Because so many brands have been releasing taupes & smokey mauves recently (OPI's Brazil collection, Zoya's Naturel collection _{(in fact, we'll be looking at a few of those polishes)}, and Orly's Blush collection come to mind.), I was inspired to do a mega-comparison of some of the "dusty" purple taupes & mauves in my stash!

Also, I think every nail polish enthusiast goes through a taupe phase at some point, so you can see that I've accumulated quite a few! This comparison will focus only on cremes, and I've pulled as many as I could that are very similar- at least in the bottle.

The contenders:



As you can see above, the shades form a bit of a spectrum, so we'll be looking at them in three separate groupings, which I think will make the most sense. 

The first group- the true smokey purple taupes!


left to right: Orly- Country Club Khaki, Formula X for Sephora- Perfection, Revlon- Stormy, Nicka K- Classic Taupe, Illamasqua- Stagnate, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure- Commander In Chic, Zoya- Normani, Misa- Coffee Pick Me Up

Now, the swatches aren't in the same sequence as the bottles, since some of them look slightly different in/out of the bottle, hence the labeling.  I tried to present them in some kind of color order, but the camera did reveal minute differences which were hard to observe with the naked eye!

Indoor, artificial light:



It is easy to tell right away that Orly- Country Club Khaki is an outlier, being much, much lighter than the rest of this group.

The three in the middle- Zoya- Normani, Sally Hansen CSM- Commander In Chic, and Formula X for Sephora- Perfection- may as well be dupes.  It is near impossible to tell them apart in person, although in photos I think that Commander In Chic is slightly more brown/ less purple than the other two. Perfection and Normani are perfect duplicates, I think!

Illamasqua- Stagnate and Nicka K- Classic Taupe _{(from an Ipsy bag, actually seems very high quality/ nice formula, ect.)} are both browner than the rest (although not dupes themselves), and Revlon- Stormy is much greyer once it's out of the bottle.  Misa- Coffee Pick Me Up is surprisingly the most purple-leaning here!

Outside, shade:


A lot of those look incredibly similar in most lighting!

Next, here are the three most purple-saturated hues. Next to all the others in this comparison, these look like three crazy outliers, but if you put any of them next to a real purple, you would see that they're super faded with a taupey(?), greyed-out quality:


left to right: Misa- Fashionista, Zoya- Odette, Illamasqua- Velocity

Indoor, artificial light:


I thought Illamasqua- Velocity and Zoya- Odette were going to be much more similar than they actually are, just looking at the bottles! But, you can see that Velocity leans cool in comparison to Odette.  Misa- Fashionista is like a much lighter version of Odette.

Outside, shade:

(I accidentally bungled up the order above! It was really windy, and my little backdrop and swatch sticks were flying all over the place!)




Last, here are the warmer-toned mauvey colors. I wouldn't necessarily call them taupe, especially at the far end of the spectrum, but they all do have a dusty faded [warm] plum/nude aspect:


left to right: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure- Plum's The Word, Essie- Island Hopping, Zoya- Brigitte, Illamasqua- Jan, Zoya- Rue, Barielle- Belly Dance, China Glaze- Dress Me Up, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure- Mudslide

These mostly are in bottle sequence, aside from the two on the far right...

Indoor, artificial light:


No exact dupes here either! Illamasqua- Jan immediately stands out as the most pink, and Sally Hansen CSM- Plum's The Word is clearly much darker than all of the others, although it and Essie- Island Hopping look extremely similar in the bottle. Island Hopping and Zoya- Brigitte are close, like I've mentioned before, but Brigitte has a lighter color value.

Next to Barielle- Belly Dance,  Brigitte (which has a similar value) is slightly pinker. China Glaze- Dress Me Up, the popular mauvey-nude from the Hunger Games collection, is the darker version of Belly Dance.  It's value is similar to Brigitte, but it is much warmer-toned.

Sally Hansen CSM- Mudslide is kind of its own beast here: it's much more of a traditional nude than any of the others.


Outside, shade:

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And, that's it folks! I really thought I was going to find more duplicates or at least near-misses! I do have some smokey taupes to sort through.

I'll probably add the Nicka K one to my list since I've never used it _{(but oh god, the bottle is pretty!)}, and I'm not sure whether I'll keep the Formula X for Sephora- Perfection mini, either (also not used).  Zoya- Normani and Sally Hansen CSM- Commander in Chic (THE polish that got me into polish!!!) are almost exact dupes, but I don't think I can bear to part with either.

I would love to know what you think of this sort of color family mega-comparison! Is it OK that it's done with swatch sticks?  With so many colors, I think that's just the most efficient way to go about it. If this goes over well, I will be adding more color families in the future!