Pulling Asylum out of my stash this past week reminded me that I'd originally bought it just a couple of months after Tonic polish released their amazing Dryad's Grove in a collab box. I wanted the Tonic very much, but had no interest in the rest of the polishes, and unfortunately that was the case for a whole lot of people - prices quickly soared on the secondhand market. Another month or so later, and Great Lakes Lacquer released O'Rlyeh?, another gorgeous green in the same vein. I also managed to snap up a bottle of Enchanted's Holiday LE from 2014 from a destash. And then last year, Tonic sent another few dozen bottles of Dryad's Grove out into the world as part of a mystery bag sale.
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| indoor, CF lighting |
All swatches go in order of the bottle shots here:
- Index: Glitter Daze Asylum
- Middle: Tonic Dryad's Grove
- Ring: Great Lakes Lacquer O'Rlyeh?
- Pinky: Enchanted Polish Holiday 2014
So right up front: none of these are 100% dupes. But all of them absolutely have a similar "feel" to the point where one or two in your collection will have your bases covered.
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| outdoor, bright sunlight |
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| outdoor, shady daylight |
The above 2 pics best show the difference in the base color. O'Rlyeh? is a far darker and more saturated color than the other three, and was nearly a one-coater. Dryad's Grove has a touch of blue in the deep green, a more pine shade than the others. Holiday 2014 is the most dusty, with a hint of grey.
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| outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight |
The top bottle photo and the above pic also show there's some differences in the degree of holo these four display. Because Asylum has a jelly formula, it shows that particularly sparkling character of linear holo unique to polishes of this type. It's also the only one that needed 3 coats; I'm showing 2 coats of the rest though O'rlyeh? mostly only needed 1. O'Rlyeh?'s opacity also meant that it was the least holo of this batch. Tonic & Enchanted had a similar feel to the holo flame.
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| outdoor, shady daylight |
All four had very, very similar shifts to the duochromatic shimmer, which started at plummy maroon in direct light, then went on to bronze and then green at angles - note both red and green visible across the curve of my nails in all of the above. O'Rlyeh?'s opacity here helped amp the shimmer, like painting a duochrome over a black base, resulting in a look that is much more "true" duochrome than the others - in a lot of lighting, this one appeared smoldering brown with green edges.
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| indoor, bright CF lighting |
As in the bottle shot above, Holiday 2014 is very close in shimmer intensity to O'Rlyeh? - no surprise, since Enchanted made their name in these duochrome holos, and 2013-14 was their heyday for them. Dryad's Grove is less shimmer-heavy, both in the bottle and on the nail, and Asylum's sheerness amps the holo while making the shimmer less intense.
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| outdoor, bright sunlight |
The above shot is the sum of all of these parts when viewed in direct lighting. O'Rlyeh? is darkest, most duochromatic & shimmery, and least holo. Asylum's holo flame is the clearest and most finely textured. Dryad's Grove has a base color most like Asylum, but a linear holo size/amount most like Holiday 2014.
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| outdoor, bright sunlight |
All four polishes shift easily to bronze and then green, with the differences in shimmer intensity resulting in a different total "look" for each one.
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| outdoor, bright sunlight |
Unfortunately, all of these were limited edition polishes. Asylum was a 2017 HHC, Dryad's Grove a 2017 box exclusive, O'Rlyeh? a 2017 PPU, and Holiday 2014 was released only the once as well. I'm not at all sure how available any of them are in destashes, but hopefully this will help you pick if you decide to hunt any of them down.
~Michelle
They are different in their own ways! Lovely :-D
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