Swatch Comparison - OPI DS Original vs. Milani Hi-Res

Hey guys!

After my comparison of OPI DS Coronation and Milani HD, I started to think about my other DS polishes and wondered if there are any other shades from the Milani 3D Holographic Collection that are suitable alternatives to any of my other DS polishes.

The first similarities I noticed were between OPI DS Original and Milani Hi-Res so I'll be showing you that comparison today. I've also got one more OPI DS/Milani 3D comparison lined up to keep on the lookout for that.



Keep reading for the comparison!



OPI Designer Series Original, Milani Hi-Res


OPI DS Original


Milani Hi-Res


OPI DS Original, Milani Hi-Res


Milani Hi-Res, OPI DS Original

So while these are not dupes, they're definitely similar.
First of all, the base colours are almost identical - a light shimmering lilac. The differences lie in the holographic effect/particles.

The Milani 3D Holographic polishes all have bigger, chunkier pieces of silver holographic glitter pieces that the OPI DS polishes do not have, which makes the Milani polishes look a little more bling-y.

The holographic effect is very evident in both shades and although Hi-Res is one of the most holographic of the entire 3D Collection, DS Original still wins in the intensity of the holo effect. Hi-Res is more of a scattered effect with just a touch of linear holo while DS Original is very clearly linear.

One of the major differences between these two polishes is the pricing. OPI Designer Series polishes are more expensive than regular OPI polishes and will run you anywhere between $10-15. However, because DS Original has been discontinued, it'll run you even more than that from places like eBay. For example, my bottle of DS Original cost me $23 (including shipping) on eBay and it's currently the polish in my collection that I've spent the most money on.
On the other hand, the Milani 3D Holographic Collection polishes are $3.99 on the Milani website.

In the end, a choice between these will really come down to personal preference and budget. Hi-Res is a good alternative to OPI DS Original, especially considering the price difference and some people will prefer Hi-Res because it's got that extra bling-y quality. For me, DS Original has a special place in my collection and my heart so that one wins out for me.

My friend Rebecca also did a comparison of these two shades so you can check out her post for another look.

Do you have either of these? Both? Which do you prefer? Is Hi-Res similar enough to DS Original for you to cross that lemming off your list and opt for the more cost efficient option?

Read More

Nail Art Tutorial - Rainbow Polka Dots

Hey!

So as I said in my review/swatches of Nfu-Oh #61 last night, I won't be doing any nail art for a while because I'm reviewing, swatching and doing wear tests for the entire Nfu-Oh Holographic Series of polishes. Thus, I'm trying to do some extra tutorials so that I still have some form of nail art for you.
I'll put up another poll today and I'll only let it run for 2 days this time so that I can have another tutorial up for you in a couple of days.

We had a very close poll once again this time and there was a tie between 2 designs: Abstract and Rainbow Polka Dots. In order to break the tie, I asked my polish friends on Facebook to choose which design they would rather see and the design that won out was my Rainbow Polka Dots design.

To refresh, here's the design I'll be doing a tutorial for today:



Keep reading for the tutorial!


What you'll need:
The exact brands/names of the polishes I've used are in brackets but you can use whatever brands/shades you have in your stash.

White cream polish (OPI Alpine Snow).

Cream finish polishes in pink (Zoya Jolene), orange (China Glaze Papaya Punch), yellow (Orly Spark), green (Orly Green Apple), blue (Zoya Robyn), and purple (OPI Funky Dunky).

Your favourite base (China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat) and top coat (Seche Vite Top Coat).

Small sized dotting tool (or you can use toothpicks but be sure to have a few of them handy).


Step 1:
Apply your base coat. (I didn't think it was necessary to take a photo of this step.)

Step 2:
Apply two coats (or until it's opaque) of your white polish to all of your nails. This will serve as your base colour.


Step 3:
Dab some of your first colour onto some scrap paper (I'm starting with pink) and using your dotting tool, start to make a diagonal line of dots at the base of your nail.
Depending on the length of your nails, you might be able to do 2 lines of each coloured dots (which is what I'm going to be doing here) or maybe more if your nails are really long, but stick with just 1 line of each colour if your nails are on the shorter side because you want to be able to fit as many of the 6 colours on your nails as possible.
Also, remember to stagger your dots with each new line. I explained this technique in my Hello Kitty tutorial so be sure to check that out if you're not sure what I mean.


Step 4:
Once you've completed your dots with the first colour, move onto your next colour (I'll be doing orange next) and continue with the diagonal lines of dots.


Step 5:
Keep going with the rest of your colours until you have filled your entire nail with dots. If you were unable to fit all of the colours on your first nail, start with the colour(s) you weren't able to use on your next nail. This will ensure that you're able to use all of the colours of the rainbow. This is also why you should only work on one nail at a time when you first start the design so that you know exactly how many colours you're going to be able to fit on each nail.
If you look to my design on my own nails, I wasn't able to fit the pink dots on my index and ring fingers which is why I chose to start my middle and pinky fingers with the pink dots. Vice versa, I wasn't able to fit the purple dots on my middle and pinky so I started my index and ring fingers with the purple dots.


Step 6:
Because you've used so many colours, wait a decent amount of time before adding your top coat so that you don't experience any dragging of the colours. After allowing your design to dry completely, add a layer of your favorite top coat. This will make your new mani last longer, it will smooth out any bumps and ridges that have been created during the process, and will also give your nails a nice shine.


As always, I hope this tutorial was helpful and I hope some of you will try this design out for yourselves. And I'd really like to see pictures of this if you try it. :)

Read More

Swatch Comparison - OPI DS Coronoation vs. Milani HD

Hey guys!

While swatching all of the DS polishes I own, I noticed that the scattered silver holographic polish DS Coronations looked very similar to Milani HD from the 3D Holographic Collection.

I've already reviewed and swatched the Milani collection (check it out here) but I thought it would be useful to swatch these shades side-by-side to determine if they are dupes.



Keep reading for the comparison!



OPI Designer Series Coronation, Milani HD


OPI DS Coronation


Milani HD


OPI DS Coronation, Milani HD


OPI DS Coronation, Milani HD


Milani HD, OPI DS Coronation

As you can see, these aren't total dupes but they're super close. The only difference in the actual polishes is that HD has bigger holographic particles which make it more prismatic and more holographic looking than DS Coronation. Besides that, the base colours are almost identical with DS Coronation having just a touch more grey than Milani HD.

Additionally, there is a significant price difference in these two polishes. OPI Designer Series polishes are more expensive than regular OPI polishes and will run you anywhere between $10-15. On the other hand, the Milani 3D Holographic Collection polishes are $3.99 on the Milani website.

In the end, if you have either one of these, I wouldn't say that you need to run out and get the other one. However, if you don't have either and you're in the market for a scattered silver holo, I'd recommend Milani HD over OPI DS Coronation. The chunkier pieces of holo make HD a little more special than DS Coronation in my opinion and the price is much more wallet friendly.

Do you have either of these? Both? Which do you prefer?

Read More

Swatch Spam - OPI DS Polishes: Part 2

Hey!

I think you should all be super proud of me today! As you all know, I have been checking my beauty supply store for the OPI Nice Stems Collection for a couple of weeks now and they still don't have it in. Well, I got news last night night that one of the salons in my area has both the Nice Stems Collection AND the Miss Universe Collection, which I wasn't expecting to even start looking for for another couple of weeks.

The dilemma for me was that I get professional pricing at the supply store that doesn't have these collections, but not at the salon which has both collections. So, I had to decide which was going to win - my wallet or my impatience? I finally decided that it would be better if I just waited for the professional store to get the collections in and save myself some money. Yay for willpower!

Anyways, that's not the point of this post at all, I promise.
Today I'm going to be showing you the rest of my OPI DS polishes that weren't included in this post a couple of days ago.
These last 4 shades includes my favourites out of all the ones I own, so enjoy!



Keep reading for the swatches!



OPI Designer Series: Original, Desire, Extravagance, Passion


OPI DS Original (medium lavender scattered and linear holo)
This is currently my all-time favourite polish in my entire collection and it's also the most expensive polish in my collection. I did a full review of this when I first got it so I won't go into too much detail here and you can just check out that post.


OPI DS Desire (rich, deep gold linear holo)
This is another of my favourites that has somehow managed to go overlooked in my stash. The holo is really strong and although this looks good on my skin tone, I bet this will look spectacular on darker skin tones.


OPI DS Extravagance (rich raspberry-purple scattered holo)
This shade is SO luxurious looking I can't get over it. The scattered holo is one of the strongest I've ever seen - the particles just light up within the deep base.


OPI DS Passion (medium rosy pink linear holo)
This one is similar to DS Chiffon from my first post but has a more mauve base and a slightly stronger holo effect. I like both of them a lot but I prefer Passion just little bit more because of the little teeny bit of purple in the base.


Original, Desire, Extravagance, Passion


Original, Desire


Extravagance, Passion


Passion, Extravagance, Desire, Original


Passion, Extravagance


Desire, Original

Which of all 9 shades is your favourite?
Oh and by the way, I haven't forgotten about my part 2 Deborah Lippmann swatch spam post - it's coming soon.

Read More

Faux Water Marble Second Attempt

So this is my second attempt at the faux marble. I have heard this technique called faux water marble as well as tie-dye nails. The best way to explain it is to watch it so head on over to Dollface22772 YOU TUBE Channel and see for yourself. The polishes I used for mine was China Glaze Platinum Silver, OPI That's Berry Darling, Wet n Wild Dream Poppy and Blazed. My mistake has been that I am using a toothpick when I should be using a needle or straight pin. I will be trying this again for sure! It's so easy I hope to master it soon.

Do you guys water-marble? Does this look like a way faster process to you with similar results?

Read More

Nail Art Tutorial - Hello Kitty

Hey guys!

The most recent sidebar poll was the closest yet with 3 of the options being super close. However, in the end, my Hello Kitty design won out with 30% of the votes.

The other two options that were very close in the running were my Palm Tree Sunset design with 24% of the votes, and my Ice Cream Sundaes design with 22% of the votes. I'll put both of those designs in the next poll since it seems that you guys definitely want to see tutorials for them.

To refresh, here's the design I'll be doing a tutorial for today:



Keep reading for the tutorial!


What you'll need:
The exact brands/names of the polishes I've used are in brackets but you can use whatever brands/shades you have in your stash.

Cream finish polishes in light pink (OPI Mod About You), hot pink (Essie Bachelorette Bash), yellow (Orly Spark), black (OPI Black Onyx), and white (Orly White Tips).

Your favourite base (China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat) and top coat (Seche Vite Top Coat).

Fimo bows (mine are from eBay but if you don't have these yourself, you can draw the bow freehand). If you're looking to buy some of these from eBay (they're really inexpensive), simply typing in "nail art bow" in the search bar will yield a number of results.

A detail brush (mine is a paintbrush from Michael's and the brand name is Simply Simmons).

2 dotting tools: one small and one medium sized (you could also use toothpicks or the ends of bobby pins if you don't have dotting tools like these).

Step 1:
Apply your base coat. (I didn't think it was necessary to take a photo of this step.)

Step 2:
Apply two coats (or until it's opaque) of your hot pink polish to all of your nails. This will serve as your base colour.


Step 3:
This is the easy part - the polka dots.
For all of your nails besides your thumbs, you'll be using your medium sized dotting tool to create the polka dots with your light pink cream polish. The trick to making polka dots looks their best is to order them in a staggered arrangement. In other words, instead of placing them directly side-by-side, you'll want to do one row first and then for your next row, you'll place the dots in between the dots of your first row. It's a hard technique to explain in words but hopefully the pictures will help to make sense out of it.
As well, you'll want to do your first row of dots in the center of the nail and work outwards.






Step 4:
This is where the more difficult and precise freehand work comes in. I won't lie, the rest of the design, i.e. Hello Kitty, will take some patience and precision. If you're not comfortable working with your non-dominant hand, I'd suggest just doing the polka dots on the thumb of your dominant hand so that you don't have to go through the frustration of doing precision work with your non-dominant hand. However, practice makes perfect so if you're up for the challenge, I encourage you to go for it!
You'll start off by making a simple french tip with your white polish. You want to make sure that the edges of the french tip are curved instead of straight across - this will look more like the shape of Hello Kitty.


Step 5:
Using your small dotting tool (or toothpick) and your black polish, make the eyes. You'll want to make them pretty far apart leaving only enough room on either side for some short whiskers.


Step 6:
After cleaning the black polish off, use the same small dotting tool and your yellow polish to make the nose. You'll want to make it in between the eyes but a little closer to the tip of the nail.


Step 7:
Using your small detail brush and your black polish, you'll want to freehand 3 wispy black lines on each side of the face.


Step 8:
In order to get the fimo bow to stick, you'll want to add a small blob of top coat to the area where you're going to place the bow. You'll want to place the bow on a slight diagonal above Hello Kitty's right eye.


Step 9:
After allowing your design to dry completely, add a layer of your favorite top coat. This will make your new mani last longer, it will smooth out any bumps and ridges that have been created during the process and will also give your nails a nice shine.
Unfortunately I was a little impatient waiting for the design to dry so the top coat dragged the black of the whiskers. However this won't be a problem for you as long as you wait for your design to dry completely before adding top coat.



As always, I hope this tutorial was helpful and I hope some of you will try this design out for yourselves. And I'd really like to see pictures of this if you try it. :)

Read More