Gold Polish Comparison Swatches Part 2

I seem to have accidently created a nail polish blog. The recent abundance of polish posts can be, in part, attributed to my recent Official Stash Reorganization Project. While I've been compiling and categorizing, I thought it would be a good opportunity to post swatches, for my own purposes, mainly, but I hope others might find them helpful. Nail polish is something I enjoy, and will remain a part of this weird little, ill-read blog, but I hope to get back into the swing of posting my random thoughts, and some pictures of cats. You know, the important things in life.

Until then, there are the rest of the gold polish swatches. All photos are clickable and taken in a lightbox, and the polish is shown with a topcoat, but without a basecoat. Part 1 is here. Please pardon the lobster hands and overly acetone-d cuticles.

Glitter! I love shiny things, and an abundance of glitter never fails to make me happy. I really can't believe I don't have more gold glitter polishes. I did two coats of each to show the relative density of glitter. Milani Jewel FX Gold (I hope the official polish namer didn't get paid too much for that one) is a bit of a pain to layer over things, as it's difficult to distribute the glitter evenly, but it looks great by itself, as demonstrated by Scrangie. 

Comet and Fireworks were both Holiday 2010, limited edition releases by Wet 'n' Wild. I had assumed that they were just the same polish in different bottles (yet, I bought both), but am glad to see I was wrong. Basically, Fireworks is comet with small silver glitter. I think WnW has released Fireworks under a different name (as they tend to do) at some point, and hope they do so again, especially if they also bring back my favorite of that collection, Tipsy. 

Gold Rush is the perfect small, gold, glitter topcoat, and I suggest if you can still find the Cover Girl Boundless Color Collection, that you snatch it up, along with City Lights (tiny holo glitter topcoat). 

I originally didn't plan to include Shield, as it seemed brown/bronze to me, but I forgot to include Gilty Pleasure in any swatches, so I threw them both into this last minute hodgepodge. I had never questioned that Gilty Pleasure was gold, old gold, but gold, so I was surprised to see that Shield is basically Gilty Pleasure with glitter.

Note my refusal to plan ahead. I continually placed the polish with the longest  name on my smallest finger.

This one is really two different comparisons, with last two thrown in because they didn't fit elsewhere. The Gold & The Beautiful should have probably been in with the glitters, but I (having not worn it) thought it was a foily glitter finish. I really wanted this to be a gold version of Teal of Fortune, but what I got was a pretty gold glitter. I can live with that. In all honesty, it looks like the base is a sheer version of Goldmine, or maybe they have the same base, and Goldmine just has tiny shimmer particles rather than the small glitter in TG&TB. 

I redid these to show how close they are, but also the slight differences. Luxe and Midnight Kiss are slightly different in finish, and maybe a wee bit different in color, but if you aren't a lacquer-head with a love of gold, I don't see any reason to own both. Midnight Kiss was Limited Edition, but it is still available from some e-tailers (Jingle Bells is the other gold foil from that collection). Generally, all other things equal, I would choose China Glaze over any other brand, but in this case, all things aren't equal. Orly Luxe has a finer finish, and requires fewer coats to reach opacity. It is also easier to find, as it sometimes pops up on clearance at seldom visited CVS stores, and is in the core Orly line.

As for The Full Monty, it has an even finer finish, and more brassy/gold color. I think both can be explained by its apparent lack of (or at least very sparingly used) silver particles. Midnight Kiss and Luxe are a mix of yellower gold particles, with silver particles to bring the to the color they appear on the nail. Now that I look at The Full Monty again, I see some silver bits in it, but they are far less apparent, maybe because they are so small. In all honesty, I only bought this polish for the name (actually, it's my mom's, and she bought it for the name), as I thought it was a Luxe dupe. I'm glad I did, as it is a different, and brighter alternative, but if I didn't have a sentimental attachment, I would have to think very hard before throwing down Butter London money for a polish that so closely resembles something I could pick up for a few bucks.

I will probably have a few more nail polish comparison posts in the near future, as I wrap up the Official Stash Reorganization Project. It is really helpful for me to see these polishes side-by-side, and I can only hope someone else will stumble upon it, and find it helpful too.