April 22, 2008

Battle of the Bling: Silver Holographic Top Coats

Posted in China Glaze, Comparison Swatches, Ghetto Fabulous, Glitter, Holographic, INM, Orly tagged , , , at 5:31 pm by pretear

Here are the Contenders.

My initial thought was the Orly is just a glitter top coat that is slightly more reflective than normal glitter. INM is pretty much the same as the Orly with smaller glitter and more density. INM (both the silver and gold versions) is the only brand of glitter top coat I own that completely settles at the bottom. The bottle has a sticker on it that says, “shake it up” which, of course, is blasphemous – one should never shake a bottle of nail polish. To get all the glitter to evenly disperse throughout the bottle using the correct method (i.e. rolling the bottle inbetween your fingers) is incredibly time consuming and irritating. Finally, the fan favorite, Wireless, from the OMG collection, is the densest of all with the finest glitter. Let’s Do it in 3-D, from the Kaleidoscope Collection, is not a topcoat, it’s only here for comparison because it looked so much like Wireless to me that I initially mistook one for the other when I was taking these pictures. Wireless is probably just a more diluted version of Let’s Do it in 3-D.

This is 2 coats OPI – Black Onyx and 1 Coat for each Top Coat.

-Now for the real bling-

Clearly, Let’s Do it in 3-D brings the most *bling*. However, it’s not actually a top coat – it can’t win this contest. China Glaze – Wireless Top Coat is my pick. Owning both Wireless and INM is justifiable. They aren’t duplicates and the effect is clearly different. INM is basically a really nice (although run of the mill) glitter top coat while Wireless is more unique, I’m hesitant to call it glitter top coat at all. There is nothing really wrong with Orly, but if you own INM – no point in picking up a version with bigger and sparser glitter (unless you’re looking for something like that.)