Dior Christmas Grand Bal Collection - Nail Polishes + Dupes!

Hello!

So my counter at work is right next to the Dior counter,and yesterday Toyah got the Christmas Collection in!  I don't think I've ever seen so many staff crowded round one counted!! We were all dying to see what the collection was like up close and personal! I must say, it's all SUPER pretty!! One of the girls at work has put aside about 5 items for her birthday on Thursday! As pretty as everything is (seriously...the eyelashes are BEAUTIFUL!) I was naturally drawn to the nail polishes. Now then, when Toyah first got her Christmas booklet in we had a good old natter about the nail polishes and how damn pretty the colours/bottles were and decided that the black would most likely be our favourite....lucky for me Toyah is a darling and was willing to let me try the polishes out after I finished work. So come 1pm I scampered off shop floor to collect my stuff so that I could sit down at the Dior counter and play with the new nail polishes (obviously covering my Bare Minerals T-shirt so people didn't get the wrong idea! Haha!)

Image from Elements Magazine

Firstly, how freaking cute are these bottles?!?! The top bit twists to reveal the brush (so you still get some of the gold left on the bottle when you're painting your nails!) So from the promo picture I think you can all see why I was thinking that the black would be my favourite. It's got a beautiful gold glitter running through it and I'm a huge sucker for anything glittery! You can see some better pictures on the Nordstrom website.

Swatch time!! So here are all the polishes together. I took these last night so they all have flash on.

From left to right: 

Lady, Marilyn, Diva and Diorling.

I apologise now for photo quality. For some reason my camera wasn't in the mood to focus properly last night and decided that all the pictures should be focused on the background instead...

3 coats of Lady.

Lots of the girls picked this as their favourite. I do like it but I'm not the biggest fan of light colours on my nails. It is very pretty though but I don't think I'd be a fan of it on all my nails.

2 coats of Marilyn.

This is my absolute favourite of the bunch. I was really wasn't expecting to like this polish that much but it's a beautiful deep red without being too dark. This is the one I'd like to buy as my 'power red' nail polish!

2 coats of Diva.

This one had so my promise from the promo pictures and even in the actual bottle it looks really nice, but on the nail I found it a little underwhelming. The gold glitter in it is very subtle and if you know it's there you can see it....but if you don't it does kind of look like a bog standard black nail polish really.

3 coats of Diorling.

I don't normally like gold nail polish but this one really grew on my throughout the day. I like that it's pale but still has colour to it (if that makes any sense??) I also like the fact that it's got a bit of a glitter to it without being garish at all.

The Dior nail polishes are £20 each and are available in stores from the 2nd of November (unless your local counter decides to put them out earlier...)

Dupes:

Now then, £20 for a nail polish is hella expensive in my book. Even on a 10% mega day and then with my 20% discount on top, we're still talking £14.40, which isn't a huge amount for a Dior nail polish in a super pretty bottle, but I appreciate we can't all afford that but still want the pretty colours! (I know I can't afford that on a nail polish!) So I had a little rifle through my nail polish hoard and came up with some dupes for you (some exact and some close enough)

From left to right:

17 High Gloss in Sphinx (Diorling Dupe), No7 Stay Perfect in Beautifully Black (Diva Dupe), 17 high Gloss in Risky Red (Marilyn Dupe) and Rimmel 60 Seconds in 730 Silver Bullet (Lady Dupe)

Up next are some photos of the two nails over lapping (I let my Mum compose and take these photos and as she was actually busy cooking, the chopping board was a handy background!) so you can have a little guess as to which one is Dior and which one is the Dupe! (Answers at the end...no cheating!)

So all of the dupes are on the right hand side....couldn't tell for a few of them could you?? I think the only one that is super noticeable is the black because the No7 one has got fine silver glitter rather than gold so it shows up a bit more. My Mum actually preferred the No7 one so when I told her the price difference I think she was quite shocked! The gold and silvery white ones look practically identical and the red one is only really noticeable if you look hard (you can see that Marilyn is just that fraction of a shade darker) I was so up for convincing myself that I needed one of these in my life for the bottle that I had practically agreed that come pay day, I was going to invest in Marilyn, but having done a little shop of my own stash I've realised that it would be a huge waste of my money really (even though I really REALLY love those bottles!!) Shopping my nail polish stash has also led me to find the long forgotten Sphinx polish that is exactly the same as the gold Dior one that I was starting to fall in love with....

Dior Nail Polish - £80 for 4 (without any discount)

Dupe Nail Polish - £18 for 4 (roughly without any promos or discounts)

Slight difference in price there! 

So, now's the time to have your say....is the price worth it for the Dior ones (mainly for that freaking pretty bottle!) or are you just as happy with a spot on dupe? (you can always tell people it's Dior right??) Would you pay out £20 for one nail polish or are you happy with the highstreet brands (and prices!)? 

As a tiny side note, I will just say that after one day of wear, the Dior ones are showing some tip wear....but I didn't have a base or top coat on them as they were purely for swatching purpose! I'm not going to lie....I still want to gete one just for the bottle but I'm fairly sure I'll be able to resist now that I know I basically own all the colours anyway! If Dior had come out with a super intense glitter polish however.....

Until next time,

xoxo