Monday, August 22, 2011

Epic Comparison Post, AKA I'm a sucker.

Well, hello there, my dears! You're looking dapper today! ;) If you aren't all in a good mood now, you'll be in one by the end of this post because either I am high from fumes typing this or these polishes are just AWESOMESAUCE. (And that is a word I don't use lightly!)

Let's start with a back story. (I wish I could somehow insert the wobbly lines down your vision like they do on TV to show a flashback LOL) Back in the day (okay, about a year ago) I became obsessed with my first lemming. Yes, the polish that started it all: Mad as a Hatter. The problem was that it was about 2 months after the collection came out, and I couldn't find it ANYWHERE. I became that obsessive polish fiend we now all know as "Amanda" ;) Alas, I didn't ever find it, until the fabulous Jamie sent it to me (love ya!) and the lemming was fulfilled. But not before a lot of other polishes came home with me...



So after a lot of taunting from my boyfriend ("oh, another one?" "wow, that's a lot of rainbow sparkle", etc.) I decided to put this collection to good use, and I swatched them all and will compare them so you can decide just which one is the perfect one... for you. For me, they're all perfect.

 (Ignore the smudged Sharpie, I was going to label them on the wheel but it would not cooperate. So I got creative and wrote the labels around a piece of paper). These are two coats of each in order of the bottles above: Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters, Sephora by OPI Spark-tacular, Claire's Bedazzled, Essence Circus Confetti, Ulta Pinata-yada-yada, Milani Gems, Nyx Carnival, and (the epic, the ultimate) Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday (yes, I broke down and bought it).

And here are some close ups in the same order: Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters, Sephora by OPI Spark-tacular, Claire's Bedazzled, Essence Circus Confetti below.


And the remaining four: Ulta Pinata-yada-yada, Milani Gems, Nyx Carnival, Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday.


And, not to be outdone, Dana actually pointed out one I was missing so I snatched this one up just before this went to presses: Confetti Tazmanian Devil:


So here's the rundown: All nine (!) of them have a clear base and a variety of glitter: either micro-glitter (small specks), small glitter (next size up), and regular glitter; either hex, round, or square in shape.
  • Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters: Small red and green circular glitter, slightly larger green circular glitter, hex glitter in silver and light blue. Price: about $3-5 depending on the retailer (I forget what I paid exactly.)
  • Sephora by OPI Spark-tacular: Multicolored micro-glitter, small pink, blue, orange round glitter, and sparse larger hex glitter in orange, pink, blue, green. Clearly different from the others because of the abundance of micro-glitter outweighing the hex/round glitters.  Price: $9.50
  • Claire's Bedazzled: Multicolored micro-glitter, large red, orange, yellow, green and blue hex glitter. Price: $4.50 but can be combined with Claire's buy one get one half off special.
  • Essence Circus Confetti: Sparse multicolored round micro-glitter, some multicolored small hex and round glitter, and large pink, orange, yellow, silver, blue and green hex glitter. Price: unknown, estimated about $2-5 but I got this in a swap and it's only readily available in Europe.
  • Ulta Pinata-yada-yada: Small round multicolored glitter, red, pink, orange and yellow hex glitter. Dries a bit matte. Sparser glitter than the others, definitely meant as a top coat and not to be used on its own. Price: $5 in the old Ulta bottles, $6 in the new cylinder bottles.
  • Milani Gems: Small round multicolored glitter, red (?), orange, green and silver hex glitter. Although this is usually hailed as the dupe for Happy Birthday, it doesn't have the light blue hex glitter. Older versions also don't include the pink hex. Price: unknown, I got this one in a swap also, but it's available from beautyjoint.com for about $5-7.
  • Nyx Carnival: Small round multicolored glitter, pink, orange, silver, green, and light blue hex glitter. Price: about $3-4, also available through beautyjoint.com
  • Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday: Small round multi-colored glitter, Pink, orange, yellow, green, light blue, silver hex glitter. Very dense compared to the others, only required one coat to compare to the others at two coats. Price: $18, or as part of the Get This Party Started set which is 3 polishes (Candy Shop, Forget You, Happy Birthday) for $42.
  • Confetti Tazmanian Devil:  Like $OPI, it has a lot of microglitter which sets it apart. Multicolored small round glitter, pink, orange, yellow, green and light blue hex glitter. Dries matte, not as sparkly as the rest. Price: $2 at CVS
Whew! Okay, now that my vision is blurry from staring at swatches of these glitters, I'm going to rest haha. I hope you all enjoyed this comparison, but which one is your favorite and which ones do you own? Obviously, I own them all haha but my favorites are probably the ones without the microglitter, like DL Happy Birthday, WnW Party of Five Glitters, Claire's Bedazzled, and Essence Circus Confetti. Are there any questions left unanswered? I'm hoping the price points, glitter rundown, and swatches were helpful!

xoxo,
Amanda

10 comments:

Unknown said...

PHEW, GIRL!
amazing comparison! I knew that some of these exhisted, but my eyes bugged out of my head when I saw them ALL back to back on the swatch wheel! FIRST THINGS FIRST!

- I have been lemming for, and now going to save that special splurge for, DL Happy birthday! It's official. I can't live without, and I have you to thank :P

- Thanks for the mention!

- I'm glad you found the Tazmanian Devil, I'm not sure if it's limited addition for Confetti, & I'm glad you got your claws on it!

- I NEED Claire's bedazzled. How long ago did you buy it before I make the trip?

- I have W&W party of five, Taz. Devil, & the older version of Gems. Without the pink it always seemed Christmas-y to me.


MUCH LOVE GIRL!

Sarah said...

I have the WNW Party of Five Glitters...I don't know if I like it too much. I may have to break down and just get Happy Birthday because it is amazing! lol.

Emily said...

I love Bedazzled. It's definitely my go-to glitter!

Unknown said...

I have PO5G and it's enough for me. I have used it for frankening and the occasional topper

Anonymous said...

WOW! Awesome comparison. I bet you are high on fumes after all those swatches! Great post! I am about to share it !

The Geordie Girl said...

Oh the sparkle! And your boyfriend and mine seem like kindred, nail-polish tortured spirits, heehee!!! My guy is the loveliest, most perfect boyfriend you could ask for - but he does not give two hoots about my nail polish and can't bring himself to pretend to! Poor things...

Amanda said...

Dana, DL is so worth it just to get HB in the glitter set. I love Candy Shop! I dont think taz is LE because my bottle is labeled 004 which makes it seem like a core collection? Who knows!? I bought bedazzled maybe a month ago, but still see them when I go. Do you need one or does your claires have it?

Sarah, I love PO5G! but the bottle definitely looks different from DL. I just love chunky glitters so I have room for them all ;)

Emily, me too! Or One of the other 8! Lol!

Jack, are you not a glitter fiend like me?!

Nailventurous, thanks for sharing! Glad you enjoyed it! The glitter fumes were very enjoyable! *coughs up a glitter cloud*

Lisa, I don't know... My boyfriend is pretty perfect, he may give yours a run for his money! Lol!

KarenD said...

So glad you left a link to this entry--I love glitters like this! I've now added Spark-tacular and Carnival to my wish list--doesn't matter that I have the other ones already. :)

Julie said...

Great post!! I just bought OPI's Rainbow Connection when I realized Sephora had run out of Spark- tacular =/ I have to say that I really love rainbow glitters, but for the moment I only have the one! Might have to expand my collection after seeing this post!

I put you in a post comparing the Spark- tacular with Rainbow Connection; http://sp4rklingnails.blogspot.com/2011/10/sparktacular-versus-rainbow-connection.html

Amanda, Nail Polish Enthusiast said...

Thanks Julie, sorry it took me a bit to reply - I commented on your post!