Maybelline Color Show Polished Jewels Swatches

Given that it had five glitters in it, there was no way the Maybelline Polished Jewels collection was going to remain intact after I snapped the photo for my most recent display post. Neither the display nor the bottles say they're limited edition, so these should show up in core displays, too. I grabbed one of each shade; they're all glitters in a clear base. Left to right: Gilded in Gold, Mosaic Prism, Precious Pearl, Gleaming Graphite, Platinum Adorn.



Gilded in Gold has shredded gold metallic glitter.



I swatched Gilded in Gold over Maybelline Day Glow Teal (from this summer's Bleached Neons LE collection). I used a white base because I figured even a bleached neon could use some pop, then two coals of the teal (which I consider more of a turquoise), then two coats of the gold glitter with a fair bit of dabbing. Like most shredded glitter, there were some sticky up bits in this one. Some topcoat would have smoothed those over, but for swatching purposes, the clear base of the glitter polish was good enough on its own.





Despite not being a gold lover, it wasn't much trouble for me to find two other shredded gold glitters to compare to Gilded in Gold: Essence Metal Glam Gold Topper (which is oddly called "Steel-ing the Scene") and an unnamed The New Black mini from one of the kits Ulta had on clearance in recent months.



Left to right below over black creme: Maybelline, Essence, Maybelline, The New Black (2 coats of each). These are all pretty close, though The New Black one seemed to have less shreds per square inch.



When the first ads for these Color Show Jewels were spotted there was some speculation that these might be flakies, a la Zoya Maria Luisa. It's now clear they're not, but I went ahead and grabbed some gold flakie polishes for comparison anyway to show the difference. Matching up with Gilded in Gold, I had Zoya Maria Luisa, Revlon Gold Goddess (from this summer's Rio Rush LE collection), and NYC Top of the Gold.



On the nail over black, left to right: Maybelline, Zoya, Revlon, NYC. Clearly the shreds are chunkier and flashier than the flakies. The Revlon and NYC are both good substitutes for the Zoya; the Revlon slightly more so than the NYC as it seems to match better in the density of flakies category.



Another angle on the flakies:



Gleaming Graphite has charcoal glitter shards; it's Gild in Gold's cool-toned twin.



I tried Gleaming Graphite over Maybelline Ultra Violet (also from Bleached Neons), again with a white base to start, two coats of color, and two coats of glitter. This time I did add topcoat to smooth over the jagged bits of shreds that wanted to poke up.





Mosaic Prism has multi colored tiny and large hex glitter—silver, gold, pink, blue, green, copper.



At first glance, I thought Platinum Adorn was just silver bar glitter, but a closer look shows there are also large silver hexes in there.



I used Maybelline Walk in the Park, a deep green creme from core line, as a base for Mosaic Prism with an accent of Platinum Adorn. I used two coats of color and two of glitter, plus clear topcoat.





I failed to take a macro bottle shot of Precious Pearl; it's got multiple sizes of matte white glitter. I layered two coats of it over over Warm Me Up (from spring's Dare to Go Nude LE collection) and topped with topcoat.





My picks here are Gleaming Graphite, because I don't have another shredded glitter in this color and it's a better look for me than gold shreds, and Precious Pearl, which I can see coming in quite handy for winter snow-themed manicures. Precious Pearl is similar to Nubar White Polka Dot, but the Nubar has small iridescent glitter in it so clearly I need both.