OPI Mariah Carey Collection, Part 1

OPI's musical artist collaboration for this spring is with Mariah Carey, and it's got more polishes than either the Katy Perry (4 polishes plus a Shatter) or Nicky Minaj collections from the past two years (5 polishes plus a Shatter). This collection is four polishes plus four Liquid Sand shades. The Liquid Sand ones seem to be getting the most attention, which makes sense since they have the more novel finish. To give the more "normal" half of the collection its due, I'm featuring just those polishes today and will have the Liquid Sand ones tomorrow.



A Butterfly Moment is a dusty peach shimmer which leans both slightly pink and slightly frosty. I was surprised at how well this blended with my skintone; in the bottle, it looked like it'd be too warm toned, but on the nail it was almost mannequin hands for me. I was also surprised at how opaque it was—these swatches are only two coats, which is great for a light color like this.





There's a golden glow to the shimmer; here it is in low light:



Sprung is a coppery flecked shimmer that leans toward being a metallic finish. This one needed three coats to be opaque.





The shimmer in Sprung is quite pretty; it's got pops of pink and gold and orange. It's very glowy in low light (below).



Anti-Bleak is a plum creme. Swatches are two coats, no topcoat. It's a fine color, a bit brighter than Casino Royale from OPI's Skyfall collection, but I'm already overstocked in this sort of hue.



Pink Yet Lavender rounds out this half of the collection. It's a mix of medium to large rose pink hex glitter and small lilac and holo glitter in a clear base.



Pink Yet Lavender looks quite nice over Anti-Bleak. I used two coats of the glitter and skipped topcoat for these swatches because it didn't really seem to need it.





I love all the colors popping off the holo glitter particles in this one.



Here's one coat of Pink Yet Lavender over A Butterfly Moment:





Pink Yet Lavender looks good over Sprung, too. I went back to two coats of it for these swatches because my default setting is "more glitter".







There's a nice variety in finishes in this half of the collection, and I think it's great that the glitter works with all of the other polishes. My top two here are Sprung and Pink Yet Lavender. I'm also oddly intrigued by A Butterfly Moment; maybe it's nostalgia for my younger days when I felt I had to wear quiet polishes to fit in at the office.

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider.

Wheels C4, O5, and F6: Pink to Red Cremes

Today for Nail Wheel Wednesday I've got three wheels of pink and red cremes. The first one is mostly the polishes that were leftover after I'd been through all the rest of my pink and red cremes (see wheels G, L, M, D1 & E1, F1, G1, H1, and K1) and the other two are polishes that made their way into my stash despite the no buy I put myself on for pinks and reds. Some I legitimately did not buy—they came in swaps, some even as extras—but others were clear violations of the no buy, all of which I had good reasons (well, reasons) for at the time. I can pretty much look at the bottles and remember why I bought them—didn't have that brand or bottle style in my collection, might as well complete the collection for a limited edition release, great clearance price.



(all three coats, no topcoat, except as noted below)

1. Sally Hansen New Lengths Sheer French Pink
2. Sally Hansen French Manicure unlabeled mini
3. Sally Hansen Beyond Perfect unlabeled mini
4. Maybelline Express Finish Barely Pink
5. Borghese Bambina Pink
6. Revlon Colorstay Absolute Bliss
7. OPI Step Right Up
8. Sephora by OPI unlabled mini, possibly The Way Tutu His Heart
9. Maybelline Express Finish Purplink
10. Sally Hansen Insta Dri Petal Pusher
11. China Glaze Innocence
12. Revlon Just Tinted Victorian
13. Revlin Just Tinted Desire
14. Carolyn New York The Bronx (2 coats)
15. Evelin Color Show Poppy
16. Revlon Just Tinted Mystical
17. Forever 21 Red
18. Artmatic Fast Dri Red Satin Cream
19. Boots 17 Knockout Red (2)
20. Maybelline Great Finish Red Caviar

Bottles 1 through 5:


6 through 10:


11 through 15:


15 through 20:




1. Aziza Wedding Bells (4 coats)
2. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Crinoline (4)
3. L'Oreal Raven's Dream (4)
4. Ulta Encore Pink (3)
5. Color Club Yum Gum (3)
6. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Ballet Rogues (2)
7. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Courtesan (2)
8. L'Oreal Amazon's Flare (3)
9. Color Club Raspberry Rush (3)
10. Milani Fast Fuchsia (2)
11. Borghese Rapido Maraschino (2)
12. Borghese Che Bella Red (2)
13. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Madame X (2)
14. L'Oreal Bijou Gems B. Bold (2)
15. OPI Red-y for the Cure (2)
16. Borghese Rapido Rosso (2)
17. Essie Size Matters (2)
18. L'Oreal Owl's Nest (2)
19. Petites Blackberry (3) [oops, this appears to have a very subtle shimmer that I didn't notice until it was on the wheel]
20. Deborah Lippmann Just Walk Away Renee (3)

Bottles 1 through 5:


6 through 10:


11 through 15:


15 through 20:




1. Pacific UK unknown (3 coats)
2. Barry M Flamingo Pink (2)
3. Barry M Buzz (2)
4. Accessorize unlabeled mini (3)
5. Essie Mod Square (3)
6. Sephora by OPI Diva in Training (2)
7. Accessorize unlabled mini (2)
8. Revlon Cherries in the Snow (2)
9. Barry M Fabulous (2)
10. Ma Cherie unknown (2)
11. Accessorize unlabeled mini (2)
12. China Glaze Velvet Bow (2)
13. Nails Inc. Chelsea (2)
14. China Glaze Poinsettia (2)
15. China Glaze Winter Berry (2)
16. Cosmetic Arts unknown (2)
17. MNY 349 (3)
18. Orly Grave Mistake (2)
19. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Oxblood (1)
20. L'Oreal Pink Carat (2)

Bottles 1 through 3:


4 through 8:


9 through 13:


14 and 15:


16 through 20:


Stocking up for whatever reason was all fine and well when I had room in my Helmers, but now they're full so I'm really going to need to better define the mission statement for this nail polish museum I'm running and figure out how to prune the permanent collection.

Elle Imperial Purple and Saturday Night Shimmer

Back before Christmas, I included the Elle nail polish at Kohl's in my display post and said I was waiting to buy some until I could get the price down from $10. Sometime after that, I got a good coupon so picked up some. I've got two today: Imperial Purple and Saturday Night Shimmer.



I chose Imperial Purple because of the coppery highlights I could see in the shimmer.



On the nail, the copper wasn't immediately visible; it just looked like a plummy wine color (not what I call purple, exactly).



At an angle, though, the copper did show up, turning the plummy wine deeper and richer. It's like a really, really subtle duochrome, and I like it a lot.





I also like the glow Imperial Purple has in low light:



Saturday Night Shimmer is a dusty mauve with a purple flash in the shimmer, along the lines of Essie Demure Vixen. I'm not sure what this has to do with Saturday night—it seems quite office approriate, even for a conservative workplace. Saturday night is much more flashy in my head (not in my reality, though; many times that's when Mr. Karen and I do our grocery shopping since the store is never crowded).







The purple flash in the shimmer is on the shy side, but it does show up more in low light.



I had no issues with application. Imperial Purple was two coats and Saturday Night Shimmer was three (no topcoat on either). I don't think I'd pay full price, but on sale and/or with a coupon I can see myself getting more colors.

*****
UPDATE 07-Mar-2013: You can see all the colors on the Kohl's Elle page.

Recent NOTD: Sally Hansen Salon Effects Snow Way

I did my posts last week from Idaho, where Mr. Karen and I were once again skiing at our home away from home on Schweitzer Mountain. The morning we left, I quick put on some wintery strips from Sally Hansen, blue snowflakes and dots on a pearly white background called Snow Way. These were part of the limited edition display that came out this past Christmas.







For the first part of our ski week, there was sun on the mountain but a thick layer of clouds in the valley; the tops of nearby peaks looked like islands floating in a sea of white.



All the clouds around made for some really pretty sunrises.



Our last day, it was snowing at the top of the mountain, but nearly raining at the base, which meant I got rather wetter than is ideal on a ski day, but it was still fun.



The strips held up pretty well, even though I had put a treatment coat on underneath, which in the past has seemed to interfere with them sticking securely. Here they are on day six when I stopped to take a break at the lodge:



I didn't end up having time to take them off before I came back to work today, which would have been fine if my nemesis Mr. Peelies hadn't ruined the tips of the strips on my index and middle fingers. Since I had that treatment base on under the strips, I was able to just peel the rest of them off, which looked somewhat better than having just part of strip on those nails, but still weird. As I often have done when I'm desperate for a quick change, I turned to crack. A coat of China Glaze Platinum Pieces, put on at stoplights on my drive to work, blended the bare nails with the rest.



I am really hoping to get home early enough tonight to be able to fit in a proper polish change, but given that I've got a lot of catching up to do at work from being gone, this look might have to hang on a couple more days.