China Glaze: Strawberry Fields vs. Ahoy!

I've gotten so many compliments on my Olympics nails, it's crazy! I went to dinner last night and discovered a fellow polish fiend in our waitress when she saw my nails and immediately recognized the Olympic rings. We discovered that we both did Christmas light nail art for the holidays...soul mates!

Anyway, this is yet another case of me not getting a particular polish because I thought it would be too similar to something already in my stash. Clearly, I was being delusional.

China Glaze's Strawberry Fields is from their 2009 Summer Days collection, a favourite of mine; Ahoy!, is from China Glaze's 2011 Anchors Away collection, another huge favourite of mine. Pink, golden shimmer, must be the same, right? WRONG:

Direct Sunlight

China Glaze is a much warmer and lighter pink with a much stronger golden glass-fleck shimmer. Ahoy! is a darker, berry shade with a more subtle, more pink-leaning shimmer.

Lightbox

Flash

Natural Light (Indirect Sunlight)

Strawberry Fields is a shade that I associate more with summer, due to it's warmth. The first time I wore Strawberry Fields, a friend of mine liked it so much that she asked me to get her a bottle! Ahoy is something that I would probably wear more in the spring or winter, though I did wear it a few weeks ago to try it out. They are similar, but they are definitely not the same. I'm glad to have both of these in my collection.

The good news is, these seem to be additions to China Glaze's permanent line of colours at Sally Beauty Supply. As far as I can tell, China Glaze is only available from Sally's, Chatters, and occasionally the Beauty Supply Outlet here in Canada, for about $6.49 or $5.99 at Sally's with a Sally Card.

I cannot stress enough how much I love my Sally's. :D

Sally Hansen The Real Teal vs. Zoya Zuza

The year I spent thinking that Sally Hansen's The Real Teal and China Glaze's Custom Kicks were the same colour was spent amassing a whole lot of teal and teal-related colours. I love teal, (and blue, and green, too) in case I didn't make it clear enough in my previous posts.

Anyway, when I painted my nails with Zoya Zuza, my bottle of The Real Teal was nearby and I had a crazy thought. Are Zuza and The Real Teal the same colour? They definitely seemed so in the lighting that I was working under. So, I did a comparison:

As you can see, they are definitely NOT the same. The last picture kinda sorta shows that there might be an off chance that somebody might think that maybe the two were the same colour, but hardly. Obviously I need to get my eyes checked, I don't know why I ever thought they could be dupes of each other.

Zuza is a much warmer colour, leaning more towards the green side of teal/aquamarine. The Real Teal is, as advertised, a real teal. The shimmer is, obviously, different. The Real Teal has a more subtle shimmer, whereas Zuza has a grainy, almost fleck like golden shimmer.

Verdict: YOU NEED TO HAVE BOTH.

Duh.

China Glaze Custom Kicks vs. Sally Hansen The Real Teal

When perusing e-Bay on the day that I purchased China Glaze Custom Kicks, I did my customary Google search of "Name of polish + dupes" in case I was going to all this trouble for a colour that I technically already had.

The search came up with The Real Teal, a colour that was much more readily available in stores and would cost about half the price. I also already owned that colour, so I became hesitant about buying Custom Kicks. Another blogger mentioned that the only difference was the colour of the shimmer. I agonized for days, until I decided that different coloured shimmer, especially GOLD SHIMMER, was enough of an excuse for me to own both.

For about a year, I was convinced that I had two of the same polish in my collection. On further inspection, they are even less alike than I had originally expected. The shimmer in Custom Kicks is much more subtle, almost appearing to be a creme. The Real Teal is more packed with shimmer, teetering on the edge of frosty when compared with Custom Kicks.

The shimmer is a different colour in both, gold for Custom Kicks, and green/teal for The Real Teal. However, I think that the difference in the overall colour is more notable. Custom Kicks is a tad lighter and bluer than The Real Teal, which is unmistakably...teal. For real.

Do you need to own both? I would not call them dupes of each other, but you probably don't need to own both unless you're a die-hard teal lover like myself. Only fellow polish addicts will tell you they are different, I'm sure.

Essie Smooth Sailing vs. Finger Paints Grape Gumball

So I just spent the entire day watching movies, each movie sharing something in common with the movie that I watched before it. I complained to my friend yesterday that all of my days off were filled with activities and I couldn't wait for the one day off where I would just get to sit at home on the couch like a fat ass and do nothing all day long. 

In keeping with my doing nothing all day, here are some comparison swatches I did awhile back! (Read: I really didn't do anything today)

Essie Smooth Sailing and Finger Paints Grape Gumball are both blue-purple shades with chunky, almost glass-fleck-ish shimmer.

In this light, you really can't tell the difference between the two. I almost didn't buy Grape Gumball because they looked the same to me at first glance.

 The differences are very subtle. Smooth Sailing is a touch more blue than Grape Gumball. They're not exactly the same, but if you have one and you're not obsessed with blurple like I am, you probably don't need both. The formula on both is similar, this is 2 coats each. There's a bald spot visible on my thumb, but that was more due to my application of it rather than the formula itself.