Gold Foil Dupes? Orly Luxe, Etude House Lucidarling Sparkling Royal Gold, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold

With Christmas coming up, you absolutely know you have to have a gold foil in your nail colour arsenal. After all, gold is one of the colours of Christmas, and the foil finish, with its metallic-like surface, is so festive. Even if it isn't Christmas, a gold foil is a gorgeous colour to have anyway. And the good thing about gold foils is that there's a shade of gold foil to flatter every skintone, from cool to warm, from dark to light.

So here are a couple of gold foil comparisons. Up for swatching are Orly Luxe, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold, and Etude House Lucidarling Fantastic Nails 01 Sparkling Royal Gold. As always, it's a source of slight amusement that the product names of Asian brand cosmetics are always so much longer than Western brands - it can't just be nail polish, it has to be Lucidarling (whatever that means) Fantastic Nails :P



L-R: Orly Luxe, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold, Etude House Lucidarling Fantastic Nails 01 Sparkling Royal Gold

Well, I guess they're not dupes. And they may not all be gold foils. But let's see how they hold up to swatching, shall we?

Here are the 3 polishes swatched on my nails:


L-R (Index to pinky): Orly Luxe, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold, Etude House Lucidarling Fantastic Nails 01 Sparkling Royal Gold, Orly Luxe

As you can see, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold isn't really a foil. But it's a pretty gold polish, nonetheless. It does have a metallic finish, but not the fine-grained finish of a foil. It's a good option for those who don't like foils, but want something gold and metallic.

Orly Luxe is a cult favourite among foil finish fans, and I absolutely see why. It's a bright gold that isn't so warm-toned that it's unwearable for cooler-toned people. There's just something about it that catches your eye.

Etude House Sparkling Royal Gold (I'm not going to type out the entire name) is also a foil, but it's a bit more muted, and slightly warmer than Orly Luxe. I also like it a lot, and I think this would be a great substitue for anyone who felt Luxe was too OTT with the bling, and wanted a more subdued version of Luxe.

Here's what Luxe looks like in the context of my fingers, just so you can see the contrast of nail polish against skin:



L-R (Pinky to Index): Orly Luxe, Etude House Lucidarling Fantastic Nails 01 Sparkling Royal Gold, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold, Orly Luxe

In terms of application, all were good. I had no trouble with any of the three. But Orly Luxe and Aztec Gold were a lot more pigmented than the Etude House version. Both Luxe and Aztec Gold were opaque in one coat, but you'll need 2-3 coats with Sparkling Royal Gold before you don't see any VNL (visible nail line).

I'm glad they're all different - it totally justifies having them all :P But for anyone who wants just one, my personal favourite would be Orly Luxe. However if you can't get your hands on it (since Orly is one of those hard-to-find-outside-the-US brands), then it's great to know that Collection 2000 in the UK has a viable replacement, and that Etude House also has something similar for us Asians.

KOTD: Orly Foil Luxe and Wet n Wild Black

A few weeks back, my programme had a boat party for the postgraduates, and of course I had to go - it was free for students, and they provided dinner, and you know I'm all up for a free meal :P The dress code was formal, but in rebellion of the utter impracticality of wearing tuxedos and gowns in summer, our class chose to go informal anyway.

Anyway, the whole point of me telling you this is because it actually has something to do with today's NOTD. I started building my outfit around my nails, as I am increasingly wont to do lately, and I decided that I wanted to wear blingy gold nails with some konad. (Note to everyone: only weirdos like me start thinking about their nails before thinking about their clothes.)

Naturally, I picked out Orly Luxe, from the Foil FX Collection, and I stamped it over with Wet n Wild Black. I used Konad plate M81 for the design. And tada:



This is two coats of Orly Luxe, under natural light, konaded over with Wet n Wild Black, which is a really opaque black creme. I just LOVE Orly Luxe. It's probably the best gold foil ever, and definitely the standout of the entire Orly Foil FX Collection. I mean, good gold foils are hard to come by, and this one is smooth, easy to apply, and opaque in one coat (ooh, gold foil konad coming up!). And not to mention I love the colour - it's a shade of gold that isn't too brassy or too warm, and would be perfect on almost anybody.

After I had done my nails, I realized that my nails matched a skirt I had just bought a few days ago (on sale from H&M, yay for 50% off summer sales!). So I ended up wearing the skirt, just because they matched my nails! And yes I know I'm a freak for matching my clothes to my nails, and not the other way around. What can I say - I probably have more nail polishes than I have clothes.

Here's a photo of my nails against the skirt. See, see? They match!



And of course, since it was a boat party for postgrads, I managed to find something else that matched my nails:



That was my friend's bottle, LOL. I don't drink very much, primarily because alcohol is full of empty calories, and I've never thought it was worth putting on weight for, with the possible sole exception of pear cider, LOL. I know, I'm a weirdo, but that's a pretty convincing argument to me, LOL.

Anyway, that was my KOTD, and I promise the next post won't feature any alcohol :P

Orly Foil FX Rage and GOSH FrouFrou: Are They Dupes?

So the Orly Foil FX Collection, launched a couple of months back, has met with general aplomb from bloggers and nail polish lovers alike, being right on trend with its metallic take on golds, silvers and pinks. But of course, for us who aren't in the US, Orlys (is it me, or is it just that everytime I see the brand Orly I think - O RLY?!) are hard to come by, and when they are, they aren't cheap either. I know, doesn't it just make you want to cry? But I was lucky. One of my friends agreed to buy it for me and mail it here, so I have both Rage and Shine (I'm still trying to get my hands on Luxe). But not every girl could be so lucky, so I thought maybe I'd see if there isn't a dupe for it yet.

And sure enough, I found something I thought was dupey - GOSH FrouFrou! Actually, I had already done an NOTD with that colour! (Come to think of it - is it a NOTD? Or an NOTD? I know grammar rules say that if the first letter is a vowel, or has a wel sound, then it should be 'an'. So I guess since N sounds like a vowel, it should be an NOTD. But I always feel like typing 'a' because I'm seeing it in print, not hearing it in my head when I type...) Anyway, that NOTD was done waaay back when the only reader of my blog was my imaginary pet dog, but you can see it HERE. Wow, I never knew I was so ahead of the curve! Weird, I know.

Anyway the big question all my UK ladies want to know: are they indeed dupes?

Here are bottle comparison pictures:



L-R: Orly Rage, GOSH FrouFrou

They look pretty similar, don't they? They could be dupes!

Here are the comparison swatches:



My index and ring fingers are Orly Rage, while middle and last fingers are GOSH FrouFrou. That means L-R: Orly Rage, GOSH FrouFrou, Orly Rage, GOSH FrouFrou

Ooh, so close, sooo close. They're not total dupes though. Although both colours are metallic foil pinks, Orly Rage is a more beige, making it a beigey-pink, while GOSH FrouFrou is pinker. But otherwise, they're entirely alike - the way they apply is similar, the finish is similar, and both are just good metallic foil-y goodness that can be worn to work despite the bling, because the colour is so innocuous.

So which one should you pick, if you somehow have access to both but only wanted one? (I think this is purely a hypothetical scenario though, since Orly is available in the US only for most part, and GOSH is only available in Europe for the most part.) Well if somehow you could buy both but only wanted one, then it would depend on your undertone, and how beige or pink you wanted your colour to be. I think the beige tinge in Orly Rage would suit warmer girls better, especially if they find GOSH FrouFrou too pink and unwearable, while the pink might work better on cooler-toned girls. I don't think it really makes that much of a difference though; both colours are neutral enough either way.

Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm and Orly Foil FX Shine KOTD

There are times when I really hate my photo-taking skills, my camera, and my crappy looking nails, because on the rare times when I really like a KOTD, my photos never ever seem to do it justice. Today's KOTD, using a holographic polish (OOOHHHH HOLOS!) and an Orly Foil FX, is one case in point.

For the base I used Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm, also known in some circles as Chacha (you know, CHAinmail CHArm?). It's a beautiful black holo, and the holographic shimmer really shines through. Unfortunately, my camera didn't seem to like the holographic goodness as much as I did:



Please excuse the messiness, because that was a pre-cleanup picture (because I was going to konad over it). But the point is, that is a gorgeous holo which my camera didn't capture. I really like it, it's cool, and I love holos. Something about the colour-changing shimmer just captures me.

I could look at Chainmail Charm, but in one of my rare moments of brilliance, I thought I would konad over it, with one of the newfangled Orly Foil FXs, Shine (I've been trying to get Luxe - the gold one), using a full nail design from the Konad M78 plate.





I know it doesn't look like much in the photo, but can I pinky promise you that it looks soooo much better in real life? Orly Shine (and the other Foil FXs I'm told) make for good konading polishes, so I wasn't disappointed to konad with this. Shine is a Foil with plenty of bling to draw attention to any dull manicure! The Orly Foil FXs have not been disappointing so far - I've got Rage and Shine, and I've been trying to go after Luxe. I love the combination of black and silver, holo and foil, and bling and more bling! I just wish my camera and my skills were better at capturing this blingy goodness.

Nails Inc Half Moon Street and $OPI Absinthe Makes the Heart: My Nails are Nubbins!

The main reason why I hate travelling is because it ruins my nails. (I know, I have a problem.) This is what happened after a 12-14 hour flight:



Just to compare, this is how they were before the flight (they were longer, but I was waiting for them to grow out a lil more before I filed them into the right shape, hence the uneveness in length and shape):



That NOTD was $OPI Absinthe Makes the Heart. That one I love. I don't normally like greens, because I'm a colour wimp, but I LOVE this one. It's a greyish green - or a greenish grey - with super cool foil effect, and a good amount of glitter. I really love how it looks, and I think it would look cool with a matte topcoat over it too. Somehow, my skintone seems to draw out the extreme colour possibilities in it - on me, sometimes it even looks positively emerald green, while other times it looks like a metallic gunmetal grey. I really like this one. It's like, deep, jewelled green with tons of grey. Cool. It applied a little sheer, so this is 3 coats. 2 would have covered most areas, but I wanted to cover everything.

Anyway, back to the sad state of my travel-worn nubbins. They're all short and uneven now. I'm hoping they'll grow out soon. It just makes me want to cry, because that was 3.5 weeks of growing out my nails down the drain (yes, my nails grow slower than snails move, and they break and peel, so that was my record length so far). If only there was a way to travel that wouldn't ruin my nails...I'd love travelling so much more.

But since I'm all stuck with short nails for however long they take to grow out, I'm going to wear all the bold and vampy colours I can while the nubbins last. So, you know, the next few NOTDs are going to be bold and dark! No more nudes!

So for now, my mani is Nails Inc Half Moon Street. This is an exclusive I believe, but I cant remember what exactly it was exclusive to. I believe it was one of those "Wow-you've-spent-so-much-money-on-our-stuff-so-here's-a-little-something-for-you" free gifts they give you if you place a big order on their website, which would absolutely explain how and why I have it. Its also very beautiful. It's a glowy magenta-pinky-red type of colour, with a lit-from within look, and a finish that defies description. I'd call it a shimmer with a metallic leaning. It has superfine silver shimmer that shows up as a sort of metallic glow. Very lovely. I don't really like bright pinks in general, but this one really has me staring at it all day long.

Application, as is usual for Nails Inc, was a dream. This one was very pigmented and smooth. I did two coats, although if I had better skills I could have gotten away with one coat. Love this one.

Here it is in artificial light, and you can see the shimmer in greater detail here:



And because I do so love this colour, here is a close-up shot of my nails. Take a look at the glowy goodness emanating from this thing!



I'm really starting to like Nails Inc a lot. With the exception of Elizabeth Street which was a dud (and I'm thinking it may be a dud because it was the free polish that came with Glamour Mag, and maybe they cut corners for the freebie), every Nails Inc polish I've tried has been nothing short of fabulous. The only thing is, most of their interesting colours tend to be exclusives, leaving the permanent line of colours a little dull. They've only just started coming out with mattes, months after all the big players have made their moves, and they've yet to come out with a duochrome, a flakie, or a holo. Awww come on, Nails Inc, I'm tired of waiting already!

And since we're hurrying the world along, while we're at it, let's tell my nubbins to hurry up and grow out! I'm waiting! And my polish stash is waiting!