Dare2Wear Prism swatches: Silhouette, Pirouette and Kiss the Rain

I'm not entirely sure what the story is with Dare2Wear polishes. I am under the impression that they are a relatively old brand, found mostly in dusties... except they have some newer collections like Disco Tech (mixed glitter awesomeness, omg). Anyway, I ordered these from BeautyWests.com against the advice of some NBers -- questionable CS, minimum shipping of $25 -- but they were the only place I knew of that had this set so... I took the chance.

(Actually, I thought BeautyWests was great. It got to me relatively quickly and was well-packaged.)

I was thrilled when I got them and saw that they contained holo glitter! They're a bit unusual for holo glitter'd polishes though as they are also somewhat frosty-looking. (They're not actually frosty; they just have very bright flashes of shimmer in different colors that appear silver in these photos.)

Dare2Wear Kiss the Rain

I loved this song as a moony fourteen year old girl in a "long distance relationship". (Actually, I still quite like this song and I've long since outgrown both being fourteen and that relationship. Thank heavens on both counts.) And I really love this nail polish even though it would take at least five coats to become completely opaque on me. Still, a dusty light blue with a pink flash and holo microglitter... hard to argue with that combination. There's something really ethereal about this polish in person: it's serene and twinkling all at once.

Dare2Wear Pirouette

This is one of the more unique polishes I've seen lately. Totally ugly-pretty. The base color is somewhere between a pumpkin and a terracotta shimmer but what really makes this go *POW* is the amazing greenish-gold shimmer and holo microglitter interspersed throughout. ...it's seriously ugly but so incredibly pretty. Three coats.

Dare2Wear Silhouette

Mauve (taupe??) shimmer with ridiculously bright silver shimmer and holo microglitter. This one was so shimmery and sparkly that this was the only photo I could get that was in decent focus. Three coats, pretty thick (but manageable) stuff.

I took videos of all three but I swear, the sparkle made my camera wiggy. So instead of showing three very blurry videos, I thought I'd just post one:

Video of Kiss the Rain

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Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers frankendupe v1.0

I haven't gotten around to trying to improve my Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers frankendupe so I thought I would post my old version in the meanwhile.

Ingredients: large red hex glitter from LeChat (available at EZNails), China Glaze Ruby Pumps, NYC Clear and NYC Black (which is a black jelly). All in all, a very easy dupe once you find the right red hex glitter. I'm calling this franken "PITA", because it took forever to find red hex glitter whose color didn't dissolve in polish.

Flinty's "PITA"

PITA, up close and personal!

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LeChat Dare to Wear Disco Tech Collection swatches

What fabulous glitters! So instead of doing the same type of swatching for all of these -- since they're all essentially the same thing in different colors -- I decided to layer some of them on other polishes and show different numbers of layers (click on pics to see bigger versions).

Techno Beat

Three layers over Barielle Grape Escape... can't see the Barielle? Neither can I.

Get Funky

One layer over Diamond Cosmetics Tropical Dream, which is a light creamsicle orange with gold shimmer.

Because it looks so sad and forlorn (compared to the other polishes, imo), I also did a video of this to show how glittery just a little bit of glitter can be. (Sorry for the street noise. I live in a small town but it gets pretty loud at times.)

Disco Ball

Two supersparkly layers. Somehow, this applied thinner than the other ones.

Strobe Lights

Three layers over nothing -- see how dense it gets??

Disc Jockey

Two layers over Quirius Ivy Wreath

Strobe Lights with Dancing Shoes

I already did a finger swatch of Dancing Shoes the other night so I didn't feel the need to reswatch everything again so I mucked around with a sloppy funky french that looks like I just dipped my (one layer) Strobe Lights manicured nails into a big bowl of Dancing Shoes.

What I love about these glitters is that one layer will get you a nice glitter topcoat but by the time you get to three, it's packed tight on the nail. Also, you'd expect them to be chunkier because of the type and amount of glitter but they're actually smoother than I thought they'd be.

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Another matte comparison: Orly, Nubar and Essie matte topcoats on China Glaze Moody Blue

Yesterday's NOTD was China Glaze Moody Blue, a lovely watery, semi-translucent watery blue, with one finger with LeChat Dare to Wear Dancing Shoes (the dense glitterific closeup I showed last night). I got bored of this morning so I decided to turn it into another matte comparison!

First, the NOTD as it was:

Yeah, if you want a severe opaque polish, ChG Moody Blue is not the way to do it. But if you like a watery (not even jelly, it's watery) blue, this is very soothing to look at. :)

It is, however, streaky until coat #3.

Now, for the matte topcoat comparison:

From left to right:

Index: Essie Matte About you, again, diffuses light more, makes it (again, pleasantly) chalkier and lightens the color.

Middle: Nubar V for Men, mattefies the color to a soft satin-chalk finish that doesn't change the color.

Ring: GLITTTTTTERRR!!! (non-matte)

Pinky: Orly Matte Top, satin finish and because topcoat is orange in color, it yellows the the blue into a light turquoise color.

For this watery pastel, I have to say that I enjoy Essie Matte About You more -- the lightened color suits the manicure, imo. It kind of makes it more than just a mattefied Moody Blue.

On the other hand, Orly Matte Top also makes it something that's not quite Moody Blue, but when I want to mattefy, I don't necessarily also want to yellow!

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A couple of coupon codes: butterLONDON and OCNailArt (for Konad accessories)!

In case you haven't caught these promo codes on other np blogs:

20% off butterLONDON.com, July 31st-August 4th, 2009: FF2009BL

25% off OCNailArt.com, now until August 31st, 2009: client1 (as usual, free shipping ANYWHERE for purchases over $20 after discounts).

I also discovered a great etailer: EZNails.com! Their polish offerings aren't the most compelling (besides offering LeChat Dare to Wear, which doesn't seem to be too popular elsewhere) but they have a lot of different nail art accessories on sale depending on the week and ridiculously quick shipping time. They shipped the same day I ordered! I saw their LeChat Dare to Wear Disco Tech glitter set on sale for $13.50 on Wednesday morning (alas, back to $18 now) and it was in front of my door Friday morning. Granted, I'm in Northern California and they're in Southern California... but STILL. It's as instant as gratification gets with etailers. Be sure to sign up for their newsletter before making your first purchase; they send out a $5-off coupon code as a welcoming present. :D

Just to provide incentive to check out LeChat polishes, lookit this closeup pic of the glitter in Dancing Shoes!

Look at how diverse and dense that glitter is! There's bar glitter, regular glitter, big hex glitter. So very glittery! This shot is of two coats of Dancing Shoes over a very thin (watery almost) coat of ChG Moody Blue. I will so be swatching these sometime in the very near future.

Also (and this is totally not exciting for anyone except for me, especially since I won't have pics up for a bit), I finally achieved a dupe of Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers using some LeChat hex glitter I got from EZNails.com. This might not seem like a huge deal to anyone else but I have been trying to dupe that polish for A VERY LONG TIME. I kept on getting flummoxed by the fact that a lot of red glitter -- even nail art glitter -- is easily stripped of its red coloring by the polish itself. I was just going to give up but I was on EZNails and a jar of LeChat red hex glitter was on sale for $1.25. I bought it, didn't expect much and tossed it aside into my frankenbox (which is being outgrown quite quickly). Then in a fit of sleepless curiosity, I decided to see if it'd work for a frankendupe... AND IT DID. It's not a precise dupe -- these things rarely are -- but it's red hex glitter, small red glitter in a dark black jelly base... and it looks HOT and I'm super happy that it's finally done. Now I can sleep! :P

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