The Neverending Pile Challenge: Least expensive

How are you today? I got to see some old college friends yesterday--it was really great to catch up!

Today's Neverending Pile Challenge theme is least expensive. I didn't do price checks or anything, but some of my cheapest polish is by Love & Beauty (Forever 21's brand), which retails for $2.80 for 14 ml. I got two textured polishes from this brand in a secret santa swap, and they are every bit as gorgeous as the more expensive textured polishes I own!

I used Love & Beauty Blue Jewel, a teal polish with green and gold flecks, and Black Glam, a blackened purple with magenta and gold flecks (this is the one that's a dupe of Julep Glam Roc). I added some dots using clear topcoat for a little extra excitement!

Both of these polishes had very nice application and were opaque in two coats, but they were a little slow to dry, which isn't ideal for a textured polish.

Total untrieds tried: 22

Two Julep dupes

Hey all, I'll have a nail art post for you later today, but first I wanted to share some discoveries I made about the February Julep collection. I posted a bit about this on my Facebook page, but I've since found out that there are not one, but TWO dupes of cheaper polishes this month! (Isn't it supposed to go the other way around?)

First off, Julep Love, which I think was included in every box this month, is pretty damn close to Sinful Colors Gilded. Here's one coat of each over black:

Putting them over black shows that they're not completely identical: Love has more gold shimmer (although that may be due to me always getting too much polish on the brush thanks to Julep's stupidly long bottles), while Gilded has more red glitter and its gold shimmer is more yellow. I really don't think you need to own both of these.

Second, here's two coats of Julep Glam Roc (from the It Girl box) and Forever 21 Black Glam (even the names are similar!):

These are both blackened purple textured polishes with magenta and gold sparks. Glam Roc seems very slightly darker (the difference is less obvious in real life), but the glitter seems to be the same. I also prefer the texture of the Forever 21 polish--I think it's packed more tightly.

So I'm a little bummed that I paid for two polishes that I had cheaper dupes of. Obviously it's too late for those who got the box this month, but if you were thinking of buying either of these Juleps on sale later, get the cheaper brands instead!