Dior Amazonia and Golden Light

Today I've got two polishes from Christian Dior which were released as part of the Golden Jungle collection for Fall 2012. The first is Amazonia, a deep warm dusty green almost creme. Here's two coats, plus topcoat, which it did seem to need:





There is a very fine, very subtle shimmer in Amazonia. It didn't show up in the lightbox at all, and it wasn't sunny when I was swatching this, so the best I've got to show the shimmer is this half-shadow, half-flash shot (which I did before I decided to add topcoat):



Because the shimmer is so shy, when it came time to do comparisons, I picked two cremes, MAC Fatigues and Catrice Sir Yes Sir.



Left to right below—Dior, MAC, Dior, Catrice. The Catrice was two coats like the Dior; the MAC was three. (No topcoat.) The Dior is darker than the other two, but all have a similar khaki green look to them.



Flash enhances the differences (and confirms that the MAC and the Catrice are pretty near dupes to each other).



The second polish, which I bought mostly to keep Amazonia company since I thought it might be lonely with no companion from it's collection, is Golden Light. It's also known as Or Lumière (as shown on the bottle) and Golden Era (as shown on the Nordstrom website when I bought it) and Sparkling Bergamot (as shown on this Japanese blog); in any case, it's shade number 207. Since Amazonia is shade 505, I'm thinking this gold is a repromote, but as I've only been buying Dior polishes since early this year, I didn't have it already. I did have trouble getting it, though. When my order arrived from Nordstrom and I slipped the bottle of Golden Light out of its opaque Dior box, I found it was nearly empty. It hadn't leaked; there was no sign of polish on the outside of the bottle, in the Dior box, or on the Nordstrom packaging. Very curious. I filled out the return form and popped it back in the mail asking for a replacement.



About a week later, the replacement arrived. It looked like this:



Really? What are the chances? At this point, I didn't know if they'd gotten my return and just sent the same bottle back to me (I didn't think to mark it) or if there was a bad batch of bottles in the warehouse. This time I called to get an exchange. The third time was indeed the charm, as I got a full bottle. I have to give credit to Nordstorm; this process could have been a huge hassle, but with Nordstrom, it was pretty easy—I didn't have to pay for return shipping either time (or even print my own labels for the return boxes).

Golden Light is a sparkly pale gold shimmer with darker reddish gold flecks in it. It's on the sheer side; these swatches are three coats, and there's some definite VNL going on (Visible Nail Line).





Sheer as it is, I really should have tried Golden Light layered over Amazonia, but for some reason that didn't occur to me until I sat down today to write this post. Duh, me.



I am not as overstocked in gold polishes as I am in many other categories, but of course I went ahead and did a comparison anyway. I chose Borghese Trevi Gold and Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Infinity Band, as those two seemed closest to Golden Light based on a flip through my nail wheels.



Left to right below—Dior, Borghese, Dior, Sally Hansen. The Sally Hansen is two coats; the others are three. No dupes here; the Dior is more delicate and sheer and has a flecked shimmer finish rather than the metallic/foil of the other two. Maybe I should have looked at my layering topcoat wheels for comparison candidates rather than my gold wheels.



There are other polishes that came out with the Golden Jungle collection, but I missed them and don't feel like paying inflated Amazon seller/eBay prices right now. There's Bengale, a warm brown creme (or almost creme, I'm not sure) that I believe was a Neiman Marcus exclusive in the U.S. market, and a duo consisting of a gold foil polish (not Golden Light) and a croc effect crackle topper in a color similar to Amazonia. Since Dior is not sold in any of the retail establishments I frequent, I have a harder time keeping up with their stuff than other brands that I see more frequently. Ah well, they're pricey, so the more I miss, the more money I have left in my budget to spend on other things.

Cult Nails Fairytale Collection Comparisons

Continuing our story from yesterday, in this entry I have the Cult Nails Fairytale polishes compared to things that were already in my stash.

Starting with Princess, the blue shimmer, my first thought was Sinful Cinderella. But when it came time to act on that thought, I saw from the bottles that Cinderella is lighter and brighter and decided I could come closer than that, so China Glaze Sea Spray and Butter London Lady Muck got the chance to come out and play.



Left to right below: Princess, Sea Spray, Princess, Lady Muck. All two coats, no top coat. As You can see, no matches here. Sea Spray and Lady Muck are both more grey-toned than Princess. Lady Muck comes closer on the shimmer dimension, but its shimmer is cool and silvery instead of warm.



I was pretty confident I'd find a dupe or near dupe for Charming, the purple shimmer. As most of you probably know already, I love purple; it's my favorite color. I have hundreds of purple polishes, probably more than any other color family besides pink/red (which got built up through the years when I wore only peach and pink and once in a while red because they were classic colors). Yet I could not find a match for Charming in my stash. The closest I could come were Zoya Harmonie and Wild & Crazy Fancy Dream (I bought this at a beauty supply in Detroit which I'm not sure I could find again if I tried).



Left to right below: Charming (2 coats), Harmonie (2 coats), Charming, Fancy Dream (3 coats). Harmonie is too warm-toned and frosty to be a match. Fancy Dream is closer because it's got a blue tone to its shimmer, but it's still too warm overall



The nearest things I have to the green shimmer, Feelin' Froggy, are two polishes that aren't available around here, at least not anymore: Barry M Emerald Green (which I swapped for) and Borghese Pistacchio (which was a limited edition back when Borghese was still stocked at Ulta and Rite Aid). But maybe these two are already in some of your stashes so I figured I might as well do the comparison.



Left to right below: Feelin' Froggy (3 coats), Emerald Green (2 coats), Feelin' Froggy, Pistacchio (4 coats). The base colors of all of these are pretty close. Emerald Green is a touch lighter maybe, but that could just be the effect o if having more shimmer (so much more it's flirting with frostiness). Pistacchio (their spelling) is pretty close, but it's so sheer it's better suited for layering.



I would have been amazed if I couldn't come up with something to match Evil Queen, what with the number of red cremes I have. (Some of you may remember the no buy for pinks and reds I put myself on a for a while to address that issue.) Revlon Top Speed Fire (still in stores here) and 17 Fast Finish Knockout Red (from a UK friend I've since lost touch with, sadly) were the leading candidates when I flipped through my nail wheels. I meant to include Essie Really Red as well, but I only have a mini of that so overlooked the bottle when it came time to carry things to the table to swatch.



Left to right below: Evil Queen, Fire, Evil Queen, Knockout Red. All are two coats. I didn't manage to get my fingers quite lined up right so the light isn't hitting evenly on all; that's why Evil Queen doesn't even match itself in this shot. Nonetheless, you get the idea; any of these could pass for any of the others.



Now we come to Happy Ending, the shredded glitter. It seems odd for something so unusual, but it's a twin for a polish I posted earlier this year, Icing After Party.



So we wouldn't be distracted by the base color, I swatched these glitters over Sally Hansen Insta Dri Whirlwind White (which my friend Sally appears to have discontinued; we have something of a dysfunctional relationship, I think). I used two coats of each. Left to right below: Happy Ending, After Party, Happy Ending, After Party.



So based on the above, you can see why I said yesterday that I could give up Evil Queen and Happy Ending. I obviously can't give up Princess or Charming, and Feelin' Froggy has a better formula than the Borghese green (unless you like to make frosty green jelly sandwiches, I suppose; that idea doesn't sound great but maybe I should try it just to see). So three out of five keepers for me and my huge stash; that's a good ratio. Okay, who am I kidding; I'll keep the other two also, mostly likely until the big destash which I think I might get around to sometime in the 2020s, and maybe then I'll decide to let go of the dupes and keep the Cult ones, because I do very much like the brand. You can get your own at the Cult Nails website. They're $10 per 15 ml bottle; sometimes there are sales, so sign up for the mailing list if you want notice about those. I'm not a paid spokesperson, just a fan.

Wheel K3: Glitters from Borghese and Maybelline

A bit of throwback theme for this Nail Wheel Wednesday, since none of these polishes are in the brands' current lineups (though the Borghese are recent enough that you may come across them in stores that don't turn over their stock really quickly).



(all except numbers 2 and 3 have topcoat in addition to coats noted below)

1. Borghese Scintilla Red (3 coats)
2. Borghese Purple Confetti (2)
3. Borghese Mediterraneo Sea (2)
4. Borghese Nero Magico (2)
5. Borghese unnamed mini (3) [I really wish they'd made this in full size]
6. Borghese unnamed mini (4)
7. Maybelline Express Finish Silver Spells (2) [base has yellowed with age on some of these Maybellines, including this one]
8. Maybelline Express Finish Planet Pluto (2)
9. Maybelline Express Finish Glitter Luminous Moon (2)
10. Maybelline Express Finish Shooting Stars (2)
11. Maybelline Express Finish Glitter Bolt of Blue (2)
12. Maybelline Express Finish Twinkle Twinkle (2)
13. Maybelline Express Finish Glitter Pink Stars (2)
14. Maybelline Express Finish Glitter Twinkle Pink (3)
15. Maybelline Express Finish Far Out Fuchsia (2)
16. Maybelline Express Finish Glitter Red Comet (2)
17. Maybelline Express Finish Clearly in Love (3) [required fishing for the hearts]
18. Maybelline Express Finish Red Hot Hearts (3) [also needed fishing]
19. Maybelline Express Finish Celestial Shimmer (3)
20. Maybelline Express Finish Special Sparkle (4)

Bottles 1 through 6:


7 through 12:


13 through 16:


17 through 20:

Top 20 of 2011, Part 4

Oh, the Glitter Division. How I struggled to choose just a handful of polishes for this group. I ended up keeping three from last year: Borghese Purple Confetti, OPI Mad as a Hatter, and Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe.

Purple Confetti is on the list because despite the vast quantities of glitter in my stash, the only other polish I have that's remotely similar to this one is its sibling from the same collection, Mediterraneo Sea. I don't know how Borghese managed to have the glitter not get covered up by the deep opaque base color, but I'm glad they did. Without top coat, it dries matte, which I find very interesting.





With topcoat, it still holds my gaze.





Mad as a Hatter is just a wonderful jumble of colors that I love looking at it whenever I'm wearing it.





It's even gorgeous when it's blurry:



Unlike the first two glitters, Across the Universe has a very controlled color palette, just blue and green, but the balance of hues and values in it means it's not boring.



I love layering Across the Universe over blues and greens; here it is on (top to bottom) China Glaze Towel Boy Toy, Zoya Charla, OPI Jade is the New Black, and Sally Hansen Salon Navy Baby.



Butter London No More Waity Katie made the list because it combines three of my favorite things: glitter, purple, and purple-taupe. I know some people had problems with the formula of this one, but I found it pretty well behaved. On its own, it builds to a nice depth, with the glitter floating at different levels in the taupe base.





One coat over a taupe base (here it's Nina Ultra Pro Never Glum Plum) gives a similar look with fewer coats required.



And finally, Locavore. Of course this had to be on here. I wanted it so much for so long, and when it got here it did not disappoint. It looks good alone; it looks good layered. Given that I tend to prefer silver over gold, I'm a tiny bit surprised I love this as much as I do.





Top to bottom in the photos above and below, that's Locavore by itself, then over Revlon Gold Coin, over Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Anemone of Mine, and over Sinful Last Chance.



There are so many other glitters I would have liked to put on this list. Maybe someday I'll do a Top 20 Glitters list. Or Top 50. China Glaze did a collection of 50 glitters, why not me?

Tomorrow my Top 20 of 2011 series concludes with the Special Effects Division.