China Glaze "Man Hunt" vs. OPI "Dating A Royal"

So I have been looking through my collection lately for dupes and for the most part I am happy to report that I don't actually own very many!  But I did find two polishes that look identical in the bottle: China Glaze's "Man Hunt" and OPI's "Dating A Royal".  I decided to swatch both of the polishes and find out for sure if the polishes are dupers or not.  As it turns out they are not completely dupes!  But they are very, very similar.

Here's what I found:

China Glaze's "Man Hunt" is slightly darker and richer than OPI's "Dating A Royal" and "Dating A Royal" has a little more of a green tint to it.  Aside from color I also noticed that OPI's "Dating A Royal" was more watery.  After one coat of nail polish it was easy to tell the polish apart based on how well the nail was covered.  Here's what it looked like:

As I started to apply the second coat of OPI I noticed that with two coats of OPI "Dating A Royal" and one coat of China Glaze "Man Hunt" that all three of my nails looked nearly identical.  I decided to snap a photo of this because to me they actually look like real dupes at this stage:

But of course when I wear nail polish (and most bloggers do the same) I always put on two coats of the colored polish I want to wear.  So I then put on a second coat of China Glaze's "Man Hunt."  From here all three of my  nails looked completely opaque but it becomes clear again which nail polish is which.  OPI's "Dating A Royal" almost could use a third coat to make it look nicer, though two coats does cover the nail, while two coats of China Glaze's "Man Hunt"  covers flawlessly.  The watery formula of "Dating A Royal" makes it very hard to get an even coat of polish on your fingers.  Here's the finished product:

Overall both nail polishes are pretty colors and I adore OPI's "Dating A Royal" because of the name and for the wide brush head which does help put the polish on better.  But I do not like the formula of "Dating A Royal" because it causes streaking.  And on the other hand I love China Glaze's "Man Hunt" for it's formula which is prefect and goes on streak free, but I do not like the skinnier brush head that China Glaze uses because it makes it harder to get polish on your nail without needing to re-dip the brush into the bottle halfway through each nail.

Really in the end the color is similar enough, though they are not identical as China Glaze's "Man Hunt" is more of a true royal blue, while OPI's "Dating A Royal" is lighter and has a hint of green in it.  A normal (non-nail polished obsessed person) does not need to own both polishes.  If I had to pick one I would pick China Glaze's "Man Hunt" because of the formula quality.

Also sorry for not touching up my nails to make them look perfect in the photos but they were taken as I went along.  Usually I save the touch ups for the end, but the best picture of the finished nails was one I took before I touched up my nails!

Happy New Year and thanks for reading my blog!  :)