The Dupe Test - Zoya Ivanka vs NYX Advanced Salon Formula Enchanted Forest

Is NYX Advanced Salon Formula Enchanted Forest a dupe of Zoya Ivanka?
Here's my take on it!
Note: I haven't done much colour-correction to the swatch photos as they highlight the differences between the two polishes but the second-to-last pic shows what the swatches look like in real life, so check that out.

[In the bottle: Zoya Ivanka and NYX Enchanted Forest]

Click for closeup! [In the bottle: NYX on left, Zoya on right]

Straight off, you can see the similarities (and differences) between the two. They are both green bases with similar coloured glass flecks and slightly larger gold microglitter/glass fleck. NYX (left) definitely pulls slightly more blue, but the camera is picking this up more clearly than you would see by eye. The gold glitter appears slightly finer and denser in Zoya Ivanka.

[One coat: Zoya on index and ring, NYX on middle and pinky]

At one coat, both are obviously jelly bases - no one-coater here! You can clearly see the more chunky glitter in Enchanted Forest whereas Ivanka flattens out well with its finer glitter. Enchanted Forest also has a slightly thicker formula as you can see from the better opacity at one coat.

[Two coats: Zoya on index and ring, NYX on middle and pinky]

At two coats, it starts looking better. Both are marvellously shiny - I don't think there's a clear winner in the Shiny Stakes. Because of the thinner formula of Ivanka, the coats "compact" more as you add them, giving a more solid and smooth finish. Enchanted Forest still retains a bit of the jelly look at two coats. Again, a tinge of blue differentiates the NYX from the Zoya.

[Three coats: Zoya on index and ring, NYX on middle and pinky]

Now we're talkin'! Both look fairly solid, but Ivanka definitely seems more dense. The sparkle is phenomenal in both. The glitter in Enchanted Forest has leveled out well - nothing a layer of top coat won't smoothen out. I've still left the blue in here but check out the colour-corrected photo below...

[Indirect sunlight: Zoya on index and ring, NYX on middle and pinky]

Check that out! This is pretty true-to-life. No one who looked at my nails thought there were different polishes on. When I prompted someone to try to pick out which two fingers were which two polishes, they did eventually manage to on their second try, but that was owing to the slightly more jelly finish of Enchanted Forest rather than the colour difference (although it is fairly obvious to me...).

And finally the direct sunlight pic below taken on my iPod while walking to work:

[Direct sunlight: Zoya on index and ring, NYX on middle and pinky]

Verdict:
If you're in it for the shiny factor, no losses here! Either will do for you. Enchanted Forest will do as a dupe for Ivanka in a pinch. If they weren't swatched side by side, I don't think anyone would be the wiser!

If you're in it for the opacity and green green greeeen sparkle of Ivanka though, you might have to consider the faint jelly hint and blue tinge in Enchanted Forest.

Pricewise, I purchased Zoya Ivanka for USD6.50, NYX Enchanted Forest cost about USD4 (plus just under 2 bucks in shipping) so to me the cost is pretty close for each...  so personally I would pick Ivanka any time.

Granted, it is much much easier to source NYX rather than Zoya. Especially since Cherry Culture is now having 40% off NYX products till the 13th of November!

Hope this helps!!

edit:// Jme has posted her excellent comparison swatches of Zoya Charla and NYX Advanced Salon Formula Be Jeweled! Check it out!

Salon At Home: Nyx Femme, Be Jeweled, Gilded Glitter

My first two swatches are from the Nyx Advanced Salon Formula collection, and I quite like them.

[Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Femme]

Nyx's Femme is a very pretty and classy silver polish with a touch of lavender-grey. I thought it would be a foil polish, but I don't think this is a foil. It's closer to a chrome polish, but shinier, and looks like it has an extra shimmer. In any case, I really like it!


[With Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Femme bottle]

Femme is easy to apply, dries smooth and you can get full coverage with just one coat. No topcat for this one.

[Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Be Jeweled]

My camera really was being strange for this collection. There are no bits, bubbles or bumpiness in any of the manis, but my camera might be picking up a reflection of some sort through the shiny surface of the polish.

In any case, Nyx's Be Jeweled is a gorgeous blue-green duochrome with dense gold micro-glitter giving it that shiny golden sheen. This is definitely a dupe for Zoya's Charla, but how close is it? Well, that's for another post, when I have Charla on! :)

[With Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Be Jeweled bottle]

Two coats were enough for full coverage. These pictures are all taken under indirect sunlight. Look at the polish in the bottle, isn't that gorgeous? 


The next few photos are from the older Nyx Girls collection.

[Nyx Girls Gilded Glitter over Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Be Jeweled]

I couldn't resist trying out Nyx Girls' Gilded Glitter layered over Be Jeweled.  Gilded Glitter is a clear based polish with assymetrically shaped solid gold flakes (not duochrome flakies). Among the bigger flakes, there are actually finer tiny flakes which will give manis a gold tint.

Don't my nails look like they could be used as a reference picture for dragon scales in some fantasy book? It's rather gaudy, but such an interesting look!

[With the Nyx Girls Gilded Glitter bottle]

It took four coats to get such dense coverage, but I did have rather long nails then. While it dried rather smoothly, I used Orly In A Snap topcoat over this because it's really hard for polish to dry all the way through when you layer on so many coats.

I thought I would try Gilded Glitter over something lighter.

[Nyx Girls Gilded Glitter over Carlo di Roma's white glass fleck polish]

I broke a nail on this hand so they're all rather short here. Gilded Glitter on its own has a golder/yellower look, and there's no way to cover my tips since it's actually a clear polish. So I thought I would try layering Gilded Glitter over a thin, white glass fleck polish. Works rather well I think! It's a very clean look, while still being quite interesting and shiny.

[With Nyx Girls Gilded Glitter bottle]

I got a few rather nice comments on this polish at work. This is two coats of Gilded Glitter over Carlo di Roma's very light, white unnamed polish.

There seems to be an identical gold polish from Nyx's Advanced Salon Formula line, and it's called Gold Glitter. I don't see any difference between Gilded Glitter and Gold Glitter from the pictures, to be honest.


If you're thinking about buying Nyx nail polish online, I suggest checking out their website for their pictures. You can click on the pictures for larger versions and those are much better than the swatches on Cherry Culture.

My next post will be a comparison between Zoya Charla and Nyx Be Jeweled. See ya!

Jme's Past Plischtures - Catching Up Like A Boss

Here we go, these are a few nail polishes I swatched in the last few months and that I quite liked.

Most of the glossy polishes have either Seche Vite Quick Dry, or Orly In A Snap over them because I am impatient, and because the topcoat tends to make them shinier which is always a plus.



[Ulta3 English Rose]

Ulta3's English Rose is a very pretty red with gold shimmer. I find Ulta3's formula to be rather nice and I like that it isn't streaky like some shimmers.

[LA Splash Ocean Sprinkles over Zoya Tiffany]

I don't have any pictures of LA Splash's Ocean Sprinkles on its own, but it is a light blue-base jelly-ish polish with sparse gold glitter in it. I quite like it and often layer it over other polishes to get that blue hint and glint of gold.

[Orly Here Comes Trouble]

Orly Here Comes Trouble, which is an amusing name to me, consists of small hexagonal glitter among other tiny glitters! Would look gorgeous as one layer against black I think, but only needs two coats for full coverage.

[China Glaze Tarnished Gold and Platinum Pieces over Nubar Night Sparkle]

I have read that the metallic crackles are as good as the creme crackles, but I don't find this to be the case. I think China Glaze's Black Mesh (as seen below) cracks a lot better than China Glaze's Tarnished Gold or Platinum Pieces, both of which tends to be a bit thick.

[China Glaze Black Mesh over Revlon Tropical Temptation]

I do love Revlon's Tropical Temptation, because it's such a cheerful, summery colour. With China Glaze's Black Mesh over it, the mani suddenly gains a cool edge!

[XOX 24 (white-blue) over China Glaze Black Mesh over Zoya Tiffany]

XOX 24 is a sheer white polish packed with electric blue micro-glitter. I have tried it layered over all sorts of dark colours and it really does give manis a zingy, almost sci-fi look. However, XOX polishes also smell incredibly foul. Eaurgh. Use only in well-ventilated places.

[China Glaze Black Mesh over Ulta Silver Glitter]

Black crackle polishes against bright glitter ones are gorgeous! Ulta's Silver Glitter is a dense silver glitter with random holo glitters through it. Quite pretty and only requires two coats for full coverage if your nails aren't very long.

[BYS Cracked Red over China Glaze Black Mesh over Ulta Silver Glitter]

BYS Cracked Red doesn't crack much. It cracks slowly in fine spiderweb cracks as it dries. But it does make the polish easy to flake off in cracked pieces, so you can control how it looks. I think this one looks like an odd macabre goth polish. Topcoat over the lot makes the red crackle stay on.

[China Glaze Atlantis from index to ring finger, Mio Piccolo 03 on pinkie and thumb]

China Glaze's Atlantis is a holo glitter in blue-green jelly base that dries matte. Needs about three/four layers for full coverage. Mio Piccolo 03 (from Korea I believe) comes in a small little rose-shaped bottle, which is quite cute.

 

[LA Splash Embellished]

 LA Splash Embellished (which is actually spelled Embellshed on the bottle) is a very striking magenta polish with holo glitter. One of my favourites from LA Splash.

[LA Splash Sparkling Torpedo]

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh, LA Splash's Sparkling Torpedo is another favourite. Densely packed silver holo glitter, one of the most holographic polishes I have seen. It also dries smooth instead of rough and gritty, unlike most dense glitter. The formula is a little gloopy, but the negative is well worth the pretty you get. Needs about two/three layers for full coverage.

[Essie Matte About You over Nubar's Nubar 2010 over OPI My Private Jet]

I love flakie polish, yes I do. Oh, and because I use matte polish over OPI My Private Jet, the holo disappears of course. But the duochrome (triochrome?) flakies from Nubar 2010 are still as gorgeous as ever.

[Nfu Oh Nfu 40 over Savvy Coal]

Nfu Oh's Nfu 40 (not terribly creative names here) is one of my favourites of all times! From certain angles, it has a purple tinge my camera is not picking up, and it's more blue or green depending on how you turn your hand. Blurple-green flakies are so lovely, and they really remind me of opals, so I had to do a comparison:



How gorgeous is that? Just looking at the pictures make me want to try them on again.


That's all for my catch-up post for now! Tell me what you think~

NYX Advanced Salon Formula Polish - Enchanted Forest, Delectable, Forever Young

NYX recently released a new line of nail polish - the NYX Advanced Salon Formula nail polish.

Lots of comments have already been made on the familiar shape of the bottle! The shades as well include many apparent dupes of popular colours from other brands, and a lot seem to be similar (re-named) shades from their NYX Girls range (eg. Zoya Charla = NYX Girls Sea of Cortez = NYX Advanced Salon Formula Be Jeweled). Jme has posted a dupe test for Charla vs Be Jeweled!

[L-R: NYX Advanced Salon Formula - Enchanted Forest, Delectable, Forever Young]

Both Jme and I purchased some in our last Cherry Culture order and hopefully some dupe tests will be up soon! But for now... have a quick look at my three - Enchanted Forest (NPS 184), Delectable (NPS 137) and Forever Young (NPS 156).

[NYX Advanced Salon Formula - Enchanted Forest]

Enchanted Forest - An apparent Zoya Ivanka dupe, mid-green jelly base with green glass fleck and larger gold microglitter. I'll post up a swatch comparison between Ivanka and Enchanted Forest soon! I had to colour-correct this as the camera was picking up the blue hint quite strongly as you can see from the previous photo. But I'll tell you more in the dupe post...

[NYX Advanced Salon Formula - Delectable]

Delectable - I picked this up on a whim, not quite knowing what it would look like but it's pretty gorgeous! A bright pink with gold glass fleck through it.

[NYX Advanced Salon Formula - Forever Young]

Forever Young - A dusty salmon pink with GOLD FLAKIES of irregular shape and size. Understated and flashy all in one go! I'd love to get swatches of this up sometime soon!


From what I can tell, it's looking pretty good! I don't know if it justifies the price doubling compared to the NYX Girls range. The Advanced Salon Formula is a 15ml bottle compared to the NYX Girls 10ml, but several shades are easily found in the cheaper NYX Girls range. For dupes of higher end brands though, I'm sure this will provide a much more viable (and easily obtained) option.

Ev's Past Plischtures - A Catch-up Post

So, we had a rather large lapse of posting, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy polishing and picture-taking!

However... not all the picture-taking turned out well... But rather than discard the cruddy ones, we decided to have a plish picture (plischtures, oh yeah) catch-up post each... so here goes!
*WARNING: Truly terrible photos taken with an iPod...

French + Nail stamping + Pearl flatbacks[Tropez White Hot, China Glaze Strawberry Fields]

Nail stamping [OPI You Don't Know Jacques (Suede), China Glaze Hi-Tek]

Nail stamping [Sinful Colors Mint Apple, Tropez White Hot]

[LA Splash Golden Seahorse]

Spotting [Wet n Wild Tweetie, Tropez White Hot]

Huh, there were fewer than I thought there would be. Oh well, look out for much better pictures and more wordy reviews coming soon to Plisherrific!! =)

Christmas Ornaments: China Glaze Ruby Pumps + LA Colors 24k Glitter

Following with EV's theme, I'm starting out with the plishes I used for Christmas! :D Since I didn't have a tree up, I needed glitter on my nails to compensate for the lack of shiny.

Base: China Glaze's Ruby Pumps

Tips: LA Colors' Art Deco 24k Glitter
Top coat: Seche Vite Dry Fast

The look I was going for, rather than a French mani, was gold dripping down from the tips. Not sure how successful I was. :P

Anyway...Ruby Pumps! I love it so much. (And so do a number of women who've commented on my nails!) The polish is a deep red jelly with a scattering of lighter red glitters in its depths. It is eye-catching while being perfectly work appropriate. My fave red plish!