Butter London - The Old Bill and Chanel - Delight: Review and Comparison

I love golden, coppery polish, especially for fall (I can't wait for fall nail polish season!).  Here are a couple awesome ones:

butter LONDON - The Old Bill

The Old Bill is a copper shimmer. It's not quite a metallic, not quite a foil. It almost comes across as a shiny nude color. Very nice at two easy coats.

Chanel - Delight

Delight, on me, looks like a shiny nude foil. It matches my skin tone wonderfully but isn't your typical "dull" nude (I actually happen to like nude polishes, but mostly when they have some pizzazz). It looks nice at both one and two coats, but it's hard to describe the difference.  Very elegant and eye catching!

Delight was actually a gift from one of my awesome readers.  Thank you so so SO much!

Here are a couple comparisons:

This one shows how similar The Old Bill and Delight are in terms of base color. Delight is a little lighter, but it could be just because of the intense foil shine.

These are all of the copper foils in my collection.  No dupes for delight.  Orly Rage is much more of a rose gold (pink toned) and a bit lighter, and Copper Penny is a more saturated orange-y copper.  I like Copper Penny on my toes, but I still prefer the nude foil look of Delight on my fingers.

The Old Bill can be purchased on butter LONDON's website, or at Ulta (and Ulta.com).  Chanel Delight is available from the Chanel website.

(The Old Bill was provided for review.  Delight was gifted by a friend.)

Jessica Cosmetics Peacock Queen Collection (Chanel dupes!)

Jessica Iridescent Eye

Chanel Peridot (index and ring) and Jessica Iridescent Eye (middle and pinky)

I had been starting to panic just a little recently because I was wondering if anybody really WOULD be duping Chanel Peridot, and I hadn't gotten a backup bottle (I'm reluctant to buy ONE bottle of $25 nail polish, but Peridot was just so special to me...). So when I saw this comparison over on Body and Soul, I was SO thrilled, hopped right on the Jessica Cosmetics site and ordered them all!

I would pretty much call Iridescent Eye a dupe for Peridot. If I didn't KNOW I had two different polishes on, then I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Sometimes in particular light I think that Peridot might be the tiniest bit more vibrant than Iridescent Eye, but then I think it might be my eyes playing tricks on me or my mind trying to justify the $25 for Peridot, haha. Either way, if there IS any difference, it's NOT worth the $17.50 difference (AND the fact that the Chanel bottle contains less volume). I'm SOOOO happy to have my Peridot backup!! Here's another pic to remind you of the awesome color shift in this one:

Next up is Smoky Feather:

Jessica Smoky Feather

Chanel Graphite (index and ring) and Jessica Smoky Feather (middle and pinky)

Now this one I see a tiny bit more difference. To me, Graphite seems a little bit more sparkly or mirror-like, while the foil effect on Smoky Feather seems just the tiniest bit dulled. Not TOO noticeable, but I would probably be able to tell which was which pretty easily on a "blind" test. Still, is it worth the $17.50 difference? I don't really think so.

Jessica Bronze Tailed

Last up is Bronze Tailed. I don't have Chanel Quartz to compare it to because I was never even remotely interested in it from the swatches I saw. Now I've sort of changed my mind, and I'm REALLY happy I ended up ordering Bronze Tailed. Let's get this straight first: I HATE frosty finishes, but I LOVE pearl finishes (provided the brushstrokes aren't horrendous), and there is a fine line between the two. I would call this a pearl finish, and in my opinion, it's gorgeous if you can keep the brushstrokes to a minimum. I'm not sure why I didn't like any swatches I saw of it - maybe I thought it was more of a pink-brown? I dunno, but it reminds me of another favorite of mine that I should re-swatch: Misbehaving Mistress.

These all had nice formula, covering in two thin coats, although they seemed to be a bit more thick that their Chanel counterparts.

All three of these can be purchased on Jessica Cosmetics' site here, and I'm not sure if they are limited edition.

Did you get any of the Chanel Fall 2011 Collection? Will you be picking these up instead?

Chanel Graphite Swatch

I have to say, I think Chanel really came out with a doozy of a collection this fall. Well, I don't like Quartz, but two out of three ain't bad (Meatloaf, anyone?). I ended up picking up Graphite recently (and ALMOST got a backup of Peridot), and it turns out I love this one too!

 Chanel - Graphite

Aren't the gold and pewter sparkles gorgeous?? Such a beautiful color!

Missha HGR01 (with Chanel Peridot comparison)

Remember how much I fell in love with Peridot? It's the only polish in my collection that I've worn three times within a couple months, and I noticed I've already used a noticeable amount. Well, instead of buying a backup bottle (too expensive!) I decided I'd try out this polish that's supposed to be very similar to Peridot: Missha HGR01 (I found it on ebay, and it's not too terribly expensive). I am SO happy I did! Check this out!

Missha HGR01

This has the same duochrome metallic finish that Peridot does - so shiny and pretty! Like Peridot, it shows some brushstrokes while it's wet but they disappear as the polish dries.  The color spectrum on this one seems to "begin" where Peridot "ends." The greenish teal that you see at the extreme angles on Peridot is very similar to how HGR01 looks straight on. Then HGR01 turns to a bright cyan blue and even royal blue at the extremes. If mermaids wore nail polish (I only assume they don't because it'd be hard to paint your nails underwater... heehee), I think they would DEFINITELY wear this color. This feels like a "mermaid in a bottle." Oh, and also it smells like roses (very nice).

Because of it's similarity to Peridot, I wanted to show the two next to each other. I love both of these so much, though the gold in the Peridot really suits my skin tone more.

Missha HGR01 (middle and pinky) and Chanel Peridot (pointer and ring)

See how the green on Peridot (pointer) kinda of matches the green of the Missha (pinky). So cool! Love it!

Chanel Peridot Swatches and Review

So I was all ready yesterday to swatch the Zoya Sunshine collection and declare my love for Zoya (and I still will soon).  But that was all before I ran into Scrangie's post about Chanel Peridot.  I had seen promo pics for it and figured "eh, it's not going to be as awesome they make it look."  But whoa, Scrangie's pics proved otherwise.  So I contemplated for awhile about whether I REALLY wanted to spend $25 on a single nail polish, but within the hour I had it ordered on Nordstrom.com with the in-store pickup option.  My other half ("Chief" we will call him) works down by the mall and he was awesome enough to offer to pick it up for me on his way home (awww).

So now I have it!  And it's amazing!  Let me show you...
 

 Chanel - Peridot

First off, I happen to have a puzzle ring with a peridot on it, so I wanted to see how the polish compares with the real thing.  If only the stone had the same color range that the polish does...  Still beautiful together!

(I sell puzzle rings at the Arizona Renaissance Festival, and if you have a faire near you my company may sell them there!  Norman Greene does amazing custom work which you can see at www.renaissancerings.com. Yes, they really do disassemble!)

Now to show you the amazing duochrome!  While it's not a very strong color change, it is a very beautiful one.  With light at a direct angle, it looks very gold (almost amber in places), but as the angle gets higher (with straight on being 0 degrees), the color shifts into leaf green, teal, and blue at the most extreme angle.

Coincidentally, peridot is Chief's birthstone, and he never liked it cause he thought it looked "booger green."  Well, if this is booger green, then I'm head over heels in love with snot.  Like Scrangie stated, when I first put it on I didn't like it, but as it dried, it started to "even out" and the streaks disappeared and the duochrome strengthened.  It DOES look nearly opaque in one coat, but I found that the more coats I did, the deeper it looked.  For these pictures I did three THIN coats.  The key that I found was to do nice thin coats with as few strokes as possible to minimize the streaks.  Don't take too much care on the first couple coats, but make sure to do a nice, thin, quick final coat.

Another note...  I can see why Scrangie was fascinated with it while typing - these are the moments where you see the blue/teal at the extreme angles, and it is quite mesmerizing  :o)

Do you like Chanel Peridot as much as I do?  Do you think it's worth the $25 retail price, or will you pass this one up?

CoverGirl Midnight Forest - Chanel Black Pearl dupe?

I decided to check out my local Dollar Tree yesterday, and happened to find some cool Cover Girl Nail Slicks duos for $1 each. One of them contained this beauty, which I think looks an AWFUL lot like Chanel Black Pearl.

Cover Girl - Midnight Forest

I don't like spending $25 on polishes (I only made one exception for Paradoxal because I found it unique and beautiful enough to justify the price), so I don't have Black Pearl to compare it to. I was using Michelle's photo here on All Lacquered Up for comparison purposes, and I think they are very close!

Another thing to note is that this is NOT big 3 free. It contains Dibutyl Phthalate.