JINsoon Tout Ensemble Set

It's been a long while (meaning about three weeks) since I bought any new polish; fortunately I have plenty of old polish to swatch, including the Tout Ensemble set from JINsoon, which is a limited edition I bought from Sephora last year around winter holiday season. It's still on their site now, and it's even on sale for $44.50, marked down from $56, which is a value considering JINsoon individual polishes run $18. This set's box has a cover that folds open to reveal four bottles (two glitters, two base colors); my box got a bit crunched in the move, but the bottles came through fine. Left to right: Motif, Chamonix, Bijou, and Georgette.





The square cap on the bottles pulls off to reveal a short round ribbed cap.



I started with the lightest color in the set, Georgette, which the back of the box describes as a "light crepe finish". I used two coats of this winter white, which turned out to be a textured creme. Crepe fabric is textured so calling this crepe is not wrong, just unnecessarily fancy as far as I'm concerned.





I decided to top Georgette with the black and white glitter, Motif. The white squares in it blended into the winter white base color, but the black squares popped, obviously. I got good glitter payoff with only one coat of Motif and didn't need a separate topcoat as it lay flat on its own.





The other base color in the set is Chamonix, a black with a "leatherette finish" according to the box. Two coats gave me a textured creme finish. I didn't see any real difference between this finish and Georgette's, so apparently "crepe" and "leatherette" are the same thing. If pressed to find a distinction, I might say Chamonix has slightly more bumps per nail, but if that's true, it's probably just a normal variation in application.



Speaking of application, the brush on these is on the wide side, with a slightly flared end that's squared off, which I felt made it harder than it needed to be to match the curve at the base of my nails. Would probably work great for folks whose nails are wider and less curved there, though.



I topped Chamonix with the remaining polish from the set, Bijou, a glitter topper with gold and white squares. Like Motif, I used one coat and it was smooth and shiny without additional top coat.





Overall, this set has an elegant with an edge look to it; the colors are classic but the textures, literal and visual, are not. I don't get why both glitters have white in them, as that seems to make neither a good partner for the off white Georgette, but maybe white on off white is just part of the edginess they're going for. The textured polish is behind the trend, and gets lost when topped with glitter, but it's definitely more interesting than plain cremes. The formula on these seems good, with decent coverage and good leveling.

Matte Topcoat Comparisons, Part 12

When I did Part 11 of my sporadic matte topcoat comparison series last month, I promised Part 12 was coming, and here it is. I've added four more brands to my stable: JINsoon, Morgan Taylor, Girly Bits, and Colour Prevails.



Left to right on the nail below, over Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme: JINsoon Matte Maker, Morgan Taylor Mattes a Wrap (missing apostrophe is not my doing), Girly Bits Polish Matte'rs, and Colour Prevails Matte Clear.



The Girly Bits applied the smoothest, with Morgan Taylor not far behind. They were all pretty matte, no satins in the bunch, with Colour Prevails having a slight edge in the "most matte" race. However, the Colour Prevails also formed a crack which was obviously not ideal. This was my first time using that oddly shaped cap that the Colour Prevails line has. I found it just okay, a little awkward because it's not symmetrical like I'm used to caps being, but I'm not the target audience for it since I don't generally struggle with application. The winged cap can be pulled off to reveal a stubby regular cap if you like.

I pulled my two favorites from this batch, Girly Bits and Colour Prevails to face off against my two favorites from the series, OPI and Wet 'n' Wild.



Over the same black base below, same order as bottles above:



The Colour Prevails (second from right) didn't crack this time, but it didn't settle perfectly smoothly, either. The Girly Bits (far left) aquitted itself quite nicely against the two champions, being just as smooth and matte.

Based on this latest swatching experience, I can recommend both the Girly Bits and Morgan Taylor mattes. The JINsoon is fine, but the only reason to pay that much ($18) is if you only have that brand in your stash and want all your bottles to match. The Colour Prevails is very matte, but seems to have a few quirks, and quirks are no good in a topcoat. Maybe it works brilliantly over other Colour Prevails, but I want more versatility than that.


Links to all the episodes in this series (so far):

Part 1: OPI, Barielle, China Glaze, Sinful Colors, Butter London, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics
Part 2: Revlon, NYC, Essie, Claire's
Part 3: OPI, Essie, GOSH, Cult Nails, Icing, Ulta, Fing'rs
Part 4: Orly, Salon Perfect, OPI, Sally Girl
Part 5: OPI, elf, L'Oreal
Part 6: Nicole by OPI, OPI, Sally Hansen, Formula X for Sephora, Deborah Lippmann, Dolce & Gabbana, Nails Inc., Nina Ultra Pro, Illamasqua
Part 7: Fresh Paint, OPI, CK One, Wet 'n' Wild
Part 8: Glitter Guilty, Rescue Beauty Lounge, H & M, Kleancolor, Wet 'n' Wild, OPI.
Part 9: Paul & Joe, OPI, Wet 'n' Wild
Part 10: Dr.'s Remedy, Zoya, Hollish, OPI.
Part 11: Julie G, Pop-arazzi, Pure Ice, OPI.