Flakie Comparisons: New Barry M 'Crystal Glaze' and others

Today I have a picture heavy flakie comparison post for you.  In recent weeks I've picked up three new flakies and was keen to see how these compare to polishes I already have.  My new polishes include brand new shades from Barry M ("Crystal Glaze"),  Color Club ("The Uptown") and No.7 ("In the Stars").  The No.7 is a polish I've seen described as a 'microflakie', sporting ultra fine iridescent particles that I think you could also consider to be a soft duochrome glitter.  I have divided this comparison into traditional sized flakies (the 'macroflakies') and the fine glitter sized particle polishes (the 'microflakies').

So, onto the comparison, here is the line-up:

The 'Macroflakies'
(L-R) Barry M "Crystal Glaze, Essie "Shine of the Times", Color Club "The Uptown", Layla "The Butterfly Effect (52)"

The 'Microflakies'
(L-R) No. 7 "In the Stars", Color Club "Pearl-spective"

The first observation to make with all of these, is that the colour in the bottle is completely different to the colour on the nail! For these swatches I've layered each macroflakie atop No.7 "Just Black".  With the exception of the Barry M polish (two coats) these are a single coat of the flakie to give you an idea of the density of flakie bits...


L-R: Crystal Glaze, SOTT, The Uptown, Butterfly Effect - Natural light

(L) Barry M Crystal Glaze (R) Essie SOTT - macro shot

Immediately we can see that the tone of the colour shift on the Barry M offering is completely different to the other three, which are all similar to each other.  Despite looking positively pink in the bottle, the Barry M flakie comes through in shades of blue, aqua and almost clear pieces.  One thing I wasn't keen on was the clear/pale flakie particles on first appearance look like missed patches on the nail so at first I thought I'd smudged the polish.  The density of particles in the Barry M polish is also much less than the others - roughly half. 

Comparing the 'red toned' macroflakies - of these it seems that on a black base, Essie SOTT and Color Club The Uptown are close enough to be dupes.  The Layla "Butterfly Effect" is very similar, just a little more red toned.  This can be seen more clearly in the photo below, which was taken in direct sunlight...



L-R: Crystal Glaze, SOTT, The Uptown, Butterfly Effect - Sun light

In bottle, the Color Club and Layla polishes look like dupes.  So I also compared these on their own, with no base colour.  Shown here are three coats of each:



L-R: Color Club "The Uptown" and Layla "Butterfly Effect" - Sun light

Despite the intense in-bottle indigo colour, both of these are really watery and thin on their own.  There is still considerable VNL with three coats, so it would take a hell of a lot to become fully opaque.  It's less obvious in this picture, but the Layla polish is slightly darker toned, and slightly more opaque than the Color Club.

Now onto the microflakies! For comparison I have the new No.7 shade "In the Stars" and Color Club's "Pearl-spective" from their recent Kaleidoscope collection.



L-R: Color Club "Pearl-spective" and No. 7 "In the Stars"

Both microflakie shades are gorgeous layered on black. Shown here is one coat of each.  Again the in-bottle colour is nothing like the on-nail colour and these two shades are far from dupes - in fact they are sort of mirror-images of each other.  The No.7 appears predominantly blue and has a subtle shift through aqua to pink.  The Color Club looks predominantly pink, with a subtle shift through purple to blue.  Both very pretty and worth owning both I think.  I found some excellent pics of the No.7 layered over blue and on its own here.  There is also an excellent review of Pearl-spective here, which again shows swatches over different base colours.  It looks as though the shift is highly dependent on base colour, so this is something I'll play with at some point. These microflakies remind me of the Ozotic 'Sugar' polishes from the 900 series (great review here), although I don't have any of those for comparison.

Phew! So the final comparison is price...Macroflakies: I bought the Barry M with my Boots points (hurrah!) and the RRP is £3.99.  The Essie and Layla polishes I bought from Amazon sellers for £8.04 and £5.94 respectively with free P&P.  The Colour Club was part of a duo-set in TK Maxx for £3.99, so effectively £2.  The Microflakies: I bought the No.7 with one of those handy £3 off vouchers Boots sometimes hand out, RRP is £6 so I got it for £3.  The Colour Club was part of a 4-polish mini-set in TK Maxx for £3.99 so effectively cost £1.  Full size Color Club polishes are available for about £8 if you can find them, and occasionally TK Maxx has 8 polish sets for £8-£10 which is a frickin steal.

Recommendations: If you own none of these, and want to, then I would recommend the No.7 micro-flakie "In the Stars" since this is easy to find, super pretty, and potentially the cheapest if you get one of those voucher offers.  For the macroflakies I'd recommend the Layla polish "The Butterfly Effect" (Ceramic Effects No. 52).  It's the cheapest, and so similar to the other shades that it makes no difference really which you pick.