Over the weekend I was sent an e-mail asking if I could compare 3 grey nail polishes I own by one of my readers. Naturally I was thrilled! Someone had taken the time to look through The Collection tab and ask for my help in a polish purchase decision. The polishes in question? Intelligence, Integrity & Courage, Elephant Walk and Sea Spray by China Glaze.
 |
| L-R Intelligence, Integrity & Courage, Sea Spray and Elephant Walk |
At first glance these 3 look fairly similar in the bottle, but when placed right next to each other you start to notice the differences. But do these differences carry over once applied to the nail? We've all had those polishes that look one way in the bottle, and completely different dried on the nail.
Let me start off by saying that as far as application goes all 3 are pretty even. Kind of what you'd expect from nail polishes from the same company, even though that doesn't always happen. (I'm looking at you Essie!) I had nice smooth application with the first thin coat having some minor streaking and full opacity reached after 2. Shown here is 2 coats of each polish plus top coat.
On the nail these 3 don't look much different than they do in the bottle. Elephant Walk is still the darkest and Sea Spray is still lighter. Sea Spray has a slight blue under tone to it, while the others look more like a true grey. What you don't see in the bottle is that Elephant Walk and Sea Spray both have some subtle micro shimmer to them. Intelligence, Integrity & Courage is the only straight creme in the bunch.
In this picture it's a little easier to see the micro shimmer, Especially in Elephant Walk. Needless to say these 3 are not dupes, not even in the slightest so if you're into grey's Id say it's a safe bet to have all 3 in your collection. But my comparison isn't over yet. In my previous post on Intelligence, Integrity & Courage I showed you how well it worked as a stamping polish. Since then I have rediscovered my love of stamping. I also wanted to have this post go beyond the typical comparison post where I only shared about the color and formula. Can you guess what's coming next? That's right I also compared how these 3 will work for stamping.
Now this was a hard picture to capture thanks to the glossy finish my Out the Door top coat provided! I applied Bleached in Peach from the Maybelline Bleached Neons Collection as my base color. I wanted something besides white to showcase the grey. The image I used I think is supposed to look like snake skin from Shandy plate SH213. It's an interesting pattern but not one I can see myself using over and over again. I liked it for this post though because it had a lot of tiny details that would really test the polish. Id say all 3 passed the test and worked as a stamping polish. I knew with Elephant Grey being the darkest it would show up the best but I was surprised to see that Sea Spray stood out more than Intelligence, Integrity & Courage.
Big shout out to Cassi for making my day and helping me to remember that people do actually read my blog and find it helpful! I want all my readers to know that if they'd like to see a certain polish swatched or compared Id be happy to do it if I own it. I have all of my polishes listed on The Collection Tab up top for you to browse through. If I've already posted about a specific polish , the name links directly to that post for easy convenience.
I hope you've enjoyed this post, thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
0 Comments