For nearly two years now I have been stalking ebay looking at bottles of Clarins 230 thinking these various thoughts:
"Yes, I should get it now before all the bottles are gone"
"No *slaps face* don't be stupid and pay that for a bottle of polish:
"Oh look, this one is only $60, quick I should get it now"
"No, I can totally franken this using red/green colour morphing powder"
"Hang on, how will I know if I have my franken recipe is just right if I don't have the real thing to compare it too"
"Just get Fantasy Fire and be satisfied with that"
"But the collector in me really needs to own a bottle of 230"
"Imagine if I found a box full of 230's in some garage sale, I could make a squillion dollars"
And so on and so forth.
So a few weeks ago, I did the deed. I paid a horrid amount of money for a single bottle of nail polish. And do I regret it? Nope, not one little bit. I feel a small amount of relief as I gently stroke my bottle *my precious*.
What do you do when you get your bottle of Clarins 230, you slap it on and compare it to the other polishes you bought (yes you Fantasy Fire) and made (yes you purple franken with red/green pigment) and see what they all look like.
First I tried just Clarins 230 on it's own. This was three coats, which all looked very smooth and even in real life, although in these photos the index finger looks like it got a thicker coat. So pretty and squishy and the red/green sparkle really is to die for.
Next, I compared Clarins 230 with my franken and with Fantasy Fire.
Verdict: franken is much more opaque, Fantasy Fire is a much brighter purple and neither of them quite had the same strength to the green sparkle that Clarins 230 had.
Next, I tried them all over a purple polish, and my favourite go to purple polish is Ulta3 Orchid. This one really showed that the sparkle in the Franken and Fantasy Fire wasn't as strong.
This set of comparison photos is just of Clarins 230 and Fantasy Fire over Ulta3 Orchid. Are you sick of this yet??
Finally, because I was disappointed that my franken didn't have as much green sparkle as Clarins 230, I added a good few heaped straw measure fulls into the bottle. BAM, lots more green sparkle, and lots more red sparkle! DOH I added too much, now I have to split it into two bottle and dilute it. Actually, if I just left it as one coat of my franken instead of two, it's pretty damn close.
Well, that was fun. I totally enjoyed my play with the magical unicorn pee and it's friends.
