Comparison: China Glaze Cosmic Dust vs Born Pretty Hologram Effect #7

So Sally's was having another sale, and OF COURSE I had to get in on it. This purchase was my first bottle of China Glaze! I got Cosmic Dust, which is a medium grey holo.

And I decided to compare it to Born Pretty's Hologram Effect #7:

Coat 1

Hologram Effect #7                                                  Cosmic Dust          

  

Coat 2 

Hologram Effect #7                                                  Cosmic Dust        

Cosmic Dust is very opaque, only needs 1-2 coats. As you can see, after two coats, you can't see the difference between the black bottom coat and the no bottom coat. Hologram Effect #7 is very sheer, and could maybe be a topcoat glitter for a mani. 

Hologram Effect #7 is a little more of a vivid holo, and a little chunkier. It also has a bit of a sage green color in it after it dries, whereas Cosmic Dust is just a straight dark silver.  

Both of these will have its use, and they are definitely nothing alike. I was just curious what the difference would be. Turns out it's like night and day and I'm okay with that :)

Sweet Summer Lemonade, Topcoat Comparison

So I recently made my first purchase at the Born Pretty Store, and if you read the previous post, you saw that I got a round of fruit fimo decals.

At first, I was gonna do watermelon nails, but I decided to use the lemons and make lemonade nails first. I usually HATE yellow, but I really like LAC's Hysteria.

These were really fun to make!

1. Prep clean as usual, basecoat.
2. Paint with a white base (I used Sinful Colors' Snow Me White), and then add two coats of your yellow over it. I used LAC's Hysteria, which is a neon jelly, I think. It layers REALLY well. You can find it at Dollar General or online.

For the accents:

1. While the paint is still wet, sprinkle your glitter over the tip of your accent nails. (I got the glitter I used from the Dollar Tree, but honestly, I saw some that looked the same at Walmart today in the craft aisle.) Run a dry brush over it gently to knock off excess glitter. 
2. Using a quick dry topcoat, secure the slices of fimo to the nail. Press and hold into place until mostly dry.
3. Topcoat

For the "regular nails:

1. Take your white nail polish and create rings of white using a coffee stirring straw. Allow to dry
2. Apply a thin coat of Hysteria, allow to dry
3. Create larger rings of white, using a regular straw. Allow to dry.
4. Apply another thin coat of Hyteria, allow to dry
5. Using a dotting tool, pen, pin, toothpick, etc, throw on some random dots.
6. Topcoat

The night before I did these, I received an order from Sally's Beauty Supply, which had a bottle of Seche Vite in it. It's currently on sale! Plus, I have a Sally's membership, AND I had coupons. I got the bottle for about $4.50.

SO I put it up to the test. On my left hand, I used my [new] favorite, NYC's Turbo Dry Top Coat, and on my right, I used the Seche Vite.

Here's my observations:

• You can't tell the difference, once they're dried. And they dry at about the same rate. They're both very shiny, very hard, very smooth.
• Seche Vite smells like one of the cheap polishes I won't buy at the dollar store (yes, there are some that I won't buy!). I REALLY found it off-putting, and I did not like it AT ALL.
• NYC is a little thinner, but it's kinda hard to tell unless you're looking for things to compare
• So far, neither of them have chipped. In fact, most of those pictures I took about 10 minutes ago.
• There's a bit more bubbling on the hand with the NYC, but I don't know if it's because of the topcoat or because I was being hasty with letting my lower layers dry. 
• (Probably me being hasty.)

Honestly, I think LAC's Turbo Dry Topcoat is the winner. For the price I paid (50 cents), it has a much better value. Seche Vite isn't 3-Free either, second ingredient is Toulene.