Happy 4th July! - USA Themed Nail Art

Just a quick post to say Happy 4th July all you Americans out there! No time for nail art today as I'm packing boxes but here are some nails I did last year with OPI Cajun Shrimp and an Essie Mesmerize and crystal thumb accent.

4th July Nail Art

Have a lovely time celebrating and I'll be back to update soon.

OPI Euro Centrale Collection

Exciting news from OPI! OPI updated their Facebook page on Thursday with some details of their traditionally destination themed Spring collection. The Spring 2013 collection is Euro Centrale which is inspired by four European Countries: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

Picture from OPI's Facebook page

Colours from top to bottom, left to right are: Suzi's Hungary AGAIN!(coral pink), OY-Another Polish Joke!(gold shimmer), Vant to Bite My Neck? (dark grapey purple), A Woman's Prague-ative (copper shimmer), I Saw...You Saw...We Saw...Warsaw (deep teal), My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours!(hot spicy red), Can't Find My Czechbook (bright turquoise), Polka.com (blue & violet glitter), Hands Off My Kielbasa (bronzey rose-toned tan), OPI...Eurso Euro (bright Yves Kleinesq blue), My Vampire is Buff (light buff nude), You're Such A BudaPest (periwinkle lilac).

OPI Holland Collection - Swatches and Review

I've been somewhat slack recently on posting for one reason and one reason only...the Olympics were in London! I've been glued to my TV firmly clutching my Team GB flag throughout and I’ve also been lucky enough to go to a few events, with appropriately themed nails which I will be doing a post on soon but I've been a bit of a slow coach catching up on my other posts.

Anyway making a tenuous segue to a post on archive polishes today featuring OPI's Holland collection for Spring/Summer 2012. The Holland collection is one of their traditional collections themed around destinations. If you were supporting the Netherlands in the Olympics you were royally spoilt for choice with this collection. They seemed to go with pretty classic (and possibly a smidge stereotypical?) Dutch imagery – it feels very wind and water inspired with nods to windmills, tulips, cheese, canals and errr...Amsterdam nightlife in shade and name selection.

 

OPI Holland - Edited highlights (taken with Instagram)

Overall I really liked the shade selection in this collection but I only picked up four shades ( I Have a Herring Problem, Dutch Ya' Just Love OPI, I Don't give a Rotterdam and Wooden Shoe like to know) which are swatched below the break. I've also added a little bit about what I look for when picking out which shades to get as I'm interested to see how you guys make your choices.

OPI James Bond Collection

OPI updated their Facebook page on Thursday with some details of their Holiday 2012 collection which is a James Bond inspired collection.


OPI James Bond Collection - Picture from OPI Facebook page

 Colours left to right are: The Spy Who Loved Me, Casino Royale, You Only Live Twice, Die Another Day, Skyfall, GoldenEye, The World Is Not Enough, Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Living Daylights, Live And Let Die, Tomorrow Never Dies


Apparently the collection will be available from 1st October in both the US and the UK. I love the idea of a James Bond collection because it makes for great polish names, although why no Goldfinger?? Possibly OPI are avoiding confusion with that one because as James Bond himself says -

 "Auric Goldfinger. Sounds like a French nail varnish"*

*geeky face

This will be the third year OPI have done a movie collaboration as their holiday collection (after Burlesque - 2010 and Muppets - 2011) and it's worth noting they've also done summer collections like Pirates of the Caribbean that were tie ins. I guess it must generate interest from both nail polish and film lover perspectives (of which I am both) but I'm not sure I'd normally buy a polish just because of a film tie in. I am susceptible to having a lemming for a shade when I've actually seen it worn on screen (take a bow Why Don't you love me video, Beyonce and Chanel's Nouvelle Vague!).

Colour wise I'm a bit undecided on these, they are very James Bond friendly - lots of gunmetal grey, red and the unavoidable gold - which is also kind of holiday/Christmas appropriate. Nothing hugely inspiring here though at first glance but I'm always hopeful swatches will show up something more unique. Currently it just feels very much like a rejigged OPI Switzerland collection. I love the fact the Living Daylights is a glitter but if it's another Rainbow Collection dupe I won't be bothering. Tomorrow Never Dies is the standout for me but again doesn't look terribly unique. Funnily enough I think in this case it is the names that will get me buying. I can just see myself wailing along to "Nobody does it better"** whilst painting my nails with "The Spy who Loved Me". So what do you think? Will you be swept away by James Bond this Christmas?

**Second best Bond theme ever, after We have all the time in the World - FACT

UPDATE !

OPI have added an update to their Facebook page with an additional shade "The Man with the Golden Gun" an 18-karat gold leaf top coat that will also be included in the collection in celebration of James Bond’s Golden Anniversary. 

OPI The Man with the Golden Gun - Photo from OPI's Facebook page 

Apparently this is the first time OPI has released this kind of polish. I think it looks great and provided it's cheaper than the Rococo Gold Leaf polish which retails at the princely sum of £35 (Space NK stock it) I may well pick it up. If it's the same or more then I might be frankening my own version with art supplies! No details of the base colour are given but if they are keeping with the James Bond Collection I'm assuming, based on the top photo, that it's Casino Royale maybe at a push Skyfall. I think it'll look great over the non glitter shades in this collection and it's both Christmas and James Bond friendly so I think this is probably a smart move by OPI. Plus it's a special effect polish that is NOT A SHATTER!! Well played OPI, well played....

OPI Reflecting Pool



OPI Reflecting Pool



Japan/UK Exclusive from the Reflection Glitters Collection (circa 2009 ish). Weirdly this was the first OPI I ever owned, found in a random chemist in a dusty corner all on its own. 

It’s one of my favourite OPIs, perfect smooth formula with icy teal-blue teeny micro glitter and larger gold micro glitter.This was two coats, it's not opaque at one but builds nicely.

It’s a great winter colour rather than the classic vampy dark shades, feels like the kind of thing the White Witch from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe would wear. It was a limited edition but has a famous dupe in Zoya Crystal so you can get that if you can’t find this one.

OPI Alice in Wonderland Collection

These were released way back in Spring 2010 but I'm slogging through all of my swatches trying to get them loaded up here rather than dotted around different blog platforms. These are the first of a series of archive posts trying to clear my backlog.

OPI's Alice in Wonderland Collection was released in conjunction with Tim Burton's film of the same name. There were four polishes but the ones I'm going to show you here are the glitters from the collection. There were two others - "Thanks so muchness!" a red shimmer and "Off with her red!" a tomato red creme - but I already had very similar ones in my stash so I passed on those.



OPI Mad as a Hatter



First up is Mad as a Hatter which is a silver based multicolour glitter. This was the first glitter polish I had that gave full coverage without needing a base colour. It has a medium silver glitter base with extra silver micro glitter and pretty much every other colour of medium sized glitter you could want. The best count I've been able to do has found pink, purple, green, turquoise, gold and orange, the close up swatch below gives you a better idea of just how many colours are in there.



OPI Absolutely Alice Close Up



It's still one of the best glitters I have in my collection, these pictures really can't capture just how sparkly it is. There are still a few bottles floating round out there so if you do manage to find one grab it while you can.



OPI Absolutely Alice



Absolutely Alice is another full coverage glitter, this time turquoise medium sized glitter with a scattering of gold. I've always assumed they used the traditional Disney interpretation of Alice as the inspiration for this shade with the bright blue of her dress and the yellow gold to represent her hair? Either way it's great, very sparkly and good coverage.

Some notes about the formula on these, they are pretty thick so you need to be careful during application so they don't clump and drag. They also chip pretty quickly if you don't use a heavy duty top coat so make sure you double up. Removing them is also a bit of a nightmare, as is often the case with glitters so you can either go the cotton wool soaked with acetone and covered with tinfoil route or just be prepared to go through a LOT of standard remover and have impressively sparkly cuticles. They do also lift off in one complete piece if you happen to be someone who picks at nail varnish but obviously none of you do that...right?....

Disclosure: This polish was bought with my own money