A Starry, Starry... dupe? CM - Midnight Imposter

I'm not one for buying expensive nail polishes unless they are extremely unique. I'm always on the lookout for cheaper dupes or a way to franken-dupe my own for less. This is a polish I saw on a couple blogs and I thought it looked a lot like Essie's very-hard-to-find Starry, Starry Night.

CM - Midnight Imposter

Midnight Imposter is a rich royal navy blue jelly with lots of small silver hex and square glitters. The formula is wonderful. It is opaque at two coats, but for a little extra depth I used three coats for the pictures and one coat of Cult Nails Wicket Fast on top and it came out glassy smooth. In short, it is beautiful and everything I would hope Starry, Starry Night would be if I ever decided to pay the high prices for it (which I won't... the only time I've spent $30+ on a nail polish was when the money was going to charitable causes).

Now after I've looked up Starry, Starry Night again, I see that it appears to have smaller micro glitter instead of the slightly bigger pieces in Midnight Imposter, but honestly I like the look of Midnight Imposter more. Because the glitter is a little bit bigger and more sparse, it actually looks like individual little stars, and I love how some of the pieces get buried underneath jelly layers to appear to be different shades of blue along with the silver. It's classy and chic indoors and sparkly out in the sun!

I got Midnight Imposter from East Bay Beauty Supply, and the cost and shipping was very reasonable in my opinion. I feel like I've seen CM polishes in store as well, but I can't remember where.

Clarins 230 / Max Factor Fantasy Fire Franken-dupe

This is a franken I made using the red to green color morphing powder I got from More Nail Polish (she is sold out of color morphing powders but also offers Spectraflair for frankening holo polishes. She has a link to someone who sells the color morphing top coats, though!).

There are a lot of pictures for this one! It is shown at two coats over Diamond Cosmetics Not Your "Hum Drum" Plum (a royal indigo creme).

The duochrome is awesome, but my favorite part is just the glowy red sparkles on the indigo background.
So insanely gorgeous!

Kind of a bad picture, but it shows the red and green togther!

Normally duochromes tend to show off their colors more in low/indirect lighting, but this one was even more vibrant in the sun! Check out the beautiful greens in this!

It also didn't show as much in the water as normal duochromes. Maybe I'll have to try and take a picture of it in water in the sun.

From the pictures I've seen, this LOOKS like a close dupe for Clarins 230 or Max Factor Fantasy Fire. I don't have either to actually compare, but I'm pretty sure it's the same pigment that they used (it's sort of a standard color change). What do you think? For those of you that have 230 or Fantasy Fire, do you think it compares?

The recipe I used was about three "scoops" (using a nail swatch stick) of powder with about a 1/4 bottle of Milani Rad Purple, a few drops of a blue jelly (like Barielle Berry Blue, but I can't remember which I used) and the rest filled with Glamour Base from TKB Trading (for glitter suspensions).

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?

My Black Knight Franken: Mid Knight

Sometimes I like frankening just to attempt to dupe something. I don't know what it is, but I do it with other things to (I like to try and replicate movie costumes that are as screen accurate as possible - I have an Elizabeth Swann dress, a Hogwarts school uniform, and I made Chief an authentic Obi-Wan jedi tunic).

I didn't even LIKE Butter London's Black Knight very much, but as soon as I saw it I thought "that looks like Rockstar Pink with a black jelly base!" so I HAD to try it.

Mid Knight - my BL Black Knight Franken-dupe

Unfortunately, I don't have the original to compare the two (in fact, the whole point of frankening it was to avoid paying $25 for the set). However, I think it looks close compared to Scrangie's swatches. In fact, Scrangie's post made me run off to ebay to buy the other half of the collection, Tart with a Heart, just to go with my franken... oh well.

The best part about this??  It is SOOOO easy to make at home!  I started with a base of China Glaze Liquid Leather (about half the bottle), and added in Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Rockstar Pink.  Because it didn't have quite enough blue in it, I added a little tiny bit of OPI Absolutely Alice.  The only one of those that isn't readily available is the OPI, but it is easily substitutable with another fine blue glitter like Pure Ice Strapless.  So there you have it - a cheap, easy way to get the Black Knight look!