I was looking at some of the colors in my Zoya Flash Collection and deciding what to swatch next, when I thought one color looked very familiar. Sure enough, Jolene is a dupe for Cotton Mouth from Wet n Wild’s Spoiled line. I swatched Cotton Mouth here, earlier this year.

Both are bright, bold, Barbie-pink cremes. Cotton Mouth is $1.99 at CVS Pharmacy (used to be a CVS exclusive; not sure if that’s still true) and Jolene has an SRP of $8.00 but I get most of my Zoyas directly from their web site when they’re on sale. Jolene was $6 because I bought the whole Flash sampler, six polishes for $36.

I liked Cotton Mouth well enough when I swatched it in January, but at the time wasn’t really in the mood for a summery hot pink. It covered well in two coats and was very glossy. Jolene needed three coats for the best coverage and was also extremely glossy. Here it is in indirect outdoor sunlight:

And with the flash:

To really see the colors side by side:

Yep, they’re dupes, all right!

But there was one big difference in the two brands, and that was the brush. All the Spoiled polishes I’ve tried have extremely large and uneven brushes. They are the spatula-style, which I like, but they’re so big that they’re awkward. I feel like I’m holding a paintbrush. I have fairly large hands and nails and don’t see how anyone with tiny nails would manage a Spoiled brush.

Really, the polish itself seems similar although I haven’t done a wear comparison. If the price is your deciding factor, then Cotton Mouth is much cheaper.

If you look closely at the last photo, you may be thinking that the application actually looks better with the Spoiled polish, and I agree. But I remember that I had to take a cotton swab dipped in polish remover and do a fair amount of cleanup with that one. Here are the brushes side by side, the Spoiled brush on the left and the Zoya brush, which is a very typical one, on the right:

It’s HUGE! Let’s look at the Spoiled brush up close:

See how unevenly trimmed it is? I really hate working with brushes like that. This one is so big it’s the Godzilla of nail polish brushes. No, wait, I take that back — since it’s hairy and shaggy it’s the King Kong of brushes.

And with that alarming visual, I’ll say bye for now!