FingerPaints Poolside Paradise Swatches and Comparisons

My apologies for skipping Nail Wheel Wednesday yesterday; I had a lunch meeting that took up my usual blog post writing time, and I've been too busy with post-vacation catching up this week to work a day ahead like I sometimes manage to do. I have a wheel already picked out for next week, though.

Today I have summer shimmer comparisons featuring the FingerPaints Poolside Paradise collection, which first popped up in my Sally Beauty stores in June but which I've still seen hanging around recently despite the fall stuff already showing up and pushing out summer colors. This collection has a rainbow of six shades (well, there's no indigo, but that's okay, indigo is not really a summer color anyway): Be My Baby, Aloha Lei, Hula Aruba, Margarita Mambo, Surf's Up, and Wild Bikini. The finish on all of these is a dense almost metallic shimmer.



Be My Baby is a deep pink, let's say pink-leaning red to fit the rainbow theme. I used three coats for my swatch.



For comparison to Be My Baby, I pulled Sally Hansen Leis-y Days (which I've only seen at Walgreens so far but have heard of also showing up in CVS Nail Bar displays, too), Butter London Lolly (from their Summer 2014 Lolly Brights collection), and Color Club Wing Fling (from Summer 2012 Take Wing collection).



You can see them on the nail below, in the same order as the bottles above (three coats each). The Butter London is the closest to Be My Baby, with Be My Baby being just a touch warmer (it's also a lot less expensive). The Sally Hansen is cooler toned and its shimmer is more visibly silver and less dense. The Color Club has similar shimmer to Be My Baby but it is cooler toned and much more pink.



Aloha Lei is a yellow-leaning orange. This is three coats.



Aloha Lei's partners in comparison are Butter London Chuffed (from Lolly Brights) and Color Club Sparkle and Soar (from Take Wing).



Left to right below: Aloha Lei, Chuffed, Aloha Lei, Sparkle and Soar (all three coats). These are very, very similar to each other, so the FingerPaints is a great alternative if you don't want to pay Butter London prices and missed the Color Club when it was out.



Hula Aruba is a sunny yellow, and as with other colors, I used three coats for my swatch.



To see how they'd match up with Hula Aruba, I pulled Sally Hansen Hello Sunshine (another of the ones that popped up at Walgreens earlier this summer) and Studio M Daisy Does It (a rebottle of the Color Club by the same name from Take Wing).



Left to right below (all three coats): Hula Aruba, Hello Sunshine, Hula Aruba, Daisy Does it. As with the oranges, these are close enough that one wouldn't need all three, though the shimmer in the Sally Hansen seems ever so slightly finer grained than the other two.



Margarita Mambo is a spring green, and yes, I used three coats.



For comparison to Margarita Mambo, I found Studio M Fly With Me (same story as with Daisy Does It above, a Color Club Take Wing rebottle) and Sally Hansen Summerlime (another Walgreens find).



There was a lot more variation in these greens than with the previous comparisons. Left to right: Margarita Mambo, Fly With Me, Margarita Mambo, Summerlime. Fly With Me is more yellow toned than the others, while Summerlime is less yellow than either and has a softer more scattered shimmer.



Surf's Up is a bright royal blue. You guessed it—three coats for my swatch.



I had a full complement of blues for comparison with Surf's Up: Sally Hansen Searsucker (yep, from Walgreens), Butter London Airy Fairy (from Lolly Brights), and Color Club Sky High (from Take Wing).



Left to right: Searsucker, Airy Fairy, Surf's Up, Sky High; three coats of each. Airy Fairy and Surf's Up are very similar to each other. Searsucker and Sky High are both lighter and a touch more turquoise-leaning. The Sally Hansen has a bery pretty pinky glow to it.



Wild Bikini is a purple. A gorgeous, gorgeous purple. How many coats? Not three—only two.



I was on a roll with comparing these FingerPaints to Butter London Lolly Brights, Color Club Take Wing, and Sally Hansen Mysterious Summer Complete Salons (I mean really, why haven't I seen a separate display with just these in it? Sally Hansen puts out new displays all the time, but I've only seen these as part of that one sidekick at Walgreens that I put in my early July display post). The only one of those three groups that had a purple was Butter London, in the form of Stroppy.



Left to right: Wild Bikini, Stroppy, Wild Bikini, Stroppy. They're dupes as far as I'm concerned. In the bottle, the FingerPaints looked warmer toned but on the nail I couldn't tell them apart.



Before I moved on to something else in my swatching box, I decided to have a little layering fun with these FingerPaints. And the Zoya Bubbly colors got in on the fun, too, since they have not been far from my reach since I did a swap for a set after I sent Lucy's samples to her after swatching them (with her permission, of course).

Top to bottom below, over black creme: Zoya Muse (thanks for the tip, Tracey!), FingerPaints Surf's Up plus Zoya Muse, Fingerpaints Surf's Up. I do believe the black brought out a hint of a duochrome shift in Surf's Up.



I next tried the yellow and orange over black, with their Bubbly counterparts. Top to bottom: FingerPaints Hula Aruba, Hula Aruba plus Zoya Alma, FingerPaints Aloha Lei plus Zoya Jesy, Aloha Lei.



I was quite entranced with the Aloha Lei plus Jesy combination over black; this would be a great Halloween look.



Left to right below, again over black creme base: Zoya Harper plus Binx plus Staasi, FingerPaints Be My Baby with Zoya Harper gradient, FingerPaints Wild Bikini plus Zoya Binx gradient, FingerPaints Margarita Mambo plus Zoya Staasi gradient.



The most successful of this last set of experiments was the Wild Bikini plus Binx combination, as those two polishes had a good balance of blending and contrasting. The three Zoyas together isn't bad, just the black seems to make them all very similar so I think I could have pretty much the same effect with three coats of any one of them. Be My Baby over black is very pretty, like a glowing ruby, but the pink base of Harper seems to hide that glow. Staasi blends in too well with Margarita Mambo.



I like this collection so much that I'm going to forgive FingerPaints for enticing me to buy the pretty in the bottle, lumpy on the nails Enchanted Mermaid polishes. These I do not feel any urge to cover with shell pieces. I also like that they're a more affordable alternative to the Butter London shimmers and just as pretty.