Swatchfest: Maybelline Limited Edition Fall 2012 Fashion Week Color Show Nail Color Collection

Continuing my coverage of the Maybelline Limited Edition Fall 2012 Fashion Week Collection (click here for my LE Color Tattoo review and here for swatches of the LE Olive Martini Quad), today I'd like to show you the complete collection of limited edition Color Show Nail Colors. 

I purchased all six of these polishes at Rite Aid last week, but since some of you are having a hard time locating this collection, please note that readers have also spotted the Fashion Week displays at Walgreens and CVS. The problem is, new products don't always show up in drugstores at the same time at all locations, so you might not see these displays for a few weeks (or even a month). My suggestion is to call ahead and ask your CVS/Walgreens/Rite Aid if they have these products on the floor yet. If they say no, then you can always ask them approximately when they plan to put them out. That way you can avoid stalking your local drugstores every day until you spot them.

Maybelline Limited Edition Fall 2012 Fashion Week Color Show Nail Colors

(retail: $3.99 each at Rite Aid, 0.23 oz)

These bottles are about half the size of the old style Maybelline Express Finish nail polishes (0.23 oz vs. 0.5 oz). At Rite Aid they retail for $3.99, so that's a dollar less than the old-style polishes ($4.99). Honestly, if it weren't for the unique colors and dupes, and the fact that these are limited edition, I would have waited to purchase these until Rite Aid ran another 40% off Maybelline sale (they tend to run the 40% off Maybelline sale about once every quarter, it seems). Otherwise, I don't think they're a good value since the bottles are so small and they only decreased the price by one dollar.

That said, I'm extremely impressed with the range of colors and finishes in this limited edition collection. I think that each shade differs vastly from the next, and there's probably at least one or two shades here that will appeal to everyone, regardless of taste.

Metal Icon

Metal Icon is sheer and required three coats for good opacity, but what a lovely taupe-ish silver shade this is. It just screams fall to me, and it makes me want to bust out my boots and turtlenecks. I didn't have any issues with application aside from the sheerness, but if you're not careful you might encounter some visible brush strokes (they're more obvious in the pic below, taken with flash).

 Boho Gold

I don't own Chanel Peridot or OPI I Just Spotted A Lizard (one of the dupes for Chanel Peridot), but you can see reader CM's side-by-side swatches of Boho Gold and I Just Spotted a Lizard to see how close they are (Boho Gold has more bronze). Since I don't own Peridot or any of its dupes, I'm perfectly happy with Boho Gold...I think it's lovely regardless of any similarities to other polishes.

It's sheer though and does require three coats for what you see in these pics, but I find that to be par for the course when it comes to duochromes/multichromes.

At certain angles Boho Gold looks more goldish-bronze, at others it looks more green, and then at other angles the rose-gold comes out to play:

 Pink Cosmo

Pink Cosmo has a weaker duochrome effect than Boho Gold, but it's still a gorgeous polish. Again, this is a three-coater, but I love the flash of pink in this champagne-taupe shimmer (the pink is more visible than what you see  in my pics--my camera doesn't always like to capture duochromes). According to reader CM, Pink Cosmo is a good dupe for China Glaze Swanky Silk.

 

 Avante Green

Avante Green is like the polish equivalent of the Urban Decay eyeshadow Vert. It's such a lovely kelly green with a very faint golden duochrome effect. Love, love, love this one. As with all the others, this is a sheer polish and does require three coats, but it's well worth it (for me, at least). I love that's such a bright, cheery green but it's not quite a full-on Christmas green.

 Downtown Brown

Downtown Brown is not for everyone, but it's definitely for me! I love unusual combos in my polishes, and a chocolate brown creme with teal shimmer is certainly unusual (especially for the drugstore). Think of Downtown Brown as the polish equivalent of MAC Club eyeshadow (and it's the polish equivalent of one of the shades in the Maybelline Fall 2012 Fashion Week Olive Martini Quad as well). If you feel like you've seen this before from Maybelline, don't worry--I thought the same thing and I will show you a comparison a little bit later in this post.

This one required two coats for good opacity (it's not a three-coater. Yay!).

 Auburn Ablaze

At first I thought the formula of this polish was the worst that I have ever come across (thick and dry to the point of being like bubble gum on the brush). But then I realized that I actually purchased a damaged bottle and you can kind of see how wonky the lid looks in the very first picture in this blog post. It veers to the right, as if it were dropped or smashed and thus it doesn't close tightly (how I didn't notice this before I bought it is beyond me). So apologies for my awful swatches--I ran out of polish thinner so this was the best I could do. I'm actually not sure how many coats this polish truly requires, but I used two in these pics.

Thanks to Emi of Project Swatch for the heads-up that this Auburn Ablaze is a very good dupe for Wet n Wild Under Your Spell. Since I own Under Your Spell, I thought I'd show you some side-by-sides:

In the bottle, the shimmer in Wet n Wild Under Your Spell looks more fiery. But on the nail, the differences are much less detectable:

As you can see, the shimmer in Maybelline Auburn Ablaze is pinker, but honestly? If you have one, you probably don't need the other. Under Your Spell is quite sheer though and requires three coats, but again, I don't really know how many coats Auburn Ablaze requires since I got a damaged (dried out) bottle.

And now for one more quick comparison:

 Maybelline Fall 2011 Fashion Week Purple Trend

vs.

Maybelline Fall 2012 Fashion Week  Downtown Brown

Definitely not dupes. In fact, they're not even in the same ballpark. Purple Trend is a deep raisin creme with blue hidden shimmer. Downtown Brown is a chocolate brown creme with prominent teal shimmer. 

I hope this post helps you to determine what might be worth the hunt, and what might be worth skipping when it comes to the nail colors in the Fall 2012 Fashion Week Collection. 

Do you have any favorites here? Do you already own any (or all) of these polishes? I'd love to hear from you!