Matte Topcoat Comparisons, Part 9

Like my compulsion to buy all the Triple Shine colors that was on display in yesterday's post, my compulsion to buy every matte topcoat that crosses my path continues strong as ever. This time I just have one new one, Paul & Joe Matte Top Coat, which I saw on the Urban Outfitters website when I was buying a Butter London set they had on sale (it contained one of the colors I lost in the great polish crash of '14). The bottle shape is a bit different than the other Paul & Joe in my stash, but like them, it came in a pretty box and has flowers molded right into the glass.



To test the matteness of this new arrival, I grabbed my two current favorites, OPI and Wet 'n' Wild.



As per usual, I put the contenders over black to best test their finish. Left to right below: Paul & Joe, OPI, Paul & Joe, Wet 'n' Wild.



The Paul & Joe is nice, very nice, and truly matte. Another angle:



And another; OPI on top, then Paul & Joe, then Wet 'n' Wild:



The Paul & Joe Matte Top Coat sells for $16 for the .4 fl. oz. bottle. It's not $7 more matte than the OPI but the pretty bottle is worth some of that upcharge.

Links to all the other matte top coats I've compared:

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, OPI, Wet 'n' Wild, Kleancolor

Wheel N6: Glitters from Barry M and Other Brands

(all are three coats except as noted below; all have one layer of topcoat as well)

1. Barry M Pink Iridescent
2. Barry M Silver Cascade [nearly a 2 coater]
3. Barry M Once Upon a Time
4. Barry M Red Glitter [almost a 2 coater]
5. Barry M Blue Glitter [another nearly 2 coater]
6. Barry M Silver Sea [shimmery base works really well here]
7. Barry M Green Glitter
8. Paul & Joe 021 Hallelujah [square glitter was hard to find when this polish was new]
9. Paul & Joe 014 Confetti [love the delicate mix of colors here]
10. Paul & Joe 015 Venus
11. Paul & Joe 016 Mediterranean [pretty sure this was my first round glitter polish]
12. Rescue Beauty Lounge Look Rich Be Cheap
13. Rescue Beauty Lounge Locavore
14. Rescue Beauty Lounge Frugalista
15. Rescue Beauty Lounge Black Russian (2 coats) [okay, this is really a creme with scattered microglitter]
16. Models Own Purple Haze (4 coats)
17. Models Own Disco Mix (4 coats)
18. Kiko 270 Sparkle Touch
19. Kiko 231 Sparkle Touch
20. Chanel Illusion d'Or [looks quite nice next to the Kikos; I should do a mani with these three, layering over a base color]

Bottles 1 through 7:


8 through 11:


12 through 15:


16 through 20:

Paul and Joe Holiday 2011

Somehow all the nail polishes from Paul & Joe's Holiday 2011 collection, Ornamental, made their way to my stash. Okay, they made their way there because I ordered them. I definitely wanted one of them, was intrigued by a couple more, and figured if I was going to get three of the colors, I might as well get all five and make the completist in me happy. Here they are, left to right: 020 Home for Christmas, 021 Hallelujah, 022 O Holy Night, 023 Merrily on High, and 024 Rockin' Around.



I included the numbers up there because that's what's on the bottles. If the names are printed on the label somewhere, I haven't found them. As you can see, this isn't a typical assortment of Christmas colors, though they are named for Christmas songs. There's a green, but it's a light lime. The closest to red is a warm rosy pink. The gold has a bright bronze cast to it. Lilac and blue green round out the collection.

These came in green and silver patterned boxes, which are nice, though I didn't like them quite as well as the flowered ones from Summer 2011.



Home for Christmas was the one I was least certain about getting, since gold is the hardest metallic for me to wear. This is definitely the least flattering of the group on my skintone, but I'm still glad I bought it because I don't think I have any other polishes like it. The pink sparkles in it were an especially nice surprise. This is three coats, no topcoat.





Hallelujah, the lime green one, is a glitter topcoat. In the photo below, I'm showing one coat on my index finger (top) building to four coats on my pinky (bottom). No topcoat, and it's surprisingly smooth without it for such a glittery formula.



I love that this one is full of square glitter, some small, some larger. As much glitter as I have, very little of it is square. I noticed that these polishes were made in Japan; maybe that's where all the square glitter is hiding (and round—one of the summer Paul & Joe polishes had big round glitter in it, and that's also rare in my experience).



O Holy Night has square glitter in it, too: small blue, silver, and teal bits in a teal shimmer base. I used three coats of this one, though could probably have stopped at two. It could have used a topcoat as it was a bit bumpy on its own.



Merrily on High is what I think of as a spring color, a warm lilac shimmer. I have to give the brand credit for not naming this Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, as I've already run across too many variations on the name sugar plum for holiday polishes. At three coats, it was just a touch short of completely opaque, but certainly wearable.







Rockin' Around is a pretty shimmer in a warm pink color that makes me think of summer. In some lights, you can see sparks of orange and purple in this one. This is also three coats with no topcoat, and you'll see just a hint of visible nail line.





I couldn't resist trying the two glittery ones together, and oh my goodness, that worked out quite nicely. This is three coats of O Holy Night with two of Hallelujah.





It's like some fabulous undersea party! New Year's Eve at Neptune's castle, perhaps.



I've never seen this brand in stores, though I don't go to all the stores, so it could be out there. I've gotten mine from Aphotica.com (a sponsor of this site), b-glowing, and Urban Outfitters.

Meet My New Pals, Paul and Joe

Some weeks back, I mentioned that I'd taken on Apothica (and the related sites SkinCareRx and skinbotanica) as a sponsor and would have more to say about that later, which today I do. When they started their sponsorship, Apothica sent me a gift certificate, which I pretty much immediately turned into nail polish. Today have swatches of a few of the things I got, namely pretties from a new-to-me brand called Paul & Joe (I sure hope that ampersand displays correctly for you; I sometimes see Blogger muck up symbols, and it wouldn't let me use it at all in the title).

I try not to keep boxes because I have so very much clutter, but these boxes are so pretty that I might have to hang on to them.



Inside the box, the bottles are like none other in my stash. They've got pale turquoise blue handles, a curvy shape, and flowers (I think chrysanthemums) molded onto the front of the bottle and the top of the handle. I got three colors from the Summer 2011 collection, all of them glittery: Confetti, Mediterranean, and Venus. They do have non-glittery ones in the line, but you know I have to have my sparklies. (Looking at the Apothica website, the turquoise handles appear to be just on the summer colors; others have the same bottle style with white or pale pink handles and maybe a different flower on the front, and still others are in a different bottle entirely.)







Confetti is small silver, gold, and multi glitter in a clear base. In the interests of full disclosure I tried it on its own to start with. Two coats really made my stained tips look festive (I did manage to get my ring finger back to the same level of yellow as the rest of my nails for the occasion, thanks to a bit of buffing—I know, but that nail tends to get less stress than some of the others so I thought I could risk weakening it some with the buffer).







Since Confetti seemed destined to be layered, I tried it over Orly Wandering Vine. Only one coat of the Paul & Joe over two coats of the Orly. I quite liked the effect. A layer of top coat probably would have made it look even better, but like all the swatches today, I didn't add one.



In the bottle, the big blue glitter in Mediterranean dominates, but on the nail the green jelly base shows up to play, along with the blue and green small glitter pieces. At first glance, I thought the big glitter was hex glitter, a la Deborah Lippmann, but it's actually circles.







With three coats, there was still a hint of visible nail line, which led me to try it layered. I put one coat of it over Milani Cyberspace (the light blue scattered holo from their 3D line) on two fingers and over Borghese Mezzanotte Blue (navy creme) on the other two.









Over the light blue, the big blue glitter really popped out, and I thought it was fun how the green jelly over the light blue made teal. I liked it on the dark blue, too; there all the glitter showed up really well.

Finally we come to Venus, a light blue with mostly silver micro glitter. I used three coats of this one and didn't feel compelled to layer it on anything. It was just soft and pretty all by itself.









I haven't worn any of these for a full mani yet, so I can't say how they wear on me, but they sure are nice to look at. They also have a slight floral perfume scent to them, so they're not bad to smell either, though I don't recommend getting too close before they dry completely, as that just leads to glitter on one's nose (you can guess how I figured that out). They sell for $14.00 per 10 ml bottle (.33 fl. oz.). I'll be hosting a giveaway for an Apothica gift card that the winner could use to get her own pretty bottle of Paul & Joe (with funds leftover); look for details on that coming up before the end of the month.

The polishes shown in this entry were purchased with a gift certificate provided to me for free by Apothica. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.