My First Dupe and a Comparison of Olive Cremes

When I saw that a couple of my local grocery stores started carrying OPI polishes, and even had some of the Pirates Of The Caribbean collection that I never saw anywhere else, I picked them up several times, but always put them back thinking that I probably already owned something similar. But I kept seeing bloggers post pictures of manicures that included polishes from the collection, and I thought, I've just got to get at least a couple of them. Also, I had talked about having a POTC movie marathon with a few friends, since none of us have seen all of them. And I thought it would be fun to do pirate-themed manicures for us girls while we watched the movies. So having a couple of the polishes from the collection would just be perfect! 

So I did some research and decided I wanted to get Steady As She Rose and Skull And Glossbones. But when I went back to the store, they had already sold the last Skull And Glossbones : (. But for some reason I still wanted to get two polishes, so I got Steady As She Rose and Stranger Tides. Unfortunately, when I got back home, I realized that Stranger Tides looked a lot like another polish I already had in my stash that I had bought just a couple months earlier, Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Creamy Olive. So I decided to swatch them both in a direct comparison.

(Sorry for the bad cleanup! This has been sitting in my Drafts for a while, and I've gotten much better at it since I took these pictures!)

Can you tell which is which? This is 2 coats of OPI Stranger Tides on my pointer and ring fingers, and 1 coat of Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Creamy Olive on my middle and pinky fingers. The formula on Stranger Tides is thinner than Creamy Olive, which is why it took 2 coats to reach the same level of opacity. Because of that, and the higher price on OPI, I prefer Sally Hansen Creamy Olive much more to OPI Stranger Tides. In fact, I'm a little disappointed that I spent the extra money on it when I already owned a cheaper dupe with a better formula. If that weren't the case, I would probably be just as happy with Stranger Tides as I am Steady As She Rose. But, oh well. It happens. 

I do think it's funny that I can't find Sally Hansen Creamy Olive anywhere now, though. It must have been part of a Spring or Summer collection. I just picked it up at Walgreens the first week of August when I was first really getting into my obsession with nail polish and nail art, just because I thought it was a pretty color. Which must have been what I was thinking when I decided to buy it again as OPI Stranger Tides. At least I have it for my POTC party. Or maybe, since it's only been swatched once, I'll use it as part of my first giveaway, when I hit my first big milestone : ) 


Thanks for reading!
Crystal