Comparison Thursday: Galaxy Nails in a Bottle

Today's Comparison Thursday is a special one.  It's one of my new absolute favorite polishes plus a polish that is so highly sought after that it's kinda crazy.  I bring to you Comparison Thursday: Galaxy Nails in a Bottle Edition - Picture Polish Cosmos and Essie Starry Starry Night.

Both polishes are a dark deep blue with flecks of glitter that remind you of a night sky.  Essie's Starry Starry Night is a deep navy blue jelly with silver micro glitters.  Picture Polish Cosmos is a deep royal blue jelly with irregular holographic glitters.  Both have such a gorgeous depth, but they aren't actual duplicates.

Here they are together.

The bottle shots will show you a little how they look.

Here they are side by side.

Here they are blurry.  In this shot, you can clearly see that Cosmos has holo glitters whereas SSN has silver.  

Cosmos

Cosmos is a deep royal blue jelly with irregular holographic particles, and is lighter than Starry Starry Night.  The application was amazing, and the color was so ridiculously pigmented.  There wasn't any pooling, the polish flowed smoothly, and it really only needed one coat for opacity.  On my thumb in the photo above, I only have one coat of Cosmos.  The rest of these shots have two coats of Cosmos.  I couldn't accurately capture the sparkle and depth, but it really is something special.  The light catches it at different angles, which produces varying effects.  This has definitely jumped into my favorites list.  The wear is a little lackluster, but I attribute that to wearing Rejuvacote and Seche Vite instead of my normal super-stay combo of Bonder and OPI black label topcoat.  I'll have a proper review of this up next week.  The dry time was quite surprising.  The layers are pretty thin, so it only took a few minutes to dry without a quick dry topcoat.

Starry Starry Night

As you can see from the photos above, Starry Starry Night is significantly darker than Cosmos.  Further, the glitter in SSN are small silver hexes.  This polish is so old that it doesn't even say Essie on the bottle other than on the bottom label.  The smell was a little gross, but I'm not sure if it's the polish or something the salon I bought it from may have added to it.  I found this little gem at a salon nearby and immediately snapped it up despite the fact that it had maybe less than 1/8 left.  I added a bit of thinner, and it was good as new!  I could have probably added a little more thinner, though, as these two coats were the slightest bit goopy.  It also took a little while to dry.  The effect is quite pretty, but I think I like Cosmos better.  The silver isn't overpowering, so there's a nice balance between jelly and glitter.  I haven't worn this on its own yet, but I plan to soon.  I'll have a full review up at that time.

So, there they are!  Starry Starry Night is a deep navy blue with silver glitter, and Cosmos is a deep royal blue with holographic glitters.  While they are different, I think that Cosmos would easily kill any SSN lemming that you may have.  The formula was much easier to work with than SSN, and the color is just so rich.  You can purchase Picture Polish, an Australian brand, at Llarowe, Overall Beauty, and Harlow & Co. If you're looking for SSN, you'll need to scour your local salons to see if someone has a bottle they don't want anymore.

Which is your favorite?  Does Cosmos kill your SSN lemming?