Forever21 vs Urban Outfitters: Lollipop Polish Dupe-Off

Apparently I've got a big hang-up on the two Urban Outfitters nail polishes I bought back in the fall, because they seem to keep coming up in my blogs. Here we go again.

I was in Forever21 in Vancouver recently - surprise, surprise - and as I waited in line for the register (with an absolutely G.D. adorable summery dress, by the way), they totally "got" me with the bins of stuff in the checkout line.

Is anyone else a total sucker for that shit near the registers? Why am I even asking, I know that you are. We all are. It's (social) science.

What caught my eye was thissss little guy - a pinky-lilac based polish with tons of blue, red, silver, green, and yellow glitter, which came in both tiny little round glitter specks and slightly larger hexagonal specks.

.  pink icing by love & beauty  .

SOUND FAMILIAR? If so, it's because it's almost the same exact description that I used to describe Lollipop, the Urban Outfitters polish I was raving about back in October.

.  lollipop by urban outfitters  .

So I decided to snag this Love & Beauty brand polish - adorably called Pink Icing - just to see how it stacked up against Lollipop. A Dupe-Off, if you will. ("Oh lawd Jesus, it's a dupe-off!") Here are my conclusions:

First I applied a base coat and a coat of white polish to all of my nails. Knowing how sheer Lollipop is, I wanted to make sure I had an opaque base for these swatches.

On my left hand I then applied two coats of Love & Beauty's Pink Icing...

.  pink icing outside  .

.  pink icing inside  .

And on my right hand I applied two coats of Lollipop:

.   lollipop outside  .

.  lollipop outside close-up  .

.  lollypop inside  .

As you can see, Lollipop has much more glitter than Pink Icing. Specifically, it has a LOT more of the larger hexagonal glitter, which gives it a much chunkier feel. Pink Icing is a lot more concerned with being "pink polish-y" than with being the headliner of Glitter Fest 2K13. It's also got a much more opaque base than Lollipop.

So the Forever21 version is not exactly a dupe, but these polishes are sort of like first cousins. The Love & Beauty version was $3.80 CAD, and the Urban Outfitters was originally $6, but I bought two of them at the time at 2-for-$8. So at nearly identical prices, you might as well go for the one that has a buttload of glitter in it.

I said back in October that Lollipop reminded me a lot of those old school plastic clown/balloon cake toppers from back in the day, whereas Pink Icing appropriately reminds me more of the frosted animal crackers you can find in stores nowadays:

.  pic from flickr  .

Sidebar, here is the dress I bought that day at Forever21 - I can't wait to find a reason to wear it this summer:

Which one of these lilac-y, glittery polishes do you prefer?