Is LA Colors Jewel Tone a dupe for Models Own Disco Mix?

Disco Mix is probably one of my favourite glitter polishes of all time.  It is nearly always on my toes and it seldom chips.  As a result of this, I am nearly half way through my bottle.  I was planning on buying it again when Models Own had their sale this year but one thing lead to another and I forgot.

Regular readers know that a trip to Westfield with me is never complete without me having a good old staredown with the LA Colors stand in Beauty Base.  On my last trip there, I found Jewel Tone.  This polish immediately caught my eye as it looked very similar to Models Own Disco Mix.

In their bottles, they look similar, the only difference I see is that Disco Mix has more pink in it than Jewel Tone does.  The density with which the glitter is packed in is also something that becomes obvious. I find that you can get total nail covereage with two coats when using Disco Mix but with Jewel Tone, you need about three or four.



If you click on this photo you can really see the difference between the two.  The glitter in Jewel Tone is hexagonal whereas in Disco Mix, it's square.

Disco Mix is a dream to use as it coats the nail equally with the glitter whereas Jewel Tone deposits glitter wherever it wishes.  I think this is probably why it needs more than two coats.  The Models Own brush trumps the LA Colors brush, I had to clean my LA Colors brush before using it because it was just picking up far too much polish.

Jewel Tone does look like it coats the nail better but that blob on the left is where I applied the second coat before the first was dry.  Jewel Tone takes an absolute age to dry which let me down a bit.  

Overall, Jewel Tone is quite similar to Disco Mix and if you have the patience, you could easily use Jewel Tone instead of Disco Mix.  To the untrained eye, they do look very similar.  My cousin couldn't tell the difference..  However, Jewel Tone still works as a brilliant topcoat over black polishes which is where Disco Mix falters which is understandable as it's not sold as a topcoat.

I would understand if Jewel Tone was sold as a topcoat (which Beauty Base put together on the left hand side of the display) but there it was, hamming it up amongst the standard polishes.

Both are glitter polishes and thus are a pain to remove but you can try the tin foil method.

Jewel Tone costs 99p from Beauty Base and Disco Mix is £5 from Models Own, which is available both online and in Boots.  I'm not sure if all the glitters are available in Boots as I can't say I've seen Disco Mix there.