Star Spangled vs Runway Sparkle
While browsing through a beauty salon catalog I came across Venique and their new Holiday Collection. I immediately fell in love with their Twinkle Surprise gift box. It contained two of their three holiday reds — Runway Sparkle and Heels of Dazzle. Today I'm bringing you a swatch of Runway Sparkle and a comparison on how this shimmery red holds up against Orly's Star Spangled.
Here is Venique Runway Sparkle on my nails. It's a lovely rich red with a sparkle of bright red shimmer. I knew the moment it went on my nails that I had a polish very like this in my collection. It didn't take much digging since I don't own many reds.
I decided to use some fake nails to test these polishes against each other since I was already sporting some nail art. Here is how they hold up with one coat over clear fake nails. There's really not much difference at one coat except that the Orly is a much more sheer polish.
At two coats you really start to see that Venique's Runway Sparkle is a deeper shade of red. You also see that it layers much better than Orly's Star Spangled. Orly is still very much a sheer while Venique has turned nearly opaque with just two coats.
At three coats Venique has taken on a very noticeable, darker shade of red and has reached full coverage. However, you also begin to see a big difference in the amount of shimmer. Orly is packed full, with nearly every inch covered in shimmer. Venique isn't quite so lucky. The shimmer is more thin and spread out leaving it to get a bit lost under its darker red base.
Top coat is definitely needed as shimmer polishes almost always have a texture to them as the base settles around the shimmer. With some top coat the difference in shimmer is really noticeable as light gleams off the shiny surfaces.
The reason I chose to use clear fake nails was for just this reason. In the bottle, Venique looked to have a lot more shimmer than was showing on my nails. It left me wondering if the shimmer was sticking to the sides of the bottle. Flipping the nails over shows that, while Venique still doesn't quite live up to Orly's shimmer packed polish, it does have more shimmer than it shows. It doesn't stick to the bottle though, it just sinks on the nail!! When I buy a shimmer, I definitely want shimmer so I lean a bit more towards Orly for this reason but the deeper shade of red Venique uses makes me want to reach for it more during the holiday season.
In the end, the question is: Dupe or Dupe Not? The answer is that Venique Runway Sparkle is definitely not a dupe for Orly Star Spangled. Over all though, I'm happy to now own Runway Sparkle, and I do like the Venique formula a little bit better because at three coats Orly Star Spangled still wasn't getting full coverage. I just wish Runway Sparkle had a more present shimmer.
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