Red Berry Holo Indie Comparison Post

So this has been awhile coming. Over the last few months, I have been gravitating toward a particular shade of polish – red/berry/coral etc. I thought it was finally time to compare them side by side as I have done in the past. So here we go!



I thought for the longest time I kept buying the same color over and over, but I discovered, I'm actually not!

Although a lot of these colors look similar, they actually have subtle differences and are all special in their own special way!

Just some information to get started with, each of these is show in direct light to show the holo finish and indirect light to show any other characteristics. I used no top coats in this post so you can see each polish's original finish! I've linked to the polishes that are still for sale, identified which are limited edition or a Hella Holo Custom and might not be available for sale at the moment. So let's get started with the first set of five polishes shall we?!?!









First up we have red/coral holos! From left to right is Dreamland Lacquer Out, Damned Clot!, ILNP Closure, Dreamland Lacquer Coral of the Story (an HHC special), Fair Maiden Polish Worth Fighting For and Fair Maiden Polish Rio Carnival (E).

The most similar in holo finishes are the Dreamlands, Out, Damned Clot! and Coral of the story have vivid holo flames but the similarities stop there. Out, Damned Clot! is a classical red (like a Coke bottle), while Coral of the story is a bright pink leaning coral with a bit of an orange flash. Closure and Worth Fighting For are a similar cool leaning red, but their finishes are totally different. Closure has larger holo particles creating a scattered holo finish along with the linear finish and Worth Fighting For has a gorgeous blue flash in indirect lighting. Rio Carnival E is the one that is the most different in this group, being more of a more orange/brown leaning brick red holo polish.









Next up we have some more reds, but these tend to be more on the berry leaning side without acutally being berry! From left to right we have Darling Diva Polish Sexy Mother Fucker, Literary Lacquers For the Rest of Us (an HHC special), Smitten Polish (now Dreamland Lacquer) Kenyan Sunset (another HHC special), Carpe Noctem Cosmetics I Wish You the Berry Best and Darling Diva Polish The Queen Diva (a special with purchase polish).

I think Sexy Mother Fucker is clearly the most classic red of this group, though it is still darker than Out, Damned Clot!, from the last group. For the Rest of Us and Kenyan Sunset look similar in color, but For the Rest of Us has more of a metallic finish and a less visit linear holo finish. I Wish You the Berry Best was the sheerest of this group, and leans just a tad more magenta lighter than the previous two. The Queen Diva is the pinkest of this group, but it has those holo shards that were not so popular and dry really textured (but this was a free with purchase polish I think).









Next up we have our more purple/berry/orchid/magenta holos! From left to right we have Smitten Polish Radiant Orchid, Dreamland Lacquer Dragonberry (an HHC special), Indigo Bananas Polish of Unusual Quality (P.O.U.Q), Painted Polish Mystery Holo Un (a limited edition special) and Fair Maiden Polish Pirate Queen.

The most similar here are Radiant Orchid and Dragonberry, but they are made with a different holo pigment an I think Radiant Orchid leans just a tad more purple while Dragonberry leans just a bit brighter. POUQ is the vampiest of the group an dlooks a bit similar to Pirate Queen, but I think POUQ has a bit more linear holo glow to it. Mystery Holo Un has the most holo pigment in it but also has matching microglitter in its finish.









Now for the final grouping, the vampiest/wine purple holos of the bunch. We all know I have a TON of these colors lying around. And I've spoken about them in previous posts, but these were newer additions to my stash so I thought it was time for their day in the sun! From left to right Cupcake Polish Blood Hound, Firecracker Lacquer The Unbeatable Wand, Literary Lacquers Soul Within Me Burning (The Color Box special), Glam Polish Forbode and Octopus Party Nail Lacquer Evil Live!

Now the first two look similar in color, but Blood Hound is a straight super vivid wine colored holo. The Unbeatable Wand has these red sparks of color in it and dries down to a slightly textured finish. Soul Within Me Burning is more a classic purple leaning vampy wine with a golden glow to it. Forbode has actual golden flakies in it which gives of a super golden flash but dries down completely textured. Evil Live! is the most black leaning of the bunch, but it has a really beautiful muddy red/brown glow to its linear holo finish.

If you are interested in any of my other comparison posts, come check out the Indie Fall Holos, Coral Polish Showdown, Indie Metallic Holos and my vampy holo polish comparisons.

Well that's it for today folks, that sure was a TON of work to type up so I hope I've had a chance to highlight the similarities and the differences between these polishes!!! I'd love to know which color family is your favorite and which of these you think fills a hole in your collection!?

Literary Lacquers Vurt-U-Want Collection Review

Happy Hump Day everyone, today I've got a lovely collection from one of my very favorite brands Literary Lacquers.

*Press Sample*

The most awesome thing about this brand is it combines two things I love dearly, reading and nail polish. Literary Lacquers based this particular collection on Vurt by Jeff Noon, a 1990s classic cyber-hallucinogenic novel. This novel is set in an alternate version of Manchester, England, in which society has been shaped by Vurt, a hallucinogenic drug/shared alternate reality, accessed by sucking on colour-coded feathers. Not really my genre of literature, but I am super excited to show you how it inspired Amy of Literary Lacquers for the Vurt-U-Want Collection, available now!

This lovely glitter is Literary Lacquers Shadow Girl. This is a lovely grey-tinged blue matte polish with various sized, colored and shaped glitter. Glitter polishes aren't typically my jam, but the matte finish of this makes it so lovely. I applied two coats for this opacity and it didn't drag at all. It also wasn't a problem at all getting a mix of the glitter pieces to apply.

I was surprised by this polish, like I said glitter isn't usually my thing, and I didn't think matte polishes were either. But WOW, this polish was amazing and the matte finish made it dry in record time. I totally recommend this as an awesome on the go polish, as it dries super fast but it also is so complex and dimensional it is truly unique in my collection. I'll add one additional swatch which shows how beautiful the polish is with top coat as well. 

For this photo I applied top coat to Shadowgirl on all fingers except the middle to show the contrast. This polish is stunning with and without top coat!

This is Literary Lacquers Curious Yellow. This is a gorgeous golden sunflower yellow made up of the most gorgeous flakies and super fine scattered holographic pieces. I applied three coats for this opacity, shorter nails might get away with two coats, but I had a case of the pesky visible nail line. 

The polish dries matte, which was a lovely surprise. I really liked the matte finish, though it did hide the scattered holo pieces a bit. You'll see it with a shiny top coat in a second, when I top it with the glitter topper of the collection (and when I use it for nail art at the end of this post).







Which brings me to Literary Lacquers English Voodoo. This is a glitter topper with all sorts of glittery goodness to look at! Now I wouldn't exactly pair yellow and pink together, but it totally works!

This polish has large pink holographic hexes and smaller pink hexes. It has medium sized black and yellow hexes and triangle black glitter pieces as well. I layered two coats over Curious Yellow, and on the accent nail (so the yellow hexes wouldn't get hidden) I layered two coats over Literary Lacquers Attic Mice. The glitter was pretty easy to distribute. A good shake before distribution and I didn't really have trouble getting any of the glitter on the nail. As glitter can be a little bumpy once dry, this might require more than one layer of top coat.







This lovely stunner is Literary Lacquers Blue Lullaby. This is one finish that Literary Lacquers just absolutely perfects - a scattered holo with matching mirco glitters. And this one has two different sized micro glitters, small and just a little bit larger only adding to how much bling is in the polish.

The polish applied flawlessly, not too thick or thin. Two coats for full coverage, I added a third for ultimate bling! When I saw this polish I knew I wanted to use it for a Fourth of July mani, so expect to see this again soon! This is the perfect cerulean blue holo polish with so much lovely bling!







And this is the namesake of the collection, this is Literary Lacquers Vurt-U-Want. This is a bright almost neon pink holo polish that is very similar in the finish of Blue Lullaby. It looks like it has hex and square microglitter as well as some medium hex as well.

The application was similar to Blue Lullaby, opaque in two coats, I added a third for ultimate brightness.



I had a similar Literary Lacquers from the February Addicted to Holos Box called Laughs in Flowers so I thought it might be helpful to see them side by side. Vurt-U-Want is clearly a brighter more neon pink than the bubble gum pink of Laughs in Flowers. Vurt-U-Want is on the right and Laughs in Flowers is on the left.







This is Literary Lacquers Thermofish. A gorgeous green leaning teal holo polish with similar microglitter finish as Vurt-U-Want and Blue Lullaby. This is two coats. This finish is totally the best, I can't say enough good things about it – linear holo with scattered microglitters! Ultimate sparkle!



And since teal is one of my most favorite colors, I had to compare this one side by side with my similar Literary Lacquers – Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and Je Reviens. Thermofish is in the middle with Je Reviens on the left and Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster on the right. From what I can tell PGGB is a more blue toned teal that is brighter and has finer micro glitter pieces that reflect more blue. Je Reviens is clearly darker, but I thought it would be helpful to see them side by side.







This is Literary Lacquers Dreamsnake. This is a lovely delicate violet holo polish with the most lovely green and blue iridescent flakies which pop in indirect lighting! I used three coats for opacity and the formula was not too thick or too thin, just great to work with.



Once again I thought it might be helpful to see this side by side with a similar Literary Lacquer, so this is Dreamsnake (right) shown next to Megatron. As you can tell, they are both similar shades of violet, but their similarities end after that. Megatron seems to have a golden glow and a finish similar to Thermofish, while Dreamsnake has it's own special flakie glow.







This is Literary Lacquers Bottletown and it is a stunner. This is a lovely almost Kelly green with the most magical rainbow iridescent flakies hidden underneath its holo finish. I used three coats for this opacity and the formula was very similar to Dreamsnake, a pleasure to work with.

And as I promised, I did use two of these in a super fun nail art look!



I created this super fun look in honor of the Golden State Warriors, who as I am typing this just won the NBA Championship! I totally think my nails helped seal the deal, don't you think?!? ;-) But in all seriousness, I don't really claim to be a basketball fan, I just jumped on the bandwagon because it's fun!

For this look I used Blue Lullaby and Curious Yellow and did fun polka dots using my dotting tool. For the center nail I used Zoya Arizona and a nail art brush to paint on the fun basketball lines. Yay for sports nails!

This collection is available at the Literary Lacquers Etsy Shop now and the polishes are priced from $10-$12 for 15ml bottles. There is not a single polish in here I didn't love, and it is all so varied. If I had to pick a favorite, I think it would be a tie between Thermofish (because TEAL) and Bottletown because it is truly a stunning unique polish in my collection!

So I'm dying to know, which polishes in this collection are your favorite?! Have you picked any up yet? There are so many different finishes in this collection, something for everyone!

Indie Metallic Holo Comparison Showdown

Happy Monday everyone! When I got back from my girls weekends in San Luis Obispo earlier today, I had a nail mail package courtesy of Fair Maiden Polish. Recently I purchased a few newer polishes they had released when they restocked their Garden Party collection just last weekend.

Included in this order was another golden holo polish, and while I wanted to compare it immediately to the LE Fair Maiden Polish I had that was similar, I realized I probably had a whole slew of golden holo indie polishes I could compare.

So off to my shelf I went in search of some comparable golden holos. It's definitely been one of those colors I have purchased a lot of lately. And who doesn't love gold?! It is the perfect accent for any look.

While in search on comparable golden holos, I realized I had some other metallic holo polishes I wished to compare. So since I was super busy last week and left you with nothing on Friday, I thought I'd include two comparisons in one post – an Indie Metallic Holo Comparison Showdown!!!



Now I'll start with the golds, since that was my original mission. None of these are exact dupes, but they are similar.



The cast of characters in this comparison are, from thumb to pinkie, Different Dimension Armstrong, F.U.N. Lacquer TGIF, Fair Maiden Polish Gilded Garden, Fair Maiden Polish Secret Garden and ILNP Iconic.







 

Application on all of these were very easy to manage. Armstrong, TGIF and Iconic all were opaque in two coats. The Fair Maidens had a thicker consistency and took three coats for perfect opacity.

The differences in these polish is varied. I would say Armstrong leans more champagne with copper gold chrome flakies and has the strongest linear holo finish. TGIF has a more true gold finish with matching chrome flakies and a more scattered less strong linear holo finish. Gilded Garden is also a golden holo with pink iridescent flakies which create a lovely pink flash. Secret Garden has those same flakies but a more coppery gold finish. Both the Fair Maiden Polishes had a softer scattered holo finish. I would describe Iconic as a rosy, lavender-leaning gold holo polish with brighter golden flakies throughout (which I never noticed before comparing all these polishes side by side) and a strong linear holo finish.

Now let's take a look at the chrome flakie holos I had that I had been itching to compare for quite some time now!



This case of characters contains only two brands – ILNP and Indigo Bananas. The Indigo Bananas polishes here were released well before the INLP flakie craze that has been flooding the interwebs lately – so they definitely hold a special place in my heart. The colors, from index to pinkie are, Indigo Bananas Taffeta, Darling?, ILNP Happily Ever After, Indigo Bananas Bridal Veil and ILNP Fame.







All of these polishes had the same great coverage and application. Opaque in two coats, smooth application and no difficulty with the flakies sticking up or creating texture here.

I think the biggest differences in these polishes lie in their content and holo finishes. The Indigo Bananas seem to have a more scattered less dense holo finish with heavier emphasis on the flakies. While the ILNP has a strong linear holo finish with much more holo content per polish, balancing the holo with the flakies. Also Happily Ever After and Taffeta, Darling? are clearly different shades of purple and Fame has some golden flakies as well, making it the slightest bit more golden that the straight silver flakies in Bridal Veil.

While all these colors are definitely similar, I am sure glad that I have them all and can definitely see a purpose for all of them!

Do you have any of these polishes? What do you think? Which of these do you like the most?!