Spectraflair top coat vs Spectrafrankens

First up, this post has lots of pictures, but that's a good thing, right? 

The aim of today's post is to show you polishes in their natural state, then with a spectraflair top coat added, then compared to a similar spectrafranken, where the spectraflair is mixed in with the colour to create a new polish.

A few months back I saw some swatches of Spectraflair top coats and they never really impressed me.  I don't know if it's because they had too much spectraflair in them, but to me they seemed to hide the base colour too much.  Even if it was a really rich strong colour, it was dulled out with silver so that it looked pastel.  So one thing I was really conscious of was not adding too much spectraflair to my top coat. 

Because of that, I had never bothered with a spectraflair top coat and had always made full spectrafrankens where I mixed the spectraflair with the polish colour to create a full new polish.  I will save my verdict on Spectraflair top coats until the end of the post, in the mean time, you make up your own mind.

For my top coat, I mixed three tiny straw scoops about the size of a grain of rice, in a 5 ml bottle and filled it to about 3/4 full with Seche Vite top coat.  I figured I may as well use a decent top coat, as it was only going to be used as a top coat after all.

For the first comparison I started with Kleancolor Metallic Purple.  This is one coat in the sun, no top coat.

Same polish, in the shade (freaking awesome on it's own isn't it!)

Back in the sun, with one coat of my Spectraflair top coat applied to the index and ring fingers. One coat of regular SV top coat applied to the middle and pinky.

Same polishes, different angle.

Same again, in the shade.  Here you can see the silver speckles over the index and ring fingers.  I was very happy how this looked, because the colour barely dulled at all (it appeared my top coat was mixed at about the right saturation).

Then I removed the Metallic purple from my middle and pinky finger and applied the franken polish that I had created, using Metallic Purple, which I called "Not so original".   Clearly my franken had lots more clear in it, and it was never going to reach the same deep purple colour as the original Metallic purple.

Same as above, but in the shade.

And again, at a different angle.

Next it tried it with Kleancolor Metallic Aqua.  Here is Metallic Aqua on its own.

On it's own in the shade (again, another freaking amazing polish from Kleancolor).

With my Spectraflair top coat applied to the index and ring finger.

Then I removed Metallic Aqua from my index and pinky and applied Aquamum, my spectrafranken, to those fingers.

Different angle.

 

And another angle.

Same, but this time in the shade.  You really can't tell the difference between the Aquamum and the ones using the top coat.

Final test over red.  This is Ulta3 Fire Truck.

Spectraflair top coat applied to index and ring fingers.

Same shown in the shade.

Removed Fire Truck from Index and ring fingers and applied Houzii's Armour.  Houzii's Armour, is based off Fire Truck, but it also has other colours in it too.  It is actually more of a pinky red and has a metallic sheen too.

Up close of Houzii's Armour on the left and Fire Truck with Spectraflair top coat on the right.

So there you have it.  Three totally different polish comparisons showing Spectraflair top coats and full spectrafranken polishes.

Over the purple, I loved it, but I think I preferred the holo effect in my franken.  I'm not sure if it's because the colours of the top coat got lost in the dark purple or what.  

Over the aqua, the Spectraflair top coat was great, I think I preferred just the top coat over the polish than my spectrafranken.

Over the red, the Spectraflair top coat was great in the sun, but looked a little silvery and washed out in the shade. But, it's so hard to get a red, red holo, that maybe the holo top coat is the way to go?

So my verdict. Spectraflair top coats are the bomb!  

Seriously, if you have spectraflair you have to make one.  BUT don't add too much, cause you don't want to end up with something that is so silver it makes every polish a pastel.  You can always do a second coat of top coat, but if you've added too much all you can do is split it into two bottles and dilute!