Nails I Love - Did I Ever Mention I Love Purple ?

Nails I Love

Swatch Comparison - Deep Dark Purples

Hi Goddesses – happy weekend !

Today I’m going to be comparing 4 purples which seem worryingly similar – or are they ?   This is because I am an obsessive, always on the prowl for the “perfect” something, and it wasn’t til I was writing my review of BUTTER LONDON Marrow (here) that I realised I had not 1, not 2, but 3 very similar colours !

So, here they all are – OPI Brake For Manicures (from the new Touring America Collection) on my pinkie, Marrow on my middle finger and thumb, OPI Siberian Nights on my ring finger, and Zoya Pinta on my little finger.

Just before we get to the pics, I deliberately over-exposed a couple of them.  Whilst this makes them look a lot lighter than they really are, it really does help expose the base tones within the polish.

I was really surprised that they weren’t as identical as I thought they would be.  Also, when I wore MARROW in the week, it seemed really dark, but actually it’s the lightest of these 4!

So Marrow, we’ve already spoken about.  A really lovely pure dark purple.  No gimmicks, or blueyness or browness.  Just.  Purple.

OPI Brake for Manicures is actually my least favourite of the 4.  This is a dusty dark-grey-browny purple, and compared to the others, it just looks DARK.  It doesn’t pale in comparison so much as leech itself of all pigmentation.  Compared to the others, this is really drab and disappointing and barely purple at all (which is a real shame as I’d seen some fab photos of it). 

Siberian Nights is black purple.  Really dark, twisted and gothic.  As with all OPIs it’s really shiny, and amazing.  Don’t buy this if you want a purple, only if you want a black-purple.

Finally, Zoya’s Pinta, which was a shade that stopped me in my tracks when I first saw it.  Another VERY dark purple, this sits between Marrow and SN and is definitely dark purple rather than purple-black.  Again, this has a purity to it.

If you’re comparing Pinta and Marrow, Pinta has navy similarities to it, whilst Marrow looks dustier in comparison.

All lovely in their own way, but Brake for Manicures is definitely the runt of this litter!

Enjoy J

Top Tip – if you’re ever unsure what a nail colour looks like, go to Google images, which will give you plenty of contrasts and compares.

Nails I Love - BUTTER Marrow

Nails I Love

BUTTER Marrow & NYX Spotlight

Aka Blackcurrant Fruit Pastille !!

Hello Goddesses J

Well, this is a double whammy of a post.  My first BUTTER London polishes arrived yesterday, and being a purple freak, MARROW was the one I had to order.  I had ummed and aahed about it, because in all the photos it looks very bright and part of me was disappointed that it looked totally different on the nail ….

Until that is, I put on the 2^nd coat and it became something even more wonderful!  Marrow is not bright at all!  Instead it’s a gorgeous, pure, dark, plain blackcurrant type of purple – gorgeous!

I say plain as a compliment.  This varnish is pure pigment.  There is no shimmer, glimmer, glitter, duochrome, holo, or even much shine.  Nothing, in fact, that could distract you from the perfect spendour of this colour. 

The bottle is a little bit of a disappointment, you have to lift that big clunky lid off to get to the polish, and the brush is teeny.  This annoyed me at first, but actually, it helped me colour mostly inside the lines for once!  I think the larger brushes just encourage me to slap it on like emulsion lol.

This is a beautiful, dusty purple on a dark grey base.  It makes me think of what would happen if you took Zoya’s Kelly to extremes.  There is no bright in this colour, no light, no blue, no red and no brown.  It’s just pure purple and I LOVE it J

Ironically, it’s how plain it is that makes it special.  I have no other purples without some sort of jazz in them, with the exception of OPI Siberian Nights and Zoya Pinta .. lol.   BTW, don’t be fooled by some of the photos (especailly as my camera just refuses to do purples). Marrow is mostly darker than it photographs, but not as dark as the 2 polishes I have just mentioned, and it is definitely purple, with no hint of blackness at all.  It might also be quite similar to OPI's Brake For Manicures which I have only just bought - I'm going to have to swatch them altogether so we can see.

I am trying to think of the perfect purple to compare it to, and it is really difficult.  There’s not enough blackness for this to be grape or plum or aubergine, but I guess most of the time aubergine (or eggplant) is how this one would be described.

Having had a bit of a tough week, I decided I needed some happy on my nails, and I turned to NYX Spotlight.  I recently bought a lot of NYX’s from a fab US eBAy store, and this one just called to me J  This is more sparkle than can be humanly handled by 1 eyeball !!  It’s a bit like OPI Servin’ Up Sparkle, but better.

This is a glitter full of tiny and medium shiny holographic silver shapes – it’s AMAZING.  And not any old amazing either, this is HOLY COW AMAZING.   On the nails, this looks just … ah, indescribable.   It reminds me of some of this week’s salted candy manicures, and all day I’ve looked at this and wanted to eat blackcurrant fruit pastilles ha ha. 

Spotlight is right up there in the special list, and together these 2 just look to die for J

Enjoy!

Top Tip – if you’re ever unsure what a nail colour looks like, go to Google images, which will give you plenty of contrasts and compares.