Catrice - Genius in the Bottle Review

I bought this polish because I saw so many swatches of it and got curious. After all, what's a polish collection without at least one Peridot Dupe? I did not actually expect to like it, gold is normally really not my colour... as it is, I ended up absolutely loving it and couldn't stop staring at my nails. Even my Mum, who normally only rolls her eyes at my recent polish obsession complimented it.

So here it is: the latest drugstore attempt at a dupe* for Peridot: Genius in the Bottle by Catrice.
All pictures taken in daylight, the last two in broad sunlight.

This is three coats. The base gold colour is quite dark and warm, but it's not as overpowering as I expected it and the green really is visible pretty much all the time, unless you put your nails right in front of a light source, and it offsets the warm gold quite well.

* For comparisons with Chanel's polish and two other similar ones see this great post by the Swatchaholic!

Price & availability: 2,49 € everywhere that sells Catrice polishes. I got mine either at IhrPlatz or Karstadt, I don't remember which.

Formula & application: Catrice updated their brush and unlike some other bloggers, I didn't have any problems with the new flat, wide brush. I was able to apply the (very nice) formula cleanly and precisely on all nails. What I did have problems with, was the width of the bottle neck, funnily enough. It hasn't been changed to suit the new brush and every time I dipped that in, I smeared polish all over the rim of the bottle. And we all know how annoying dirty polish bottles rims are... But that's a minor quibble. On the whole, the formula is great and the polish is opaque in two coats. I felt three made the result more striking, but really, that was probably just my imagination. There were some brush strokes, but not too pronounced.

Wear & tear:  lasted about three days with only some little tipwear. I think it could have lasted longer, but I put a matte coat over it (gorgeous results, btw, highly recommend trying that!) and I think that was just too many layers and I was able to pull it off the nail after a few hours.

In the end, I'm very pleased with having bought it and had I just a wee bit more money, I'd be very tempted by the real thing, aka Péridot. The cooler gold tone would probably suit me even better. As it is... I'm not yet so far gone that I'm willing to put 23 € on the table for a nail polish. Yet...

I am however, rather temped by two Artdeco polishes from the new Magic Shine collection. (Preview + some swatches on Dani's blog) that seem to hail from the same colour family. I actually found them in Kaufhof today but I had already paid and didn't feel like going back to the checkout.