Dupes #2

I was googling jelly polishes with glitter (my weakness) and came across 3 polishes from Tony Moly called Shooting Star, Pinky Star and Milky Way. Here are the three of them side by side:

Can you see why I had to buy them? Gorgeous!

I'm not the first to comment on this, but Milky Way (the one in the middle) bears a striking resemblance to a famous polish by Deborah Lippmann, non? Could this be a dupe? How close are they in real life? I set out to discover the answers!

Let's start with bottle shots. In the bottle you can already see a slight difference. Deborah Lippmann's GITA has more blue hex glitter and iridescent micro glitter, while the Tony Moly has more pink hex glitter and small, round, silver glitter. GITA is more of a gray-blue, while the Tony Moly is a true baby blue. Sorry about the indoor lighting, but Japan is currently in rainy season mode, so the sun doesn't often make a convenient appearance for me.

 

How do they look on the nail? I used two coats of Essie's St. Barths Blue as my undie, which is my usual go to for GITA. I then put two coats of MW (Milky Way) and GITA on top.

Index: GITA, Middle Finger: MW Ring Finger: GITA Baby Finger: MW

It's kind of luck of the draw that my ring finger ended up with the most glitter. I painted randomly and didn't try to place the glitter at all. Both polishes have about the same amount of glitter in them. Colour-wise, you can see that GITA is a bit more gray-toned than MW, but it's not that noticeable. Hard to believe these two are different polishes, eh?

Here's a close up of two fingers. GITA is on the right-hand side and MW is on the left.

Sorry about the sloppy job. I wasn't planning to wear these outside, so I wasn't careful when painting my nails. Again, it's just luck of the draw that MW ended up with more glitter on the nail. Both have the same amount of glitter and at times GITA gives me the same glitter bukkake that I'm getting here. What's interesting is that the GITA fingers show more small pink glitter and the iridescent glitter is more visible on the nails.

On the nails you can't really tell them apart without holding your hand up to your face. The only difference between the two is the price. DL polishes cost about $30 here in Japan (yes, ouch!) and Tony Moly are available through ebay for about $7. If you can't afford the DL, there's no reason why you shouldn't opt for the cheaper version! I know Revlon Whimsical is another dupe of DL, but it's not available here in Japan (yet. I hope we get it cuz we have Revlon here), so I can't swatch it against the others and compare. I'm sure it's another good substitute for those who can't pay DL prices.

Final Verdict: Dupe