New Pure Ice Swatch Spam: Part 1 - Velours

Monday, January 28, 2013

Hi folks! As I mentioned yesterday, I was really fortunate to win 100 Pure Ice polishes recently. 96 of them made it to my door safely and quite of few of them were repeats (a total of 16 multiples, a few of the shades I even had triplicates) so grand total of 80 new shades.

I swatched them on sticks but was not happy with how they photographed so I decided to swatch them all on fingers. This is no small undertaking, so I'll do it in installments, the first one being the soft matte shades, the new Pure Ice Velours. I think I have all of them, with the exception of Black Magic which broke. It was matte black shade. This post is really picture heavy, since I did one picture matte, followed by one of each polish with a shiny topcoat and finished with comparisons at the end, so please bear with me!

Crushed. Gleaming Gold. Three coats.

Grunge. Matte mauve with silvery shimmer. Three coats.

Temptress. The least matte out of all the polishes, it took a while to dry. However it is possibly the prettiest. A dark purple with golden shimmer. Three coats.

Stunning. I think this one might be pretty close to Man Glaze Lesbihonest, though maybe not as complex bu don't have it to compare. Bright magenta. Three coats.

Touch Me Softly. A truly stunning berry. Three coats.

Femme Fatale. Rich forest green. Three coats.

Ruffled Sheets. A pure silver matte shade. Quite unique to me, don't own anything else like it. Three coats.

Over the Top. Golden orange, the shimmer is softer than in the other shades. Two coats.

Blue Midnight. Denim blue in color. Two coats.

Here's how they look compared to some of the other matte shades I own.

Left to right: Zoya Harlow, Pure Ice Touch Me Softly, Pure Ice Grunge, OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede. I think owning only Harlow or Touch Me Softly would suffice, the difference is minimal in my eyes.

Left to right: Zoya Savita, Pure Ice Temptress, OPI Ink Suede, OPI Russian Navy Suede, Pure Ice Blue Midnight. None of the shades are all that close, I think they're all really pretty.

Left to right: Revlon Emerald City Suede, Pure Ice Femme Fatale, Zoya Veruschka. These are all quite close, only difference is a slight variation in the hue of green and the particle size of the shimmer. Again, I think owning just one would be enough.

Left to right: Pure Ice Over the Top, Orly Glam Rock. Really different in terms of shimmer particle size and Glam Rock is more burnt orange.

The formula on these was ... well, you know, similar to mattes in general. They can be tricky to apply, I highly recommend adding a couple drops of lacquer thinner to improve application if you find that it gets "clumpy" on the nail. I'd also advise doing quick, thin coats taking care to use as few strokes as possible for each coat. I love that there were very unusual shades of matte/suede/velour/what have you polishes, I particularly love Temptress, Grunge, Touch Me Softly and Crushed. At $1.99, these Pure Ice Velours are definitely the most budget friendly matte finish of them all.

I warned you, that post was long, wasn't it? I hope you found all the swatches and comparisons helpful! Which one was your favorite?

Products featured were sent to me as a prize. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.