Monday, September 19, 2011

Orchid: The Brand, Not the Color

A while back, my friend Mel, who lives in Texas, alerted me to the existence of a nail polish brand I'd never heard of: Orchid. This brand is evidently exclusive to HEB stores; there are none of those around here by me, so I'm happy that Mel said I could share her display photos with you:







I'm also happy that Mel and I did a swap so I can show you a couple of the Orchid colors, starting with Ain't No Sunshine, a purple-leaning taupe creme in the tradition of China Glaze Channelesque. I used three coats (it was very close to being a two-coater), and found it's nice and shiny without topcoat.





Next up is Slightly Jaded, a pale mint green creme. This one might have been meant to be sheer; at four coats, I still had a hint of visible nail line in some lights.





Around the same time that Mel spotted the Orchid polishes (note to whomever decided to name a brand after a color: this makes it harder to find you on Google), the Pixel brand showed up at Ulta; you may remember seeing this display here around the end of July:



To me, some of the colors in the Orchid display looked a lot like some of the ones in Pixel display, so of course I had to do some comparisons. Here's Orchid Ain't No Sunshine and Pixel Sizzel In (why sizzel and not sizzle, Pixel? typo, or do you just want to annoy me?):



At three coats each, I couldn't tell a difference on the nail.


Top to bottom: Orchid, Pixel, Orchid, Pixel.


The only difference I noticed between Orchid Slightly Jaded and Pixel Show Me the $ was the Pixel took five coats (seriously) to the Orchid's four.


Left to right: Pixel, Orchid, Pixel, Orchid.



Top to bottom: Orchid, Pixel, Orchid, Pixel.


Orchid is the winner for me of these two brands. I like the Orchid bottle; its footprint is rectangular, so it stores efficiently in a Helmer drawer, and the concave sides make it easy to pick up even with lotiony hands. It's also full size, .5 fl. oz./14.7 ml, compared to .17 fl. oz./5 ml for the Pixel. At their full retail prices, $4.97 for Orchid and $2.49 for Pixel, the Orchid is a better value, too: $9.94 per ounce versus $14.65. Too bad Orchid is not more widely available; here's hoping they expand to other regional chains.

25 comments:

  1. I've never heard of Orchid either! lol. Which I'm sure that's why you posted about it lol. To inform people. They have such a lovely color selection!

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  2. Interesting, I have never heard of them but some of the colors look nice. Great comp with the Pixel! I like Slightly Jaded, green, shocking.

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  3. I purchased a few of these, I haven't tried them yet.. need to get on it! The color selection is great :)

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  4. Orchid looks like it has a pretty good colour range, too! and lol at it not being easy to find on Google thanks to its name... companies need to think about us swatch fiends!

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  5. These colors are pretty! The minute I saw the display, it reminded me of Pixel. I bet the companies are related. Awesome comparisons, thank you for sharing!

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  6. Ive never heard of either of these brands but any polish that takes 5 coats is not cool in my book!

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  7. nice colors :-D
    both of these brands are new to me, but i would definitely choose orchid,it not for any other reason at least because of the size of the bottle... small bottles make me sad :-(

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  8. I have never heard of either of these brands-are they owned by the same super company and hence the similar colors? Look at me I said hence! GEEK

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  9. That is an excellent point about the brand being hard to Google. When I first saw the display, I went home and tried to look up reviews/swatches, but "orchid polish" only came up with some orchid-colored polishes in more popular brands. Thanks so much for sharing your swatches.

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  10. I hate when company names aren't unique...it does make them hard to search online! I love that milky green...it's very lovely. Interesting that the two brands have such similar colors.

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  11. I always love hearing about new brands! I've never seen Orchid polishes. I only have one Pixel polish, and I like it.

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  12. I live in Texas and have quite of few of these polishes! They are a pretty good brand, I don't think anyone will find them out side of TX b/c they stores they are in are TX based. I think they stem from a brand of bath products, with the same name. From what I have seen there are lots of possible dupes!

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  13. I haven't seen either of these brands in my area so I'll have to keep a look out on my next trip to the States.

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  14. I have not heard of Orchid before but the color selection looks great! Hmmm makes me want to take a trip to TX lol. I have seen the Pixel display but they are small for the price.

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  15. holy cow!!! those colors are identical! but orchid does have a few cute colors.

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  16. complete dupes! I like the colors either way. Wish we had Orchid around here :)

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  17. Ooh I live in Texas so I've seen these, but I've never tried them. I think they have a LFN and Teenage Dream dupe too!

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  18. Very interesting comparisons. I think they all buy their polish from the same place that just puts them in different bottles.

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  19. I've never heard of the brand either! Too bad there isn't an HEB around here. It looks like they have a wide selection!

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  20. Never heard of either of these brands! They both look lovely though, love the colours :)

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  21. Maybe both brands use the same factory for their nail polishes:)Pretty colours and I also never heard about the brand:)

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  22. That brand looks nice hope they do expand to my area

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  23. Just so you are aware, the "Orchid" Brand polish is currently an H-E-B Exclusive brand. Whomever the actual producer of the polish is, the "Orchid" label was/is made just for the H-E-B Grocery chain.
    H-E-B is also only found in Texas... That being said, if the Pixel and Orchid polishes are the same, you may be able to find this collection elsewhere!

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  24. I'm all about the chip-resistance factor. That said, the Orchid brand leaves me disappointed in wear-ability. For the price, Loreal is worth the extra bucks. Milani is a great brand, too.

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Thank you for reading and commenting! I greatly appreciate knowing I'm not just talking to myself here. :) I'm moderating most comments now due to the spate of spammers who claim to be looking for sexy times.