description and the number of coats you need to achieve opaqueness in brackets.

The Nudes / Mauves:



L-R: Rimmel Barely There (flesh tone nude, 2-3 coats), Silky Girl Naturall Nude (nude pink with pearly shimmer, 2 coats), Silky Girl Mauve Dreams (mauve, 2 coats and it's a good dupe for Kreme de la Kremlin! Costs a fraction of its price and is so much easier to find!), OPI Kreme de la Kremlin (mauve, 1 coat but 2 coats will make it more creamy and rich), and Sally Hansen Mocha Mix (darker mauve, dries darker than in the bottle, 1 coat)

The Taupes:



L-R: Essie Merino Cool (taupe with purple undertones, 2 coats), Rimmel Beige Babe (taupe with brown undertones, 3 coats)

Also, I did this comparison of Merino Cool with other similar colours that I have so you can see how it differs from the other taupes / purples!



L-R (without flash): Essie Hot Coco, Essie Merino Cool, OPI Parlez Vous OPI?, Essie Smokin' Hot
I decided to store Merino Cool with my purples instead of my taupes (the two "categories" are kept in separate baskets) because most of my taupes are more brown and Merino Cool has significantly more purple than the rest of the taupes!

The Blues: 



L-R: China Glaze Secrect Peri-wink-le (cornflower blue, more purple than Orly Snowcone, 3 coats), Color Club Take Me to Your Chateau (very light pastel blue, almost a one coater which is very rare when it comes to such light colour! Did 2 coats for good measure! It's also making me think of getting OPI What's with the Cattitude!)



Couleur Inc Beid. I forgot to include it in the first blue picture so here's an old picture I took of it! It's more of a turquoise and it needed 2 coats.

The Greys / Holos:



L-R: China Glaze Pelican Grey (grey with super subtle shimmer, 2 coats), Color Club Worth the Risque (silver holo, 2-3 coats), Color Club Revvvolution (charcoal holo, 2 coats), China Glaze Fairy Dust (holo top coat, I usually use 1-2 coats over a base colour) and Essie Body Language (light grey with pink undertones, 3 coats)

Also, recall that I bought a similar glitter from Couleur Inc?





China Glaze Fairy Dust has smaller holo particles and you can see this from the second picture! Couleur Inc Lupi also has silver particles amidst the holo particles so its effect is not as rad as Fairy Dust! Fairy Dust will win hands down if you ask me to pick one but Lupi is alright I guess.

The Red:



The lone red, Sally Hansen Cherry Red (red with slight pink undertones, 2 thin coats / 1 thick coat). I don't usually lust after reds because its hard to me to find a red I like and with so many different hues of red polishes out there, I really would wanna see it IRL before buying! I am lusting over OPI Ali's Big Break though! Saw it in Sephora and I like its jelly finish with the glitters in it!

This next one, is OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous. It's my friend's so really, I have to pass it to her as much as I'd like to keep it! It is a gorgeous granite foil-like polish with multicoloured shimmer specks! It's so nice I want to get it during my next polish spree!



This picture just doesn't do it justice! I'm waiting for Misa It's You to arrive (from a transdesign spree that I ordered from weeks ago but the idiot organiser hasn't ordered yet because she's waiting for the Katy Perry line to be in stock again. Ironically, I didn't order any Katy Perry polishes so I'm waiting in vain.) so I can compare them and see if they're similar enough for me to skip this beauty!

Okay, I guess these polishes will be able to last me for my one month ban! Oh, have you seen the Misa 9-5 collection and Essie French Affair 2011? Some of the polishes have my name on it already! :D

New Polishes

I caved at the Expo Robinsons Sale and bought 2 bottles of Couleur Inc polishes. They're $3.50 a bottle so not that bad. Plus my mum paid for them along with her other stuff so I shelled out nothing!

I've been looking from this blue bottle for sooooooooooo long. A couple of months ago, I saw the plastic swatch thing that they paint the polishes on and I knew I had to have it. since then, I've been looking out for this shade at every Robinsons / John Little outlet and it has always been out of stock. I guess my luck came through and I found it today! :D



Took the picture under a lamp and I had to photoshop the colour to make it more accurate! It's darker and bluer than CG For Audrey and a little bit lighter and bluer than CG Flyin' High if you have the above mentioned two polishes to compare it with. The polish also dries a tiny bit darker than in the bottle!

I also realised that I have an Elianto polish that's almost the same colour when I got home and checked my stash. The Elianto one is  a little greener than the Couleur Inc one but they're quite close. Also compared it to Essie Turquoise and Caicos as I had it painted on one nail already. Again, I had to photoshop the colour of my nails because they all look the same on camera. It's Couleur Inc 97 (ONE coat), Elianto Turquoise (two coats) and Essie T&C (3 or 4 coats, can't really remember) from left to right.



The other polish I got was a clear glitter. I'm currently waiting for CG Fairy Dust to arrive and I think the glitter particles in this polish is larger (and hence different) than those in Fairy Dust.



And to show off it's beautiful silver and multi-coloured glitter particles:



I tried painting the glitter polish over one of my coral nails and it looks quite sweet! It's the polish on my thumb in the above 2 pictures! There's a post coming soon on my coral mani with an accent nail so do look out for it!