The first nail polish I picked up was Revlon's "Perplex," and it is this the first Revlon polish in my collection. It is a pretty purple with subtle shimmer and a grey sort of undertone. I saw this color in the stores but passed on it until Mica G did a post on it and showed it on her nails. It's definitely difficult to catch the uniquenes of this polish on camera as it is unlike Sephora by OPI's "Metro Chic" or anything along that vein. I've seen this at drugstores like CVS or Rite Aid for about $5, but I was able to get this on sale for $3 something.
I'm probably THE last person on the planet to find out that Orly did dupes for 2/3 nail polishes that came out in the MAC Venomous Villians collection. Luckily my local Ulta still had full stock of these hiding on a bottom shelf somewhere (I actually almost left thinking they were gone). These are $10 each, so $3 more than a regular Orly polish, but Ulta was having buy 2 get 1 free so I also picked up Luxe.
"Galaxy Girl" is the dupe for MAC VV's "Formidable," and is a dark purple base with teal shimmer that flashes red from some angles. The duochromes of this and "Space Cadet" were very hard to capture, but if you Google pictures of it, some of the more veteran nail polish photographers can give you a better idea of how these look.
"Space Cadet" is the dupe for "Mean & Green," and is a green-based polish with lavender and all sorts of crazy duochrome.
For both of these polishes I used three coats and it was still streaky and not as opaque as I would like. I've only used one other Orly polish and three coats was definitely enough because that formula wasn't streaky at all.
The free Orly polish I picked was "Luxe" because I felt it was a very appropriate holiday color. It is a soft muted gold with a metallic-looking finish. I didn't do a swatch for that one, but probably will eventually.
The very last polish I picked up was "The Show Must Go On!" from OPI's Burlesque collection, and only because it reminded me of MAC VV's "Bad Fairy." It wasn't until I got home and looked it up online that it's not an exact dupe, and the duochrome is not as obvious in the OPI polish. "TSMGO" has a magenta base with yellow gold and copper duochrome that was even more difficult to capture than the Orly polishes. It is more apparent in natural lighting or shaded artificial lighting than it is under full on artificial light. It's definitely very pretty and this will probably be what I'll wearing during the holidays for that festive touch. This was $8.50 at Ulta.
For the Ulta haul the cost would have been a lot more if it hadn't been for the buy 2 get 1 free and the 20% off coupon I had. The total came to $25 so it was about $6.25 per polish. The entire nail polish haul came to less than $30.
Hope you found this helpful!
