Comparison: China Glaze Midtown Magic and Color Club With Abandon

I found a near dupe for Midtown Magic, so I thought I'd show you guys a quick comparison. These two are not dead on dupes, but they're sisters, very close. Color Club With Abandon came out with the fall 2009 collection Wild At Heart.
Now, I have to apologize here - I was trying an experiment with a new quick dry top coat, so the fingernails that With Abandon are on have weird wrinkling. You can still see the similarities and differences, thankfully.
My index and pinkie are With Abandon, and my middle and ring are Midtown Magic. Two coats for each polish - they have similar formulas as well.
The main difference is the base - With Abandon is a black jelly base, and Midtown Magic is a deep reddish purple (wine) base. Also I don't think I can spy any red shimmer in With Abandon. It's mostly copper and gold.

In this shot the color difference in the base is obvious, I think. Both of these are beauties! Hope you found this helpful.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice

Okay, I HAD to have this. I mean, I love fall, and Halloween. I love pumpkin. I have to say, I was incredibly disappointed in this.
I hate giving a bad review of something, but I had higher expectations for this. I LOVE this line of polishes.
So I gave this a try at first on my thumbnail, and it was very watery and thin. I thought maybe I just needed to shake it up. I did that - lots of vigorous shaking. Then I did a full on swatch. This was four coats! I like jellies and I don't mind VNL but I really, really don't like the way this came out.
Let's have a look, and then I have a couple of comparisons to discuss with you.

See how watery that looks? And the glitter looks sparse and scattered even after four coats. I let each coat dry so I wouldn't get bald spots - that's not the problem.
I have two China Glaze comparisons for you. I was told that Pumpkin Spice was a dupe for China Glaze Fortune Teller. It's not remotely close! Then there was buzz it was a dupe for China Glaze Ick-A-Body, from last year's Halloween collection. It's not, but it's going on a similar idea. First of all, Ick-A-Body has an olive green base, and the glitter is much less sparse. It seems more bright than Pumpkin Spice's glitter. Have a look, below - I have Fortune Teller on my ring finger and Ick-A-Body on my pinkie. Sorry for the quick swatches, I know they're a tad messy.

Yeah, so no dead on dupes there. Was my bottle of Pumpkin Spice just a fluke, guys? Anyone tried theirs out yet??

Reader Requests: Comparisons

I recently had a couple of requests to do comparisons, so I thought I'd put this one up for tonight's post. I'm trying to figure out what I'll be doing for my 4th of July manicure, still. We'll see if I'm capable of doing any dotting or striping!
Anyway. First, the ever so amazing Loodie asked to see a comparison between China Glaze Ruby Pumps and Essie's Ruby Slippers (side note: Loodie, I don't have Color Club's Ruby Slippers any more!) so:

Okay, if you click to enlarge this, you'll see how different they are - first of all, Essie is darker, and the glitter is larger. China Glaze is absolutely lovely on its own, but if you put it next to Essie, you can barely see the lovely glass fleck - the camera is focused on Essie! Kind of crazy amazing. If anyone's interested, I'll do a post of China Glaze Ruby Pumps on its own, so it can be showcased for the lovely it is. It fades out next to Essie's Ruby Slippers.
Next up, for my lovely friend Erika, a side by side of Revlon's Grapefruit Fizz and my all time favorite pink, OPI (LE for ULTA) Pink Me I'm Good.

Okay, so obviously PMIG is a deeper pink jelly than GF, and the glitter is straight up gold, without any shift. But they're sisters, I think you can see that! However, if you're lemming PMIG, you may still end up lemming it after looking at the side by side. Both are quite pretty!
If you have any comparison requests, I don't mind doing them - it's nice to see if something is a dupe or a sister, so you can make a decision if you *need* it.