Tuesday, June 11, 2013

A Mess o' [Mint] Greens

Wow we had the wildest weather yesterday. Cloudy, then pouring rain, then clearing off, then sunny with white poofy clouds, then it darkened up again, then pouring rain, then sun came out while it was still pouring rain, sudden clear off to sunny and breezy, then it clouded up again and we had tornado and flash flood warnings til midnight. My kind of weather, or would be if it wasn't so hot. Heat makes the humidity feel like a big fist pounding on you when you go outside. No thank you.

For the most part, I remained indoors and did three green manis to compare for you on this blog.

Most of my polish collection is all boxed up. When I was getting ready to come visit and sorting out which polishes to bring, I put all the ones I didn't bring in bags and boxes and stowed em in my closet. All the polishes that I brought to Charlottesville are still in the boxes I brought em in. So I've been fooling around with the polishes that are still out on the little built-in shelves in the bedroom, remember when I showed you? There are plenty still there to play with, including a couple of Zoyas and nearly my whole collection of Sinful Colors. Plus there are the polishes I bought when we went to Sally's.

One of those polishes was Jealous Much by Orly. Jealous Much is a pastel minty green, the exact color I was hoping for when I got Orly Gumdrop. So of course I've been kinda itching to try it. To give myself some other choices, I went looking on my little shelves for comparables. I found Zoya Neely and Sinful Colors Mint Apple, two other pastel greens.

With these three polishes in hand, it occurred to me to do a comparison post. Here they are:


Left to right: Zoya Neely, Orly Jealous Much, Sinful Colors Mint Apple

I'll start with Neely. Neely is a whitened pastel seafoam green. To my eye, it has a teensy bit of warmth to it that keeps it out of the mint family. Application is a little problematic as it almost always is with pastels. Neely is nicely pigmented and I could see someone with nicer nail beds and better application skills getting complete coverage in two coats but for me it took three and I did have some bubbling. It dries to a nice glossy finish. I used Sec 'n Dry fast dry topcoat on top only to help with the dry time. 

I know I said before that I wasn't going to continually apologize for the state of my nail environs, but I must make an exception here because I was having a bad hand day, wah. I'd done a cuticle remover soak a couple of nights ago that always leaves some peeling dry skin a day or so later. So, my apologies.


Zoya Neely


Zoya Neely


Zoya Neely


Zoya Neely


Zoya Neely


at the window...


Zoya Neely on the nail and in the bottle, I think it brightens up slightly on the nail


Zoya Neely


Zoya Neely

Next up is Orly Jealous Much. This is another whitened pastel creme and is very close to Neely in tone and feel but is ever so slightly cooler or bluer making it lean more to a mint green. Formula-wise, Jealous Much is sheerer and thinner in consistency than Neely and application was accordingly more problematic. My application of pastel polishes got some good practice with these two! 

I applied three coats of Jealous Much and stopped although it could have used a fourth to even out the opacity. I think that when the polish thickens a bit as polishes do whenever they are exposed to air, three coats will be enough. For now it'll come in handy as a good base coat for any mint green glitter polishes that need one.

This is Orly Jealous Much with a topper of Sec 'n Dry.


Orly Jealous Much


Orly Jealous Much


Orly Jealous Much


at the window...


Orly Jealous Much, very true to the bottle color


Orly Jealous Much


Orly Jealous Much


Orly Jealous Much against blue


Orly Jealous Much against white


Orly Jealous Much -- middle finger shows opacity issues and ring finger has a bubble (bubbling occurs most frequently when a polish is overworked during application or when multiple coats are applied in rapid succession without leaving sufficient dry time in between layers)

Sinful Colors Mint Apple is the odd polish in this group. Although it's a creme, it does have a bit of hidden silver shimmer that gives it more complexity and personality than Neely or Jealous Much. I almost hesitate to call it a pastel except that it is a whitened shade, but barely. The green is correspondingly stronger, brighter, and more saturated. I guess you could put it in the mint green category, but to my eye it is dustier, murkier than I think of when I think of mint green. After studying it a bit on the nail, my inclination is to call it a money green.

Opacity was streaky as all get out on the first coat and still noticeably uneven after two coats, but built up nicely at three. Not as glossy a finish as the other two, just a tad more satiny. Topped with a coat of Sec 'n Dry to ensure drying of all previous layers and to bring out the silvery shimmer. Mint Apple is my favorite of these three summery greens for its unusual interesting color.


Sinful Colors Mint Apple


Sinful Colors Mint Apple


Sinful Colors Mint Apple


Sinful Colors Mint Apple


at the window...


Sinful Colors Mint Apple, good match to the bottle color


Sinful Colors Mint Apple


Sinful Colors Mint Apple, close up showing silvery shimmer



Sinful Colors Mint Apple

And here is my one on-the-nail comparison pic for you of all three polishes (apologies for ringfinger patchiness) plus a final bottle shot....


left to right, Sinful Colors Mint Apple, Orly Jealous Much, Zoya Neely


Zoya Neely, Orly Jealous Much, Sinful Colors Mint Apple

So there you have it, comparison of a mess o' green nail polishes. 

What do you think of this kind of post, Miss B? I enjoyed creating it even though it was time consuming... mostly because the accurate depiction and description of color is of huge interest to me. I think it is to you too, no? I think you have a strong visual discrimination aptitude (natural ability) like I do. Our brains love processing visual information and distinguishing differences in things. 

Nail polish is awesome for that, don't you think? 

love,
Aunt Liz



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