Illyrian Dream Hopper + dupe alert

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Well, now that Halloween is over and I'm back at work and those loooong talons I had going on were cutting into gloves at work, I filed back down to everyday length, which is both more practical (no more surprise scratches for my poor partner!) and way less fun (less stamping space, boo!).  Oh well.  But!  Not time at all to abandon fall vampy colors, so when the man picked purple, I reached for Illyrian Dream Hopper.

indoor, CF lighting
A pic like this first one is what made me swoon over Dream Hopper.  It's a luscious eggplant purple filled with an emerald-to-magenta duochrome shimmer.  230/Fantasy Fire-type shimmers are the opposite of this one, which is green head-on and pink in angled light.  Buuuuuuttttt... reality was a whole lot closer to this 2nd pic instead:

indoor, bright CF lighting
Still purple, still a pretty color, but IRL the shimmer is only super prominent and super shifty in just the right light.  I kind of get a surprise "oh that's nice!" a few times through the day, not as a typical thing.  The overly thick formula that laid down less than smooth on the first coat improved a good bit by the 2nd coat after I'd added a generous squirt of thinner.

indoor, window-filtered daylight
The thick application of the first layer meant this showed edgewear pretty quickly, then chipped within 3 days on my dominant hand.

outdoor, full sun
The best part of Dream Hopper is the magenta shift.  When this is glowing warm pink layered over the eggplant creamy base, it's a devastatingly gorgeous color.

outdoor, full sun
Rating:  3 out of 5  stars for this rich purple.

Where to buy:  direct from Illyrian, or from one of her stockists.

~Michelle

EDIT:

When I filed Dream Hopper back on the rack, I finally noticed how similar one of my other untrieds was: Funky Fingers Venom, which is itself a re-bottling of Color Club Portfolio.

indoor, bright CF lighting
Yup, same emerald flare, and yuuuup, it goes right to that magenta flash too.

indoor, bright CF lighting
On the nail, Dream Hopper is far more opaque... which I think ultimately lets the shimmer show through better on Venom.  I'm wearing 3 coats of Venom here (which likely would have been smoother or needed fewer if I'd bothered to use basecoat) on my index and ring fingers; 2 coats of Dream Hopper on my middle and pinky.

L-to-R:  Venom, Dream Hopper, Venom, Dream Hopper
And yup once more, on the nail, the same duochrome flash up to magenta.

Lto-R:  Dream Hopper, Venom, Dream Hopper, Venom
Technically not dupes since the formula isn't identical, but close enough I'm calling them the same.

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