Winmax Light Colour #4 and Fantasy Fire comparison

Today I have another polish from the Japanese 100¥ store Daiso: Winmax Light Colour #4. This one is specifically designed to be a topcoat, and it's a stunner: chunky pink-gold-green multichrome shimmer.

The multichrome it reminds me most of is the magical stuff in Max Factor Fantasy Fire, so I swatched 2 coats of each on alternating nails over a few coats of BYS Matte Royal Blue. Here it is from a few different angles:

L-R: Fantasy Fire, #4, Fantasy Fire, #4.

#4's shimmer is a lot more reflective and has larger particles than Fantasy Fire. The multichrome is more pronounced in Fantasy Fire though, especially at the more extreme angles where it hits a solid green, while #4 is still a more golden shade, even though it's a lovely green in the bottle.

#4 is definitely not a Fantasy Fire dupe, but if you can't get your mitts on Fantasy Fire, this is in the ballpark. And at $2.80, it's a steal!

Winmax Delicia #12

For those of you who aren't yet infected with the highly contagious disease that is Japanese 100¥ stores, proceed with caution!

I first discovered these black holes of time and money on a trip to Tokyo. They offer cheap and chic... well, everything - slippers, lunch boxes, umbrellas, costumes, and most relevantly, cosmetics - at a flat rate. Unfortunately, I recently discovered that a late-night branch of Daiso had opened up next to a train station I frequent 3 nights a week. While the standard price of $2.80 is a far cry from the $1.25 that 100¥ works out to be, it's a low enough price that I sometimes catch myself buying stuff just for the lulz, which is not conducive to a student budget. Alas! But the nail polish selection is generally quite interesting, if a bit heavy on the fairy princess with shimmer and iridescence.

This is Winmax Delicia #12. It's a fine iridescent glitter dispersed in a black base, and the least frou-frou in the series. In the bottle it looks amazing, but it's disappointingly sheer, more of a topcoat than anything. The iridescence is amazing though, and layering over a black creme gives a good approximation of how it looks in the bottle, kind of hard to see the shimmer unless you enlarge it:

I'm a little in love with the iridescence, and I'd buy more if the other Delicias weren't shimmery and pastel, and positively sweet Lolita.