Wanted to give you a heads-up about a sale on Sinful Colors polishes that will be starting tomorrow, July 22nd, at Walgreens. SCs are normally $1.99 each, which is pleasantly inexpensive, but during this sale they will be a steal at 99 cents apiece. Half price. And these aren’t dinky little mini bottles; they are full-size 0.5 oz./15 ml ones.

SC drives me crazy with their displays, though. They often have “new” displays in which only the advertising/backing/holder is new but all the colors are old. Or they will have ten old colors and one brand new one, but none are marked as such. You just have to be a careful shopper.

Here’s my small but growing collection of Sinful Colors:

Left to right: Glass Pink, Unicorn, Nail Junkie, Cinderella, Hottie (supposedly a dupe for OPI’s limited edition Last Friday Night), Fiji, Daddy’s Girl, Winterberry and Mercury Rising

I swatched Cinderella for you here, and showed Unicorn on one finger of my messy Easter Skittles manicure. I thought they were merely OK but am looking forward to trying the other ones.

Winterberry was my latest acquisition, and when I got it home and swatched it on my nail wheel for reference, I was surprised to see how similar it looked to Nimue which was part of last year’s Mirrors Collection from Zoya.

So are they dupes? Is Winterberry just like Nimue for one-fourth the price? Let’s see. Here are the bottles side by side:

I spy similarities! The handles and brushes are different; Winterberry’s are both larger:

Enough superficial stuff — how do they look on real nails? Both polishes had identical application in that the first coat was thin and streaky but the second coat covered well. Both are muted dusty purple with silver, blue, and purple shimmer.

Here I have Nimue on two nails and Winterberry on two nails, two coats of polish with no top coat. Can you tell which is which? Under indirect outdoor light and then with the flash:

I say, “DUPE!” I’ve never seen two different polishes so identical to my eye. Don’t know how the wear time compares, but I do know I’ve been impressed with Zoya’s wear in the past.

Zoya, I love ya, but I say Winterberry is a complete duplicate for much less moolah. This will be a great color for fall, so if you’re interested in Winterberry, try to hit your Walgreens early in the sale. At 99 cents each, I’m sure the popular and trendy colors will fly off the shelves.

P.S. I have Nimue on my pinkie and ring fingers and Winterberry on my middle and index fingers.