Texture Comparisons

To wrap up Texture Week, I've got comparisons. Most of the polishes involved are ones I've already shared swatches of this week, but there are a few exceptions. For instance, to start, I wanted to show how the textures look next to non-textured ones in similar colors, which meant some polishes from before Texture Week had to be pulled in.

Left to right below—Zoya Solange (PixieDust Summer), Kerry (Irresistible), Destiny (PixieDust Summer), Amy (Irresistable). You can definitely see the contrast between the bumpy matte glitters and the smooth shiny shimmers.



Zoya London (PixieDust Spring), Milani Silver Dazzle (One Coat Glitter), and Zoya Dahlia (PixieDust Spring)—the Milani definitely has more bling to it:



Same as a above, but with Silver Dazzle topped with Sinful Colors matte topcoat—this brings the Milani closer to the two matte glitters but it's still more reflective and less bumpy:



Zoya Miranda (PixieDust Summer), Nicole by OPI My Cherry Amour (Gumdrops), Zoya Destiny (PixieDust Summer), OPI Jinx (Bond Girls)—Miranda and My Cherry Amour are both berry hues but the NOPI is darker; Destiny and Jinx are very close to each other with Jinx having a bit more gold in its glitter mix:



Same as above, but with topcoat on all, which highlights the differences in the glitters:



Top to bottom below—Orly Aqua Pixel (MegaPixel), OPI Tiffany Case (Bond Girls), Orly, OPI—the Orly is more silvery and reflective as well as a tiny step closer to green:



Zoya Dahlia (PixieDust Spring), Nicole by OPI A-nise Treat (Gumdrops), Zoya, Orly Black Pearl (MegaPixel)—the Orly is ever so slightly less matte, but I certainly don't think anyone needs all three of these:



Zoya Stevie (PixieDust Summer), Nicole by OPI I Lilac Gumdrops (Gumdrops), Zoya, Nicole by OPI—these look more different in real life than the photo is showing; the Zoya is darker and more warmer toned while the Nicole is more silvery:



By the time the Julie Gs showed up, my enthusiasm was flagging, so I've just got nail wheel comparisons of those.

Julie G Crushed Candy (Frosted Gum Drops) on the left, Orly Pink Pixel (MegaPixel) on the right—definitely don't need both of these (yet I have them):



Julie G Tangerine Dream and Zoya Beatrix—the Julie G is just an eensy bit more yellow:



Julie G Sugar Rush and Zoya Destiny—the Julie G is a little more golden:



Julie G Sugar Rush and OPI Jinx—again, the Julie G is a bit more orange/golden:



Julie G Hot Cinnamon between Zoya Miranda and Zoya Destiny; no dupes, but a nice range for three-fifths of an ombre mani:



Julie G Blueberry Fizz and Rock Candy on either side of OPI Tiffany Case; again, not dupes but the start of an ombre:



Jule G Blueberry Fizz and Nicole by OPI Blue-berry Sweet on You—if you like blue, you need both:



So that does it for Texture Week: seven days, seven posts, 42 polishes swatched, plus these comparisons. This probably won't be the last you see of texture here on this blog, but I can't imagine there will be this much in this short a time ever again.

Some of the polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes, as disclosed in the entries linked above. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider.

Julie G Frosted Gum Drops Collection

As I mentioned in my recent display post, I got impatient waiting for the Julie G Frosted Gum Drops to show up at Rite and ordered the whole collection on line, only to find the display before my order arrived. Fortunately they did reach me in time to be swatched for Texture Week. The six colors are: Tangerine Dream, Sugar Rush, Hot Cinnamon, Crushed Candy, Blueberry Fizz, and Rock Candy.



Tangerine Dream is a yellow orange with microglitter in shades from orange to golden yellow. This was the only one in the collection that I needed to use three coats of; the others were all two coats.





Look how pretty Tangerine Dream is with topcoat in low light:



Sugar Rush is an orange red. This also had microglitter in a range of warm hues, and I thought I could see some golden yellow microflakies in there, too.





Hot Cinnamon is a red microglitter; I saw a few sparks of pink and orange in here, too.





Crushed Candy is a purple-leaning pink. Unlike the first three, which had a finish similar to Zoya PixieDust, this has a finish more like the Orly MegalPixel, with silver hexes scattered about.





Blueberry Fizz is a silvery blue with the same scattered silver hexes. The hexes were somewhat more prominent in the bottle than on the nail.





Rock Candy is a silvery green, again with the scattered silver hexes.





The gradient I did with the summer PixieDust worked out so well that I decided to try a couple with these Frosted Gum Drops. The colors seemed to group together naturally into threes by finish. The trio of Crushed Candy, Blueberry Fizz, and Rock Candy didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. The pink wasn't purple enough to blend nicely into the blue, while the green was so similar to the blue that it blended too well.



Topcoat made it look a tiny bit better:



I was much happier with the way Hot Cinnamon, Sugar Rush, and Tangerine Dream worked together, even with my lazy gradient technique where I just brush each color on the one below instead of using a sponge.



With topcoat, I liked it even better (though I can see from these photos that a second layer of topcoat would have made it even better than that):





These are the lowest priced of the textured polishes I've featured this week (3.99 for 10ml) but I didn't notice them being lower quality. For those of you who don't have Rite Aid stores nearby, these (and the rest of the Julie G line) are available at the Jesse's Girl website.

I'll be back sometime this weekend with the last post for Texture Week—that will comparisons galore. So galore that it might be Sunday before I can get them wrangled into a post.

Orly MegaPixel FX Collection

We've now passed the halfway point of Texture Week. Today I've got the MegaPixel collection from Orly, their into the textured polish trend. The six lacquers all have straightforward names: Silver Pixel, Rose Pixel, Plum Pixel, Aqua Pixel, Pink Pixel, and Black Pixel.



This is an FX collection, which means a) they're more expensive than regular Orly and b) in the recently refreshed packaging scheme, they have purple-leaning blue caps as opposed to the black ones FX polishes had before (regular Orlys now have black caps). Orly called these new caps "the perfect shade of purple" in a Facebook post; I think it would be more perfect if it weren't so blue. The cap color certainly did make these easy to spot in my swatching box, but I don't think it necessarily coordinates nicely with all the polish colors. Ah well, I don't display the bottles like art so I suppose cap coordination doesn't really matter.

Enough about the bottles—let's get on to the swatches. I used two coats of each of these and that seemed like plenty; they are very dense glitters. What they are not is especially matte; Orly's take on texture has more bling than others we've seen.

Silver Pixel has silver microglitter with scattered silver hex glitter.





Rose Pixel has the same finish as the silver, just in a subtle rose gold color.





Plum Pixel also has that same finish. The color is only very slightly purple and much cooler toned than what I think of as plum; I probably would have called it Pewter Pixel.





Aqua Pixel is aptly named; it's a turquoise blue with that same microglitter and hexes finish. The hexes seemed more silvery here than in the first three shades, probably because the base color is farther away from silver itself.





Pink Pixel is that same finish interpreted in a silvery fuchsia hue (or purple-leaning pink, if you prefer).





Black Pixel is the odd one out. It doesn't have any hexes at all, just silver microglitter in a black jelly base. This one looked the most bumpy to me, perhaps because it didn't have as much blingy glitter in it to distract my eyes from the texture.





I didn't try topcoat on any of these because the first five didn't seem any more bumpy than a normal glitter and the black one seemed like it would look just like the first set of Zoya PixieDust, showing silver sparkles and the base color a bit deeper than in its unshiny state. You can see all of these with topcoat in the post Lacq Lustre did on them a few weeks back.

I'd love to have an inside connection at Orly who could tell me more about how this collection came to be and why the black on isn't like the others. And also why there isn't a holo FX collection yet—that I'd happily pay FX prices for. This collection, I'm not so sure. The non-black glitters don't look all that different from regular glitters and the black one looks just like the one Zoya came out with months ago. (I will be ending Texture Week with a big comparison post which will include a couple of these Orlys, so I'll have more to show and say then.) That said, I do think some of these are very pretty and worth adding to your stash if you're a glitter lover. My favorite is Plum Pixel.

Nicole by OPI Gumdrops

Texture Week rolls on today with the Nicole by OPI Gumdrops collection, which was sent to me for review and which, unlike with most other samples I've gotten, I'm actually on time with swatching, getting them up even before I've seen them for sale. There are six shades of textured matte glitters here: Candy is Dandy, Cinna-man of My Dreams, My Cherry Amour, I Lilac Gumdrops, Blue-berry Sweet on You, and A-nise Treat.



Candy is Dandy is a warm rose pink with scattered holo glitter in a couple sizes. This is similar to Get Your Number from the Mariah Carey Liquid Sand colllection but pink instead of blue.





I couldn't resist adding some topcoat to see what that would do for the glitter; I liked the effect, I must say.



I also can't resist sharing this shot of the topcoated Candy is Dandy in low light—so sparkly:



Cinna-man of my Dreams is a coppery brown with small glitters in shades of pink, orange, and silver. I was prepared to not like this one, as I thought it might be like the brown one from OPI Oz The Great and Powerful that I didn't care for. The pops of color from the glitter sold me, though; I ended up liking this quite a lot.





With topcoat on, in low light, I liked Cinna-man of My Dreams even more:



My Cherry Amour is a berry microglitter with holo particles. (Also, the name gives me an earworm.)





The colors in the holo glitter really popped once I added topcoat; here's a peek in low light:



I Lilac Gumdrops is, crazily enough, lilac. It's got silver glitter in a mix of sizes from tiny to medium.





As expected, the glitter in I Lilac Gumdrops shows up better under a blanket of topcoat:



Blue-berry Sweet on You is a dusty blue microglitter.





The glitter pretty much just looked silvery most of the time, but when I added topcoat and looked in low light, I saw some turquoise and lilac sparks.



A-nise Treat is black with silver microglitter.





This looks blacker with topcoat:



I used two coats of each of these. I Lilac Gumdrops looked like it could have used a third to get completely opaque.

According to the press release, this collection should start showing up in stores this month with rollout throughout the summer. U.S. retailers mentioned include WalMart, CVS, Rite Aid, Kmart, Kroger, Ulta, H-E-B, and Duane Reade. Canadian stores listed were Shoppers Drug Mart, WalMart, Jean Coutu, Loblaw, and London Drug. I didn't see a page for them yet on the Nicole by OPI website, but I expect it will show up soon. (Note: don't be confused by the tab that's labeled "Texture"; that refers to their version of crackle.) Since these samples are off to my review buddy Lucy, I'll have to decide which ones I want to add to my permanent collection. Right now I'm thinking I Lilac Gumdrops and Cinna-man of My Dreams. And maybe Blue-berry Sweet on You.

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider.