Sephora Mini-Haul

Yesterday I went to check out this store called Sephora. I've never before entered it, so I was very interested to see what line of nail polishes they have. Their OPI sold for some ridiculous prices but I did note down the names of some that were really nice. I did, however, indulge myself in 3 of their house brand polishes which seemed very promising. There were several others that looked promising in the bottle but upon testing them out on some adhesive, they fell rather flat to my disappointment. I bought the 3 that lived up to my expectations!



Sephora 0272A.

Seriously, Sephora needs to start giving their polishes some sort of name that's easier to remember than just numbers. I had no other way of identifying them. I think the number is, in fact, just the serial number too. C'mon, Sephora! You can do better than that! Anyway, 0272A is a beautiful glowy radiant bright blue-green colour that takes the light reflection and really transforms it into a glow. It's electrifying and stunning to look at. This was 2 coats.



Sephora 0256A.

A shimmery but not frosty white-beige polish. I like white polish but I don't like to lay on a single layer of pure white creme - that's kinda boring. I'd like it to have some depth, and Happy Anniversary by OPI, while very blingy, was probably not meant to be worn by itself, seeing as it takes a good 5 - 6 layers to build up to opacity. This one works like a charm. I love the off-white tinge, and the opacity which is easily buildable. This was 2 coats.



Sephora 0277A.

I know it's super obvious in the photographs but in real life, the bottle looks a whole lot more like a dark muted lavender than black. I thought it'd be an interesting substitute for L. A. Girls' Punk but I was quite wrong, though I'm happy to be wrong. I was surprised to see that the base colour of this polish is black, but it's so so so chock full of that fine purple, blue glitter that it pretty much negates the black colour. The end-result is a sort of purple-tinged gunmental gray, which is awesome, imo.

This is my first time trying out Sephora polishes and I was pleasantly surprised. Their formula is not troublesome, although it does have a fair bit of bubbling. That aside, I'm in love with their brush. It's completely unlike any of the brushes I've seen before. It's actually pointed in a strange 3D way, which makes it tons easier for me to paint neatly. If you notice, these 3 photos are some of the best applications I've done, in terms of neatness. The colour range of Sephora is not very exciting, though. I probably could find many of the colours as dupes in other brands. Simple solid creme colours. Their glitter range isn't all that special either. When I did pick up their duochromes, some of them looked uber awesome in the bottle but when I applied it onto a bit of adhesive to test, it all turned out really flat and uninteresting. As I've said, these 3 are probably the most interesting ones I picked up. Which is such a pity, because I thought I saw something almost like a Orly Space Cadet dupe.

Each bottle is SGD 9 (roughly USD 7.25) but it's a measly 5 mL compared to the usual 15 mL for OPI, Zoya, Essie and 14 mL for China Glaze and LA Girls. That's 1/3 of the usual volume. Not cool! It's pretty much like a mini, and selling at retail price. Unless they drop the price, or expand the bottle, or diversify their colours, I don't foresee myself buying anymore from Sephora.

However, for interest's sake, I decided to compare the blue-green Sephora to some of my favourite other blue-greens in my collection.



Whew. OPI Yodel Me On My Cell used to be one of my favouritest polish ever, but now I feel that it is in danger of being supplanted by the newcomers like Charla and Sephora. Charla is undoubtedly darker than Sephora, and the shimmer in it is a little chunky but that adds to its epic fish-scales mermaid effect. Sephora employs a much finer sort of shimmer that gives it a much brighter, radiant glow. I love them both. OPI Yodel sadly looks rather uninteresting next to these two but - I still like it. I'd still wear it, definitely. It's good for those times when you don't really want to be all out there and crazy, but yet gives me an adequate shot of my favourite blue-ish shade. (: