Milani Bedazzled and Deborah Lippmann New York Marquee

Sorting through my "to be swatched" boxes, I decided that the two colors I chose from Deborah Lippmann's Fall 2014 collection, New York Marquee, coordinated with two of the colors in the trio of Milani Color Statement polishes from the current Bedazzled display. Thus, I swatched them together; there's no reason high end and drugstore brands can't be mixed in one manicure.

Top: Deborah Lippmann Harlem Nocturne and I'll Take Manhattan. Bottom: Milani Enchanted Sapphire, Enchanted Garnet, and Enchanted Emerald.



I knew the Lippmanns were chrome finish, so I departed from my usual swatching practice and put down a base coat before I tried them. I used Salon Sciences Instant Artificials and made sure to let it dry before I started in with the chrome to try and avoid dragging and patchiness. Over the IA, I did one coat of Deborah Lippmann Harlem Nocturne, a blue violet chrome, with one coat of Milani Enchanted Sapphire, an almost black dark navy creme, on my accent nail.



Because both of these were so opaque, I decided some stamping was called for, even though it'd been ages since I attempted any. I pulled out some plates mrsrexy, the Canadian Nail Fanatic, had inspired me to buy, plates that were still in their sleeves with the protective plastic yet to be peeled off. I flipped through them and decided on JR-4 (from a place called My Online Shop, which is a bit confusing because it's not MY online shop but someone else's).



First, I stamped with Harlem Nocturne on my accent nail. It worked just fine; there were some spots that didn't transfer but that's operator error, not the polish's fault.



Then I stamped with Enchanted Saphhire on the non-accent nails, which worked fine, too, and would probably have worked great in the hands of someone who's better at stamping. I didn't wait quite long enough to add topcoat so added some smearing to the mix. I wish the Milani looked as blue on the nail as it does when used for stamping over this Lippmann. I also wish it were easier to clean up.





I paired up Deborah Lippmann I'll Take Manhattan, a silvery blue-leaning green chrome, with Milani Enchanted Emerald, a deep green creme but not as close to black as Enchanted Sapphire was. These were one coat each as well, and again I used IA for a base.



I used one of the designs from the JR-27 plate (purchased at the same time from the same place as the one above) for my stamping experiments with this pair of polishes. This place has a couple cute Disneyesque Halloween motifs on it I should remember to try before the month is out but knowing me I probably won't.



Both of these greens stamped as well as the blues had, and I did a better job waiting to put topcoat on this time. The Milani green, like the blue, was a bit hard to clean up; guess that's the price to be paid for something so pigmented.





The last Milani, Enchanted Garnet, is a shimmer rather than a creme like the other two. It's a deep red wine, and the shimmer is on the shy side, at least in indirect light.



In direct low light, the shimmer glowed more.



I've made a goal for myself of using my matte topcoats more, so tried the Sally Girl one on Enchanted Garnet. I don't think mattifying does anything much for this particular polish, but it's good to try.



I found the Lippmann chromes much easier to work with than the Sally Hansen Color Foils from earlier this year; good thing, too, as they were a lot more expensive than the Sally Hansen. The other colors in that Lippmann collection are gold, pink, gunmetal, and rose gold; I'm okay that I don't have those and happy with the two I chose.

These Milani shades have a good formula but the colors don't excite me. I wish the two cremes were less dark, and I wish the shimmer were more shimmery. Actually, for a collection called Bedazzled, all of these should have been more interesting. Shimmers with a finish like the Zoya Ignite collection at the very least, but some blingy glitter to bedazzle me would not have been out of line, either.