Smitten Polish Carousel Ponies (and a couple Nerds)

Much as I like to swatch whole collections, sometimes I start to feel overwhelmed by the prospect and the cure is to pluck a single polish out of my untrieds based on what tickles my fancy at that moment. Carousel Ponies by Smitten Polish found itself in my hand on one such occasion. I'm not sure this was part of a collection anyway; it's listed in the Smitten Polish etsy shop in the Smit Happens category, which is where the random polishes go ((but looking at the Smitten Polish Facebook page that category wasn't established until after I bought this polish so I'm not 100% sure). Carousel Ponies is a blue violet base with an assortment of glitter in magenta, purple, teal, and blue. I used two coats plus topcoat. If I were wearing this for a full mani, I would use a thicker topcoat for a smoother, shinier finish (when I'm swatching I tend to use whatever cheap stuff I have around, often thin and watery bottles I got as freebies).







As often happens, once I got started, I kept going. I'd noticed another Smitten Polish in the untrieds box, Nerds Redux, that was similar to Carousel Ponies in that it had a medium purple-y base and glitter, but it was by no means a dupe. Nerds Redux has less blue in its base and a more selective glitter mix with just fuchsia and turquoise. Here are the bottles side by side (Carousel Ponies on the left, Nerds Redux on the right):



Here they are on the nail, side by side:



As long as I had Nerds Redux on two nails, I figured I might as well go for four. I used three coats plus topcoat for this swatch.





Then I had to go find my bottle of Smitten Polish Nerds, the original color that Nerds Redux was a reformulation of. The base of Nerds is darker and more purple than Nerds Redux, and the glitter mix skews more fuchsia and has some small pink glitter that Nerds Redux does not. The bottles tell the story (Nerds on left, Nerds Redux on right):



Did I just say the bottles told the story? Well, yes, but I had to put the two on my nails to be sure.



I'm pretty sure Nerds is discontinued. I don't know about Nerds Redux; it's not in the etsy shop now, but it was included in some restocks earlier this year. Carousel Ponies is in stock (at $9 for a 15ml full size bottle) as of when I'm writing this. (As is Grey Matters, which is another purple based glitter; I should have pulled that one for this entry as well but it's probably in a different untrieds box.) I also noticed that there are several of the Berrydrops collection in the discontinued section for $7; those were the ones I had such fun doing gradients with when I swatched them in April.