Accessorize - Storm

Purple toned grey pearl  

Storm is a purple/grey pearl, as such it's a little brush-strokey, but I can totally live with that.

Swatch shown is 2 coats with no top coat.

Stunning colour, I must dig this out to wear again.

Accessorize launched with a bang a few years back with a number of stunning foils, including a dupe for a the colour of the moment at the time, Mac's Bad Fairy, but I must admit I haven't paid much attention to them since.  Time to check out their recent collections I think.  Any recommendations?

Accessorize - Sapphire

Blue/grey metallic finish  

Accessorize describe this as a 'Metalized  One coat polish'

And they're pretty on the nose, this is just one coat and it definitely has a metallic style finish.

It is slightly brushstrokey, but nothing too terrible

Sapphire is not the colour of sapphires but is a very pretty deep blue/grey - I love this kind of colour, maybe because it's one of 'my' colours (according to the colour analysis I had done a few years ago)

Accessorize - Pin-Up Take II

the purple glittery one!

 

 

The puzzle is resolved, several months ago I showed you another polish called Pin-up by Accessorize that I bought online.

As Jaljen pointed out they were sending out the wrong polish for online orders. Poking around in Superdrug a couple of weeks ago I spotted this which looked very interesting. Turns out it is also called Pin-up (eh?) and this is what I thought I was ordering before (still following?!).

I can only assume the previous one was mis-labelled although I can't work out which name it should've had!

Either way, this one is stunning.

It's a deep vampy purple jelly with silver glitter/shimmer. Although the glitter looks pink on the nail when you remove the polish you can see it's actually silver but the jellyish polish makes it appear pink, too cool!

This swatch is 2 coats, the polish doesn't dry smooth so I topped it off with topcoat for a glossy finish. And of course it's the normal glitter polish removal challenge!

I'm so happy I stumbled across the 'real' Pin-up!

Accessorize - Bronze

Gorgeous bronze duochrome

Stumbled across swatch pictures of another Accessorize polish that I didn't share.

And it's a beauty so forgive the number of pictures but I really wanted to capture the amazing duochrome of this polish









Bronze is a warm pinky bronze with greeny gold undertones- I'm not sure that's a very good description but hopefully the pictures speak for themselves.

2 coats - no topcoat.

This is another winner from Accessorize - I'm so pleased that a new cosmetics brand has come out with such an amazing selection of nail polishes across a number of finishes and colours. Let's hope they can continue in the same vein.

Accessorize - Magical Mocha

Now this is better than Pin-up and I think this is one that Helen-Nice-Things might like





Magical Mocha is a cool brown packed with silver shimmer
This is 2 coats, no top coat.

I really like this one..

Accessorize - Pin-Up

Hmmm, not quite sure why I bought this one - it must've looked better/more interesting on the web site.





Pin Up is a peachy pale pink with gold shimmer and slightly larger silver shimmery pieces.
This is 3 coats, no top coat and I still have visible nail line.

There's nothing really wrong with it, it's pretty enough but not really my kinda thing!

Accesorize - Mermaid

Gah - I'm so behind with posting! I'm going to do up the frequency a bit to try and catch up.

Over the next few days I'll show the rest of the Accessorize I got.

First is Mermaid - slightly unimaginative name for a blue polish but it does tie in very well with this turquoise/blue foil - you can almost see the scales and hear the sound of the sea.

 
2 coats, no top coat.

 



3 Pics to show the gorgeousness. There's a hint of duochrome in the bottle that doesn't make it to the nail but it's still so pretty.

As I'm sure you know this one is a dupe of Zoya Charla, Orly Halleys Comet, OPI Catch Me in Your Net and prob. some others. But I don't have any of those....

Bad Fairy/Pink Spice - Wear Update

Excuse the bad photo and the hideous state of my nails but I thought this pic of my nails several days after my Bad Fairy / Pink Spice comparison was interesting.


L-R Pink Spice, Bad Fairy, Pink Spice, Bad Fairy

I didn't set out to do a wear test but after a heavy weekend of cleaning, sorting, washing and painting I was surprised to see a distinct difference in the wear of the two polishes.

So for us UK/parts of Europe gals, not only is Pink Spice a very close dupe and is cheaper - it also wears better!

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.