Polish magazine giveaways - December 2013

UK girlies there are some polish giveaways this month! The latest issues of Glamour and Cosmo both have multiple polishes to choose from.  The Glamour giveaway is for full size Nails Inc polishes supposedly designed with 'Kate Spade of New York'.  I have no idea who Kate Spade is but I'm not inspired by her polish choices, they look like the same stock freebie polishes Nails Inc roll out every time.  The red reminds me particularly of the free one that InStyle magazine gave away this summer, which was pretty shoddy.  So I won't be rushing out to grab these.

 

Nails Inc with Kate Spade - free with Glamour UK December 2013 issue

 Cosmo is giving away Orly minis that are really teeny, so although the colour choice is a lot more festive it doesn't seem a big enough bargain to me to suffer through the magazine.

Orly Minis - free with Cosmopolitan UK December 2013 issue

 So there you have it ladies.  If you fancy a freebie this is your month!

Comparison: Chanel Taboo & Nails Inc Regent's Palace



Today I have a new comparison to show you - Chanel Taboo vs. Nails Inc Regent's Palace.  I'll start by giving away the ending - these are not dupes.  However, it's worth taking a closer look, the comparison isn't as crazy as you might first think.

Readers of this blog will know that I have never been so excited, or so disappointed by a polish than I was with Chanel Taboo (my Taboo review and swatches).  I won't repeat my review here but the main reason for my disappointment was the vast difference between the in-bottle and on-nail impact of this polish.  In the bottle it looks like instant galaxy nails - it's utterly packed with phenomenal looking colour, sparkly bits and what-not.  On the nail, it looks for the most time, like a dull dark black/purple.  The 'pop' in the bottle is only seen in flash, and direct sunlight, and even then only when you're really looking at it.  The formula is also pretty pants, quite gloopy.

So I wondered - supposing you don't want to spend £18 or can't get a hold of this limited edition.  What else could you get that would look as good or better?  Step up to the plate Nails Inc Regent's Palace....



Chanel Taboo (index, ring) vs. Nails Inc Regent's Palace (middle, pinkie)
Natural Light

In close up here you can see some evidence of the sparkly bits in Taboo, and you can also see it's in a much darker base than RP which has a fairly indigo base to it.  Both polishes have a lovely shimmer, but the brighter toned base of RP means that this shimmer is much more evident on-nail in a variety of lighting conditions.  Pictured here is two coats each of colour atop a Nail Envy base.  There's no top coat here.

Chanel Taboo (index, ring) vs. Nails Inc Regent's Palace (middle, pinkie)
Flash

When you look at these under flash, you can see more of the bottle-beauty of Taboo coming out and the tonal difference in the bases is more pronounced.  I don't often take swatch pics with flash on because a) it makes me look like a scary albino lady and b) 99% of the time you're not going to be looking at your polish by flashlight so it's not really a fair test of how pretty it will look (I wouldn't have had such a lemming for Taboo if I had seen it in more natural lighting pics I think).
Taboo does have more sparkle than RP for sure, although bear in mind that this sparkle is not actually visible by eye a lot of the time.  So to add some extra zing to the RP I then popped on a thin coat of Max Factor Fantasy Fire (possibly the best layering polish of all time, there is nothing that this won't make more fabulous.  It's like the mani equivalent of bacon).
 


Chanel Taboo (index, ring) vs. Nails Inc Regent's Palace with Max Factor Fantasy Fire (middle, pinkie)
Natural Light 

Wowza! Regent's Palace on its own is a fabulous metallic purple shade (see my purple metallics comparison post here) but layered with Fantasy Fire it's stunning.  Again, not a dupe for Taboo, but certainly punching far above its weight in terms of price comparison and on-nail 'pop factor'.
Finally with flash, it's the return of the albino:



Chanel Taboo (index, ring) vs. Nails Inc Regent's Palace with Max Factor Fantasy Fire (middle, pinkie)
Flash

In terms of on-nail impact, sparkle, and purple-ness (I know that's not a word, but it should be) for me Regent's Palace plus Fantasy Fire is a clear winner.  In terms of price it's also a no-brainer: the Chanel will cost you £18 but it's Limited Edition so if you miss out in store I've seen this changing hands for £30-£50 which is just insane.  I got the Nail's Inc in a set of 3 from TK Maxx (bargain polish heaven) for £9.99 which by my maths makes this £3.33, but full price would cost you £11.  Fantasy Fire is £3.99 in Boots/Superdrug for a mini bottle.

So for my mani that's £7.32 vs £18, or full price it would be £14.99 vs £18.  At full price the argument is less compelling, but Regent's Palace is one of the few Nails Inc polishes that I would be happy to pay full price for.  Even on it's own, without the Fantasy Fire topper, I feel that Regent's Palace is a better all-rounder than the Chanel.  Blasphemy I know, but there you have it.
 

Finding the perfect purple...

Every nail polish addict has a favourite drug...I'm far too greedy to settle for just one, but I do have a particular weakness for metallic purple polishes.  It doesn't matter how many I've already got, it doesn't matter if I know the shiny one I've just seen in the shop/online is an almost exact dupe of something I've already got three of...I.Just.Can't.Help.Myself.  I know, it's a sickness.

I've collected here some of my favourites for comparison, just in case unlike me you don't like to own many incarnations of the same purple :) 

Right, onto the nitty gritty....



Looking for the perfect purple?

These four are some of the lushest purples that money can buy. From left to right we have: Avalon (A-England, review here), Rebel (Leighton Denny), Sexy Divide (Essie), Regent's Palace (Nails Inc).

Of these, the most similar are Sexy Divide and Regent's Palace. Both are deep dark rich shades with a red edge - Regent's palace is packing some burgundy shimmer that's hard to make out here but I'll be comparing this to Chanel Taboo in a future post and its more obvious there.  Avalon and Rebel are cooler toned purples.  For me, Avalon has the most 'pop!' and is a much more in-your-face purple whereas the darker shades have a richer texture that reminds me of plush velvet....but maybe that's just me.



brands (L:R) - A-England, Leighton Denny, Essie, Nails Inc

I love Rebel, it's such an amazing colour, but it has the weakest formula of the bunch.  It's quite thin, needs three coats to get this level of opacity, and looks streaky and awful on the first coat.  It does even out perfectly though.  In terms of brushes and other such nail geek concerns I'd say they're all about equal.  In terms of quality the A-England and Essie offerings are the best.  Wear time on all four is pretty good with perhaps the Nails Inc being marginally less hard-wearing than the others (I find that generally with NI polishes).  Apart from Rebel (which is 3), all polishes are two coats of colour with Nail Envy undies and SV on top.  I made an arse of 'Rebel', squidging it near the tip, turns out its a tricky business operating a camera with semi-wet nails.  Avalon also appears to have tip wear, but that's because I swatched after wearing Avalon for 4 days for my last review.



Purple Comparison - Artificial Light

I paid £11 (full price, John Lewis) for Rebel, £6 for Avalon (gem of the month, RRP £9, A-England website), £3.33 for Sexy Divide (TK Maxx bargain - 3 for £9.99!!! RRP £8, Boots) and finally £3.33 for Regent's Palace (again, TK Maxx marvel, RRP £11 from John Lewis).  At these prices I'd say buy them all! But if you were paying full price, and you could only get one....then I'd say Essie 'Sexy Divide' is the best purple for your money, with Avalon a close second.  There's no way I'd pay full price for the Nails Inc.

Coming soon....Regent's Palace vs. Chanel Taboo (not as crazy as you might think!)

It's Red Babez!....and also rubbish

Today's NOTD is free with this month's InStyle magazine (May 2013).  This is a "specially designed" shade for InStyle magazine, one of three available, this one is called "It's Red Babez!".

 

I'll start by saying right off that I really, really didn't like this polish at all and I wouldn't recommend it.

 

Pictured here is base coat (nail envy), 3 coats of colour, and a single coat of Seche to top it off.  Even after three coats this was still sheer, you can just see on the middle finger here that the nail line was still visible under all those coats.  The formula was watery, thin, and streaky; overall a big dissapointment.

 



It's Red Babez! - Nails Inc for InStyle Magazine - Natural Light

 I'm not sure what the rational for this polish collection was from the Nails Inc point of view.  If this was an attempt at positive advertising I don't think that the quality of this polish would convince anyone to fork out £11 for their next bottle.  If the idea was to make a crappy cheap formula so that they didn't make so much of a loss by giving it away for free, then this isn't good advertising for InStyle either.  I'm beginning to view the bottle design as more of a disclaimer:  does "for InStyle" = "not our fault, blame InStyle"?



InStyle Magazine UK - May 2013

The bottom line is that this month, you can get a Nails Inc polish for the cover price of £3.90 which seems like a bargain - but poor quality isn't worth any money in my opinion.  In T K Maxx you can buy sets of Nails Inc polishes, often 4 bottles for £12-£13, which makes the bottle price similar to this but far better quality and in a better range of colours.

Also, the magazine was pants.

Bargains Spotted

This month's UK edition of InStyle magazine comes with a choice of three Nails Inc polishes, exclusively designed for InStyle.  You can see the full range of colours here:
In Style Magazine - Free Nails Inc polish

 

I went for the red shade called "It's Red, Babez", which is possible the lamest polish name I've ever heard, but the colour is a gorgeous fresh orange-red that will be perfect for summer sandal season.  Swatches to come.

In other bargain news, Sally Salon Services are having a 3 for 2 of beauty products which includes China Glaze.  Also, Boots are giving out No7 vouchers with purchases (£3 off make-up) and all No7 polishes are currently buy one get one half price - so with the voucher that's two polishes for £6.  Bargain!  You will also be given another voucher each time you buy more, so it's a dangerous cycle....