Revlon Carbonite and Chanel Graphite comparison

So the trend now seems to be Chanel comes out with the season's new IT color, and then Revlon releases their dupe about a month later. First, we had Perplex, which was a pretty good dupe of my all-time favorite Chanel polish, Paradoxal. Next came Black With Envy, which was supposed to be a dupe of Chanel's Black Pearl, but from the pictures I saw, didn't capture the green tones in the polish. This time around, Revlon comes out with their dupe to Chanel's Graphite called Carbonite.

No, not that carbonite, fellow geeks!

In the bottle, they look very similar. Right away you can see that the particles in Graphite are slightly larger and reflect more gold and green than does Carbonite. Besides that, the base color is strikingly similar.

On the nail, they still look similar. You can still see the slightly bigger particles in Graphite, and Graphite seems to reflect a little bit more. The formulas are very different, though. Graphite applied beautifully and had full opaque coverage in two even coats. Carbonite also had full opaque coverage in two coats, however the formula was quite thicker and took longer to dry. It also dried a tiny bit bumpier than did Graphite.

However, having said all of that, the colors are very, very similar. Close enough to be deemed a dupe. Also close enough that if you love the color of Graphite but don't want to spend $25 on it, Carbonite will satisfy your lemming at a fraction of the price.