Urban Outfitters Sea Dust

I was digging through my "To Be Blogged" folder and saw that I still hadn't posted this mani from over the summer! My co-worker and keeper-of-my-8-5-sanity went to a conference in Las Vegas this summer and spent a lot of time shopping. You know, to avoid the heat. Anyway, I wanted to check out Urban Outfitter's polish selection, and was glad to find this Deborah Lippmann Mermaid's Dream dupe on sale!

I don't have a comparison because I've never been compelled enough by her polishes to drop that much money on a bottle. If you search the interwebs, you'll find comparison shots a plenty! 

Sea Dust has a great formula, and I really love the bottles and brushes of Urban Outfitters polish. They're squat and square and feel substantial. The brush was nice and full. This mani was just two coats, and I remember that this polish wore for days without a chip. Definitely a winner!

China Glaze Jungle Queen - On Safari Collection, Fall 2012

Jungle Queen is from China Glaze's Fall collection, called On Safari. This polish was hyped up all over the blogosphere as a dupe/close-enough for Chanel Paradoxal (and the HTF Revlon Perplex). Jessica of The Polish Insomniac does a great comparison here. I'll direct you to her post as I do not own Paradoxal - and am fine with that.

This is a pretty color that changes depending on the lighting conditions. It sometimes looks grey, sometimes purple, sometimes an odd, dark purple-brown. It has an awesome pink shimmer that is pretty evident in real life, but hid from my camera until I gave up!

Formula-wise, this bottle was awful! I've yet to encounter one of those thick-and-runny-at-the-same-time polishes, but this one brought it in spades. Really yucky. Hopefully it was just my bottle and I'm not sweating it because I picked it up during Sally Beauty's 50% off clearance sales and it cost less than Wet n' Wild.

OPI The Amazing Spider-Man Collection: Just Spotted the Lizard Swatches

This polish was the first in the collection to catch my eye when I first spotted the swatches over at Scrangie's blog. It was rumored to be a dupe for Chanel Peridot, and I believe it's been proven to be the case many times over. Application was a little tricky in that I had to be more careful than usual to avoid brush stroke marks. It wasn't as bad as I expected.

The photo below isn't that great is bad, but it does a decent job at showing the duochrome (multichrome?) effect. Gold is the dominant color that shifts to green and blue at the edges of the nail.

The photo below shows how this color shines in the light. It's really stunning and the photo does it no justice. One word of warning with this polish though... It has a foil finish that will show every flaw. I used a ridge-filling base coat and still missed a little bump on my ring finger. 

Revlon Scandalous, or Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance for $3.99

 Happy February! How better to ring in Valentine's month than with a cheap dupe of a polish called Bad Romance? This is the only Deborah Lipmann polish I've been tempted to buy, and was very excited to see the Revlon dupe out last summer/fall. So why didn't I buy it when I saw it at Meijer? I have no clue. Because I'm silly? All I know is that I went back to get it, and they were gone. There are some people with fabulous taste in polish on this town.

So, of course I was super excited to see it again, in the new Revlon display for only $3.99! So much win I can hardly stand it. I saw a dupe for DL Glitter in the Air on the same display and snatched it up, only to realize that I didn't even want to pay $3.99 for that one. I just don't get the appeal. Too sheer. But, Scandalous... zomg, it's fantastic.

The photo below is 3 thin coats of polish with a coat of Seche Vite. I debated stopping at 2 coats, because the base isn't as sheer as I thought it would be, but I'm glad I used a 3rd because it gives a great depth. The finish was fairly smooth with 1 coat of Seche Vite. So, so glad I got this one!