Demure Vixen vs. Venus di Violet (comparison)

Every now and then I post spam on MUA (MakeUp Alley) of random polishes, and in one of those posts I had OPI - Venus di Violet (which I showed you earlier here) Someone asked to see how it compared to Essie- Demure Vixen. So here we go!

Three coats of each color, Venus di Violet on index and ring fingers and Demure Vixen on middle and pinky fingers.


sunlight

shade

indoors

bottle shot!

The Verdict? Obviously they aren't dupes, Demure Vixen is darker and more mauve, but they are relatives. Demure Vixen is somewhat of a darker version of Venus di Violet. The shimmer in DV is a little more "secret" and VdV is a little more obvious. Also the shimmer isn't 100% the same, although it is very similar. It feels almost identical but VdV is a little pinker, more of a purpley-pink shimmer.

If you like one you'll probably like the other polish, I hope this helps :) Are there other comparisons you'd like to see? Tell me in the comments!

I'm Sew Psyched Guys

I really thought I posted about this weeks ago, but I guess not haha. So I have Essie - Sew Psyched to show you today! This is a gorgeous dusty green with what I call secret shimmer. The shimmer is very subtle and not unlike what many Chanel colors have shimmer-wise. I've worn this twice already and really like it a lot - check out the pictures!

sunlight

shade

inside

If you click on the first picture you can see the silvery hints of shimmer the polish has, which gives it some added depth. Many people have said this is a dupe for Rescue Beauty Lounge - Diddy Mow, but I don't have that to compare myself. There are a lot of pictures out there that are enough for me to say just owning one or the other is probably good for most people. :) This was very easy to work with, Essie's formula has gotten a lot better with the last few collections. I used to really not buy them at all because of it, but I'm changing my stance on that now. Essie has been putting out some awesome greens lately, don't you think?

Don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't already! And have a Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate, and if you don't then have a great weekend!

I'm not a Demure Vixen, but I play one on TV.

Okay, I lied I don't play one on tv. But I was in commercials as a baby, does that count for anything? hahah. I do really like this nail polish though. I have a handful of pictures of Essie - Demure Vixen to show you because it can look so different! I'm sure you've seen a million pictures of this before, but here are mine.




both in sunlight; sometimes you see shimmer and sometimes you don't! I like it both ways


shade (that's shine at the edge of my nails, not unpainted spots haha)




indoors.. see how different it can look in the same spot of my house? Same time of day even!

I'm assuming by now everyone pretty much has decided whether or not they like this color, so what's your take on it? I love it! I feel like it's super versatile, you can wear it anywhere. I like the pink shimmer, it gives this a little extra oomph, if you will. Normally I'm not a huge Essie fan. I have about 10 colors in my stash. The streakiness of Essie drives me insane, but the formula on this wasn't bad. I felt like I could control it better than most Essie colors. Any big time Essie fans out there? I make exceptions for buying Essie when I find a color that really wows me, like this and the recently released Sew Psyched; or for a staple like Madamoiselle. And the North Fork collection, love that one. But maybe now that the brand seems to be branching out into more bold colors I'll try more of them? Guess there's only one way to find out ;-)

Just a reminder - don't forget about my giveaway! And I updated my stash spreadsheet yesterday, the link is on the right side of the page - feel free to let me know if you want to see a certain color or a comparison.

Giveaway!

Wow, I can't believe that I have over 50 followers already! I seriously cannot thank you all enough for taking time to read my blog :) So I have a (small) giveaway for you! I'll be having another giveaway when we get to 100 followers, I've already started to collect things for that too.

Here are the goodies!



Rimmel - Deliciously Dark
Cover Girl Boundless Color - Crystal Mist
Essie - Geranium
Rimmel - Climax

I tried to have a mix of colors and finishes so there would be something that hopefully appealed to everyone... a vamp, glitter for layering, a bright, and a shimmer.

The rules are going to be easy for this! Everyone gets one entry, if you would like to mention it on your blog/twitter/etc I certainly won't complain, but it's not a requirement for winning.

All you need to do is 1)Be a follower! and 2) leave a comment telling me how you follow (I will be checking) and with your email address (so I can notify you!) if you'd prefer to email me with your address instead of posting it, that's cool just mention that you did so in your comment, and make sure you tell me your follower name in the email, of course. You can send that to me at JeweledTips (at) yahoo (dot) com

That's all you need to do! Easy right? :) I'll have the contest open for two weeks. So you have to enter by midnight on August 25th. Unfortunately, this contest is only open to the US and Canada, but the 100 follower giveaway will be open worldwide! (So I hope that makes up for this a little bit for my international followers)

These are all brand new polishes and I will post a swatch of Rimmel - Climax soon, that's the only one of these I own myself but there are swatches of the others floating around if you want to check them out. Again, thank you all SO much for following!

Fun With Layering Wednesday!

It's Wednesday already again... I feel like that week went by so fast! But I think I've found the only color that Sally Hansen - Hidden Treasure does NOT look good layered over. Yes, there actually is one. And I'm going to show it to you.

Essie- Sag Harbor with Hidden Treasure on top





Sorry I had to squish my fingers up to get the light to hit my nails in the right way to really show Hidden Treasure. This manicure kind of looks scaley right? Not such a good look in my opinion. What's weird is that Hidden Treasure looks good over other light colors... over white it looks like Opals! And I wore it over China Glaze - Something Sweet for a wedding I was in last month. (Demure enough for a bridesmaid but interesting enough looking to keep me happy haha).

I really thought this was going to work. In theory it was an awesome idea. Sag Harbor is one of my favorite polishes of all time. Hidden Treasure is chock full of flakey goodness. Maybe it was too much of a good thing to put these two together?

But since those pictures weren't very exciting, here's some bonus Sag Harbor pictures! Yay bonus pictures!




This is inside and yikes did I catch the worst possible angle for it haha, excuse my hasty and not so hot clean up here.

Like I said, Sag Harbor is one of my favorite polishes. I like it so much I went and bought it's L'oreal counterpart, High Tide, so I'd have a back up bottle. The Essie North Fork Collection is what really started my nail polish addiction. When I googled it to find swatches I discovered the wonderful world of nail blogs and never looked back :) I have the other two polishes from that collection (Shelter Island and Greenport) which I will show you all together at some point in the future!

I hope everyone is staying cool; it's disgustingly hot still in New Jersey. Now I'm off to finish two articles for the hockey site I write for!