HOLY SMOKES GUYS..... But September's Sapphire birthstone, Serena, is a KNOCKOUT! Seriously guys, this one has to speak for itself. By far and above the BEST of the collection thus far!! As usual, check out the birthstones you have missed in the last birthstone post! <3
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Yup, it's absolutely that time. Prior to Claudia's unveiling, there were many concerns that it would resemble an existing Julep polish: Shoshanna. Even though Shoshanna is described as a "Full-coverage yellow holographic glitter", when it was released many felt it leaned green more than true yellow. I was among them. Still a beautiful polish, but one of those you couldn't quite put into a set colour category. Well, I did a comparison. A full blown comparison. First, the evidence for both arguments and at the end I'll give a breakdown of how they are either the same, or different. Enjoy! IT'S SHOWDOWN TIME!We'll start off easy, and use images taken directly from the respective polish's official Julep store page. Are we dupe-ready yet? Let's see what my pictures add to this. Uh oh! It's getting too close to call!What should we do? Time for the big guns: Live action polish! Final Call & Breakdown! Alright, we've seen all the evidence and it got pretty close. Ultimately? I don't think these are appropriate dupes for each other. The breakdown? Let's look at Claudia. She's in the same colour family as Shoshanna; that yellow/green/gold group. While she leans gold, true, next to Shoshanna especially she is clearly much more at home with the greens than the yellows. Claudia's holographic specks I mentioned Here are beautiful and sparkly, but Shoshanna's holographic intensity is much much MUCH more defined. As is typical for holo polishes it was hard to capture her true spectrum, but the video helped us see that, thankfully. Claudia's glitter is much more fine, and creates a smoother finish than Shoshanna's larger glitter that has a tendency to overlap itself with more coats. In a single coat, as shown on the clear swatch stick handle, Claudia offers more coverage by far with her smaller glitter. It's ultimately this smaller glitter, however, that makes her holographic bits less noticeable beside Shoshanna. In summary...
What do you guys think? Am I right in the final judgement? Or is it too close to call? Let me know, comment below with your own thoughts!
And if you're interested in purchasing either of these polishes, click the buttons below to get your own, and share your own dupe photos!! Y'all remember this pretty lady, right? If you don't, it's Julep's August [Peridot] birthstone polish, named Claudia. My birthday was August 1st, so as soon as this polish came out I nabbed it for myself. Now I'm here to share the swatches, and see what you all think!! 1st coat, both hands It's pretty clear right out the gate when you see the bottle that the website swatch IS actually true to colour. Claudia is a yellow/gold leaning green with little emerald flecks of glitter sporadically through the polish. This first coat didn't seem promising at first. You can see my nail lines pretty clearly. I will say it went on so easy though, which is a new experience for me. I'm used to glitter polishes being super hard to control. No such problems here! Second coat, both hands The second coat went on and immediately the difference was clear. NOW it very much resembles the swatch photo; Although if I am honest I would say a third coat would give you absolute unyielding opacity. This I would say is mostly opaque, but by no means perfectly solid. If 3 coats might have been perfect, why not do a third coat? Unfortunately, my bottle arrived with a considerable amount missing. I in no way insinuate I was given a used bottle; Only that the fill line was markedly lower than polishes I am used to receiving. I have already e-mailed Julep asking if this was intentional or accidental, and when I receive a response from them I will go ahead and put it in an updated post for you all to know. :) As an added bonus, this polish ended up becoming a fairly matte finish. Here I have the best cleanup I could do [Microglitter. Good griefers.], and two coats of Julep Oxygen Performance Top Coat over all nails except the middle. If it were my choice, I'd say add topcoat to this baby all the times. Not only is shiny 'In', but there are actually holographic bits throughout this polish. Yes, you read that right, this polish actually has scattered holo! It's very downplayed, but it's there. Without topcoat it does sparkle but only so much as a normal glitter would. WITH topcoat, it's like the magic dust is sprinkled. Every way you turn your hands, the sparkles attack. It's fantastic. And as my off-camera testing revealed, the shinier the topcoat/the more layers you apply, the more it sparkles. Love love love. I do want to apologize for how gold this polish seems to look. It does lean that way but it IS definitively green. And Peridot at that! Glamour shot! [No topcoat]BONUS! Polish in ActionNeed your own? Love it, and need your own? On the fence? Want to see the other birthstones? Head on over to this post, and pick up one for yourself. Or the whole set!!
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