Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Comparisons: olive cremes and purple duochromes

Today, all I've got for you is a couple of comparisons - I'm still rocking my red Chinese fauxnadicure actually - I hope you'll find these somewhat helpful.

We're expecting a boom of olive shades this fall, with both Zoya and China Glaze putting out theirs to accompany the one from OPI that I already have and that is represented in the wheel below. As usual with the weird numbering that comes only with alizarine claws! Check out linked names for full manicure posts.

14. Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Trendy Creme
15. H&M Hunt Me Down
16. OPI Uh-uh Roll Down the Window
17. Viva La Diva mini polish #2
18. Illamasqua Hectic
1. Depend 172
2. Jessica Victorian Crush
3. Rescue Beauty Lounge No More War
4. Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Swamp Thing
5. Eyeko Military Polish
6. Kleancolor Fashionista

...and against a different colored background - lighter shades enhanced more:

I still find it somewhat intriguing how the backdrop you choose for your swatches affects the color representation. These photos are both shot with the same camera, in the same setting, in the same lighting conditions!

11 shades of olive represented, no dupes. How happy do you think that makes the alizarine? The Kleancolor is slightly misplaced out on the edge of this wheel, which is all due to a late addition, but it is in reality the closest to No More War - but a tad greener and less brown. The IsaDora is the one that doesn't really fit in this crowd, but I put it in there for reference, thought it might be interesting.

Next, I mentioned while answering the comments on my post about Hard Candy Groove, that I'd do a smaller comparison of purple duochromes (and multichromes!), since so many of you felt it was reminiscent of other lacquers. I thought this would be fun - not only do I lalalalove olive cremes, a good purple duochrome totally rocks my world as well!

From left to right, with some links to manicure posts:

1. Wet n Wild Gray's Anatomy
2. OPI Not Like the Movies
3. Hard Candy Groove
4. Nubar Purple Beach
5. Zoya Ki

And check out a bad photo of the duochrome properties:

Again, all different! This makes the alizarine a happy girl, once more!

A closer look at the two that are the most similar, Hard Candy Groove and Nubar Purple Beach:

Oooh, old style Hard Candy bottle! [insert big heart]

Another really bad photo, but you can tell they're different, right? I'd say the same duochrome pigment has been used in these two, but the Nubar is deeper, and overall a little less pink. Fingerprints and cat hair free of charge!

Okay, I had lots of fun with this post, hope you had at least a tenth as fun reading it! Despite the lack of oceans of bottle shots. I realize it would be a little more oohs and aahs ringing around here if I had managed some bottles, but I have to be honest with you: I don't really like doing bottle shots. It's terribly time consuming and also quite boring. Though, the end result is most of the time a whole lot better, so I do them anyway - but being both impulsive and a perfectionist sometimes clash...

Swedish word of the day:
armbandsur -noun wrist watch
For no particular reason, except I got a new one today - and it's greeeeen.

10 comments:

  1. great post! Thank you!
    I love Nubar Purple Beach <3

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  2. Thanks for the comparisons! It's great to see so many different shades of olive green, it's one of my favorites.

    Chester :-)

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  3. Thanks so much for doing the art wheel swatches of your olive greens. That helps a lot as we start to get a ton of them in the upcoming fall 2011 releases coming out. I want to pick up only 2 max. This will help sort things out for me - of the ones that is that we have available to us in the States. I am with ya on a great purple duochrome and adore the Nubar one you picked. It is not an over do of purple to green - it's got the right amount of suitableness to it to almost put it in the OK for the business world wearing in a lot of really conservative business offices where you just cannot go in with wild polish things happening.

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  4. Oh, forgot to say I have had a lot of fun wearing OPI Not Like the Movies since it came out in this year's Katy Perry collection. I grabbed 2 bottles of it because it was so different from anything I had in my collection - and certainly different for OPI to have a polish like that! It's got a lot of colors that come out in it for those of you who have not seen it - this photo makes it look like in a regular light it would always turn to a silver - but that's oh so not so...it will turn in regular light to all kinds of shades - gray, silver, pink, purples, soft violet and some blue too. It's a great shade.

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  5. there is one more

    astor kaki vert, look
    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3547/5775223087_56c8dbe040_b.jpg

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  6. Thank you so much for the nail wheel comparison! It looks like I might need Uh Oh but at least now I know! It's great to see someone who has as many olives as I do so I can get a real comparison that works for my stash!
    That and it's just great to know I'm not alone in my army green obsession!

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  7. Ah, you rock for putting all your olive greens on a nail wheel for us! Since it's one of my favourite type of greens, I tend to buy it without thinking twice. I still think nothing beats Hectic though, it's so utterly perfect. I love Hunt me Down too ... Naturally I think I need the OPI one. I'd greatly appreciate if you'll compare the Zoya and ChG with OPI one when/if you get them. I want all of them, yet I have this strong feeling they are too close for owning all of them. Lately the brands do that. :/

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  8. I guess the difference in polish color in the pic with black velvet background is because the camera compensates for the dark bg-hence the slightly over-exposed swatches. A camera wants everything to be 18% grey!
    You might want to get yourself a 'grey card' and shoot your swatch pics in front of that consistently. :)

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  9. Thanks for letting me know about this post! I've even commented it when it got posted, but appearantly forgot about it. I guess I'll need to find Military Polish. When it comes to olive greens I just want them all, 'similar' isn't good enough. *sigh*

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