A gorgeous feature of JINsoon Auspicious from Messy Wands prompted me to order some JINsoon shades sight unseen from Sephora. In October, I featured JINsoon Coquette, a gorgeous sheer jelly red. Since then, I’ve had a few months to play with some more of the JINsoon nail lacquers that I ordered online from Sephora.com. They retail for $18 each and come with a black pull-off cap. (I’ve photographed them without the caps.) The past few months Sephora has had some amazing promotional codes for various discounts and gift-with-purchase sample packs. I found the offers hard to resist and I ended up ordering 9 different shades: Nostalgia, Auspicious, Debonair, Rhapsody, Charade, Metaphor, Coquette, Audacity and Risque. This is a preliminary review/swatch post with a few comparisons (scroll down to the end). Actual finger swatches to come in a separate post soon.
I found the bottle swatches online to be very true to the actual product. All the shades are creams (no shimmer). The pigment varies from a jelly finish to a full-coverage cream. Sheerer shades like Auspicious, Debonair and Coquette require three coats for full even coverage. The others are good with two coats. I found lasting power to be quite good with around 4-5 days without tip wear or chipping.
- Nostalgia is a pretty full-coverage peachy nude with a tinge of pink
- Auspicious is a lovely gray-lavendar with a jelly-transparent finish (3 coater)
- Debonair is a sharp purple cream with a semi-jelly (3 coats needed)
- Rhapsody is a dark navy blue, semi-sheer finish (2 coats needed)
- Charade is a full-coverage gorgeous green teal
- Metaphor is a dark forest green with full coverage
- Audacity is a sheer aubergine
- Risque is a sheer vampy color with a jelly finish
- Coquette is a bright sheer red
Swatches below are with three coats:
The colors look like basic creams. For the most part I think these are very likely dupeable. I searched through my Chanel, Dior and RBLs to see what I could find. Half the shades are unique while the other half are very close to existing colors. I pulled one shade to compare to each of the JINsoon polishes I bought. Thoughts:
- Nostalgia is more neutral than Chanel Inattendu but has enough pink to not look like death
- Auspicious is darker and more lavendar than most greys, it’s darker than Chanel Frenzy
- Debonair is a unique dark purple (at least in my stash), it’s dark but not so dark it looks black
- Rhapsody is very similar to other navys like Dior Blue Rebel
- Charade is a gorgeous teal green, I found this quite unique, it’s very wearable for a green
- Metaphor is a dark forest green cream, I don’t have a lot of greens to compare
- Coquette is warmer than Chanel Pirate
- Audacity is very similar to other vampy shades, it’s a sheerer version of RBL Moulin Rouge (very close)
- Risque is a dark vamp, it’s darker than Chanel Rouge Noir
Overall I’ve found that the JINsoon nail polishes have performed well. The shades are flattering on my skin and are good classic shades. For me they were worth the price I paid (about $14-$16ish for each shade from using a 10% discount or 20% discount code for VIB). Some of the shades have a jelly finish which require more coats unfortunately, but the good thing is that these dry relatively fast. Some might ask how the JINsoon compare to my other favorite brands. Long time readers know that I’m a die-hard Chanel, Dior and Rescue Beauty Lounge nail polish fan. My heart still belongs to those brands for color/pigment even though they are higher in price. I would say that JINsoon performs similar to NARS/Dolce & Gabbana, better than Sephora for OPI, but not quite as good as RBL, Chanel or Dior (at least in my experience).
Have you tried any of the JINsoon nail polishes? Thoughts?
