Hey y'all!
Don't you love getting a package from Amazon in the mail? I think it may be one of the top ten simple pleasures in life, for me. Specifically to irritate my hubby, I'm not going to list the other nine.
So anyway, I recently ordered in three shades from the
OPI Fall/Winter 2013 San Francisco Collection. I looked long and hard at the rest of the shades and decided these were the only ones I needed. I ordered
Muir Muir on the Wall,
Peace & Love & OPI, and
Incognito in Sausalito.
Muir Muir on the Wall:
This is a rich, dark chocolate base with plum shimmers that needs two coats for full coverage. The swatches below have no top coat on them, so you can really see how brilliant the shine is naturally. It's a very vampy shade but it may be a bit too early in the season for me to wear something quite so dark. I have a few nail art ideas in mind for this shade, but they'll have to wait until after our Texas trip next month (where several new shinies are waiting for me!).
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| Indoor, natural light |
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| Indirect sunlight, under a bit of cloud cover |
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| Direct sunlight |
Incognito in Sausalito:
This is a deep, inky blue that looks almost black indoors. I got full coverage in only a single coat. When I bought it, I thought it might be the resolution of my quest to find the perfect TARDIS blue, but alas, it's a bit too dark for that. However, I think it'll be a great shading/outlining color to go with that bottle, whenever I find it.
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| Indoor, fluorescent lighting |
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| Direct sunlight |
After I applied it, I thought it would make a great background to a not-black galaxy nail design. I played with it a little bit, not wanting something too much light a galaxy, but with all the elements. I used Barry M Foil Nail Effects in
Gold (
NP320), and Maybelline Express Finish in
Silver Streak (which is totally discontinued, but any silver polish would be a good sub) to sponge on some constellation-y clouds. Then I sponged on
ELF's
Fairy Dust for some sparkle (this shade may be discontinued, but is still available on Amazon for now, as well as in their
14-piece cube). A word of warning: if you sponge on glitter rather than painting, it will give you a HUGE payoff. Be careful with this powerful technique!
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| Indoor, natural light |
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| Direct sunlight |
And here are some closeups of a couple of the individual nails:
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| You can see here the sponge piece I used was too big to make concise galaxies, but I wanted an overall effect. |
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| See that glitter on my skin? The universe is constantly expanding, people. |
Peace & Love & OPI:
This color is HANDS DOWN my favorite. It's a teal/plum duochrome with a metallic finish that just looks like a beautiful foil once applied, which requires two coats. Pictures can't EVEN begin to do it justice. After I swatched the color, I couldn't stand to take it off, so I'm still wearing it. I might even wear it until it starts chipping. I MIGHT EVEN SAVE IT ONCE IT STARTS CHIPPING. I love it
that much.
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| Indoor, natural light |
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| In direct sunlight, the color shift comes alive. |
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| My only problem here is that the teal color won't capture the way the plum does. |
So yeah, I mentioned that I kept wearing it, but you know I wouldn't just wear a straight color, right? I was torn, though, because I didn't want to take anything away from this gorgeous color, so I settled for blinging out an accent finger with some holographic flakies, out of the "candy" side of my Revlon Moon Candy duo in
Milky Way.
Bottom line? Love these polishes. There's a reason OPI is among the top contenders in the nail polish game. They make beautiful shades that apply dreamily and have great wearability. They're also
Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP),
Formaldehyde and
Toluene free
(known as the Big 3), for those who are concerned about toxic chemicals - and shouldn't we all be? If you'd like to know more about "the Big 3", AllLacquredUp has a great
post on the matter.
So what do you think? Are you interested in any other shades from this collection?
