Swatches and comparisons: Wet n Wild LE Champagne & Toast

Before I show you the swatches of these new limited edition Wet n Wild Wild Shine holiday polishes, I want thank those of you who let me know, through comments, Facebook and Twitter, that the purple polish in this collection, Midnight, is actually a dupe of Wet n Wild Wild Orchid (which apparently has been discontinued). So if you missed out on Wild Orchid, you have another chance with Midnight! Thanks to so many of you for confirming this for me!

If you missed my original post about this new LE Wild Shine holiday collection, please click here for the pics. Note: several colors in this collection appear to be repromotes of existing, core collection shades (with different names) BUT there are also new shades in this collection. I did my best to break it down and show you what's new, so click here if you'd like to see the new shades.

The following colors are both new, in my opinion. Toast looks similar to Metallica, and Champagne looks similar to the WnW Craze shade, Shield, but I hope that my comparison pics will allow you to see the differences.

Wet n Wild Champagne (retail: $0.99)

Is there an "official" name for this popular color that seems to be popping up left and right in this fall's limited edition drugstore displays? We've already seen it in two Sally Hansen LE displays this season, and I keep calling it pewter, but true pewter actually has more gray to it. Not quite gold, not quite silver, and not quite pewter, I'm really at a loss for what to call this color. It's like a taupe-brass-pewter hybrid to me. Anyway, I love it. The above pics were taken after two coats. Full opacity with two coats and no issues with application.

Wet n Wild Toast (retail: $0.99)

In person, this reminds me of Orly Shine from the Foil FX Collection. In my opinion, this is a metallic foil through and through (and much more of a metallic foil than Metallica, which I will show you in a second). Two coats for full opacity, but as with so many metallics, you need to be careful during application and be mindful of your brush stokes. You can see where I got lazy in the photo on the left (my middle finger).

Both of these babies wear like iron! I used Orly Bonder base coat, two coats of polish and Seche Vite top coat in these pics, and after four days, I can really only detect a tiny bit of tip-wear on Champagne (I'm left-handed so that didn't surprise me).

Now I'd like to show you a comparison of Toast/Metallica and Champagne/Shield, so that you can determine whether you think you need to hunt down these shades, or just stick with the core collection colors.

Definitely click on the pics above and below to really see the differences in these shades. I think it's pretty obvious that Toast and Metallica are different finishes, but the differences between Champagne and Shield are a little more subtle.

Looking closely at the above swatches, I think you'll notice that Metallica is more of a frosty, shimmery silver (look at those brush stokes--eek!) while Toast is a true metallic foil. As for Shield, I think it's very similar to Champagne, but I hope you can see that Shield is definitely more on the gold end of the spectrum, while Champagne has a darker, more pewter undertone to it. Also, Shield goes on a little more sheer (the above pics were taken after two coats and it's still a tiny bit streaky) while Champagne required only two coats for full opacity.

I hope this post helps you determine whether your not you think you need to look for these new limited edition Wild Shine polishes in your area. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Disclaimer: Metallic and Shield were given to me by Wet n Wild for previous reviews. I purchased Champagne and Toast with my own funds.