MAC Bad Fairy and Accessorize Pink Spice Comparison

There's been a lot of mutterings in the np world about possible dupes for the much sought after Bad Fairy from MAC's Venomous Villans collection.

As I was lucky enough to score a bottle at the airport and then got my hands on some Accessorize polishes from their online store I thought I'd do a comparison.

First up, ignore horrible state of my hands/cuticles. One day I will remember to apply handcream *before* taking the pics :-) And ignore the fluff (where does it come from?)

All of these pics are 3 coats of each plus seche vite top coat

Pointer & ring finger are BF, index and pinkie are Pink Spice


















Sorry for so many pics but I wanted to show the polishes in different lights and from different angles.

In terms of application they were very similar, very sheer and uneven on the first coat and then the colour builds. If anything the Accessorize brush was better, my MAC brush was a bit fat and splayed at the end. Similar drying times too. The MAC brush was easier to hold though, the Accessorize one is like a fat stubby nails inc brush.

I can see the difference between the two, but most people, certainly what Liz Hurley would call the 'civilians' of the nail polish world, won't be able to tell!

So, in conclusion, for me they're not *exact* dupes, Bad Fairy has slightly more bling, like the sparkle/foil particles are slight bigger and in certain lights you can see the copper duochrome more in Bad Fairy.

But Pink Spice is a very close sibling and for the UK gals (and the limited countries that the Accessorize website will ship to) I think it's a damn fine alternative.

Accessorize Nail Polish Stack!

Look what arrived today!

Sorry for the terrible pics - I've been out at with a customer most of today and the weather here in my part of the UK has been grey and wet this afternoon but I wanted to share the bottle pics at least....



But then I couldn't resist a quick swatch of Aztec over the top of my existing mani (nails inc - palace garden terrace, a chocolate/purple creme)

Natural Light (what there was of it!)


Halogen assisted (so prob. more yellow toned)

Aztec is nicely sparkly after just one coat although it doesn't look as duochrome on the nail.  Can't wait to see it as a full mani.

Fabulous gifts from US of A

My dear and lovely friend Liz recently spent a fabulous holiday in New York and Canada with her fab husband, Matt.

And look what they bought me back!


RBL 360 and Diddy Mow

I've worn both of these already (sorry no mani pics yet) and of course they are the usual RBL perfection.  I don't know how they make these polishes but they apply like they are 90% pigment and 10% buttery application solution.  Wonderful.




And if that wasn't enough (which of course it was and was far more than I was expecting) I also got a couple of OPI variants - Nicole by OPI and Sephora by OPI
l-r Queen of Everything, Respect the World (which is greener and more acqua than shown in this pic)

How lucky am I to have friends like this?!

Airport Haul

These are the ones I couldn't fit in my Germany Haul post.

This is a MissGuided polish that they were giving away with Cosmopolitan. I'm slightly too old for Cosmo now but who can resist free polish!



I think this was the best of the 3 available - cue frantic searching through all the copies in WH Smith! IIRC the other 2 were a pale pink creme and a bright red?


Closeup to show the sparkles

And look what they had in the MAC shop @ T5!!



I wandered over to ask about polish stock, fully expecting them to laugh in my face, but the SA to my surprise said they had Bad Fairy in stock! So, reader, how could I resist? I bought some. Oddly the other 2 in the collection were out of stock. This is actually my very first MAC polish!

Germany Haul

Sorry for the lack of posts but I've been away rather a lot this month (work and fun related) so haven't had much time for blogging.

But of course I did find a little time for haulage.

First trip was to a conference in Dusseldorf - unfortunately the conference venue was a little way out of the city and so it was tricky to find time to shop but thanks to a long lunch hour one day and speedy cab journey across the city I managed to hit Kaufhof, a German department store, which the wonders of the interweb told me were a Catrice stockist. Actually their Catrice selection wasn't great but they did have some other goodies - read on for haul and bottle shots!


I picked up this sweet collection of Alessandro polishes. They're a German brand, cute bottles and finishes but not great value - I think they're nearly 4 Euros for a teeny 5ml bottle. But several of them have lots of lovely shimmer that will hopefully be visible on the nail


950 - Golden Goddess


949 - Green Green Baby


947 - Hottie


289 - can't find a name for this one...


853 - Desert Rose


281 - no name again...


Picked up an interesting Art Deco at the airport and a couple of Essences in Kaufhof (Fabuless and Choose Me!)


Choose Me


Art Deco 285


And these are uma - never seen or heard of these before but the colours looked sparkly and fun!


l-r Supernova, Flirty (which is much more pink than this pic)


And these are mini uma's l-r artic blue, cherry blossom, sunburst



Some more Essence's and a couple of Catrice
l-r Most Wanted, Walk of Fame, From Dusk To Dawn, Wine-tastic


Closeup of Wine-Tastic

Also a couple more in the airport that I'll share in another post!

Barry M - Mushroom

I'd seen mention of this on the interwebs and then when I popped into Boots to pick up a sandwich, Barry M was on offer - 2 for £5 so I picked up this and another new one, Indigo.


Sun


Shade

Mushroom is a slightly pink toned milky brown creme. It doesn't really have any of the grey, taupe or purple tones we've seen a lot of over the past year.

This is 2 coats with topcoat.  Application was good as you'd expect from Barry M.  I like this colour and the formula - all this goodness for less than the cost of my lunch!

La Femme - Teal

Just a quick post to share a cheap n' cheerful polish with you.

La Femme is is a low cost UK brand. You tend to find them in discount perfume stores, on the web and on market stalls and they can usually be picked up for £1-1.50. The bottle is oddly shaped, tall and narrow (but thankfully still fits in the Helmer) and together with the tacky printing, for me, just reinforces the cheapness.

I've bought several from this brand and I think it's fair to they're pretty variable in quality/opaqueness.

But this is one of the good ones!


Sunlight


Shade

This is Azure, a teal shimmer that is veering towards frost but manages to pull back in the nick of time. Two coats with top coat.  Application and brush were fine and it's a pretty colour.  All in all, a win!

Illamasqua - Baptiste

If life (or moving) gives you stumpies then wear vampies!

So here's a quick post of my current mani, the totally gorgeous Illamasqua Baptiste.



It's a dark purple with loads of pink and purple shimmer. My picture really doesn't do it justice and it's probably a little more pink toned IRL. This is two coats with top coat which so far, 1 day in, is wearing well.

And why do I never remember to put hand cream on before I take the picture - d'oh!

butter London - Bezzie Mates

Gawd, this moving lark is killing my nails. This weekend I managed to badly bang my thumb against a desk corner while moving a sofa. Boy did it hurt, almost as much as when I accidentaly electrocuted myself changing the bulb in the extractor fan! And I now have a small blood blister under the nail - eek!

And today I've had to trim my ring and pinkie on my swatching hand as they looked so out of place with the index and middle that had broken low down. So I am stumpy nails for a few weeks which means more old swatches from 'back in the day'.

So here's my first featured butter LONDON. I don't have many of these, in fact the sum total of 2!

I picked them up in a previous ASOS sale, not because they were particularly amazing colours but just because I didn't have any and at the time was reading a lot of conflicting opinions about the polish quality.

Now obviously you shouldn't judge a brand too strongly on just two polishes (otherwise I never would've bought another OPI! - seriously my first two were lame, a big disappointment - I must dig them out and revisit)

This is Bezzie Mates a bright fuchsia pink that has a slight squishy jellyness to it. The name is a UK colloquialism for best friends, originating from Liverpool.

butter London, despite the name, is not a British brand though. It's an American company, though founded by two Brits, Sasha Muir and Nonie Creme, hence the polish names.





This was two coats and topcoat.

I thought the polish was fine, not awesome, butteryness (as you might imagine from the name!) but by no means as bad as some of the comments had led me to think.

Anyone got strong opinions on butter London?

Pure - Persian Red

This is Persian Red, a Raspberry creme with slight jelly finish.  I wore this as a full mani so this is 2 coats and  topcoat.  It's a pretty colour, good with my skintone (cool) and very shiny!

Pure is one of those brands I'd never heard of before. I spotted it while browsing on the Debenhams site. I think it's a Spanish brand - the squiggly writing on the left of the bottle says "Carlo di Roma"

I've never seen this in stores nor seen it on any other blogs.  Although I think Carlo di Roma have other brands that are more widespread - am I right in thinking they crop up in Dollar stores in the US?

MNY 265

This was one of the (many) polishes I picked up in Germany earlier this year

MNY is a funky Maybelline brand that I've not seen for sale anywhere in the UK. I picked up several from this brand as they had some fun and unusual colours.

Let's kick off with one I wasn't sure about....



This is 265, a raspberry jelly with fine holographic glitter



I'm not usually a fan of jellies or the vnl that goes with it but this is really pretty and I can just about overlook the VNL.

This is 3 coats, unfortunately there wasn't a lot of sun when I took these photos so the holographic glitter doesn't really jump out, but it is pretty subtle




Close-ups to show the glitter

Overall I liked this better than I expected and it's definitely unique in my collection.

Has anyone else tried these MNY's? or spotted them in the UK?

GOSH -Metallic Green

It is still August right? The weather in the UK this month has been terrible - this week it has rained, rained and rained some more.

Where is our summer?!

So as the weather has been so terrible for swatching I'm sharing an old swatch with you.

This is GOSH, the imaginatively named Metallic Green!



Shade




Sun

This is two coats with no top coat. I'm not sure if this is a foil or a pearl, it was easy to apply and surprisingly brushstroke free - so does that mean it's a pearl?

Either way it's a nice colour & finish.

Ciaté - Sugared Almonds

Gawd, sorry gals - I've been away too long. After the fab holiday in France, the much less fab tummy bug from hell (tip - don't swallow the river water!) followed by kitchen painting, crappy internet speeds and back to work I haven't had time to swatch or post.

So here's an old swatch, another from my small but perfectly formed Ciaté Paint Pots collection. This is Sugared Almonds.



Sugared Almonds is a pinky/peachish nude. This colour reminds me of vintage silk lingerie, it has a very elegant 40's feel to it and I really like it. Which of course is only emphaised by the cute vintage-style bottles.

It's not quite manequin hands on me but a pretty, fresh nude. Love it.

Application was good and this was 3 coats.

Ciaté retail for £9