OPI San Francisco Collection Swatches

OPI has released 15 colors for Fall 2013, and I was fortunate to have the brand send bottles of all of them for review. I covered the three new Liquid Sand shades during Fall Texture Week; today I've got the other dozen colors. But first I've got one photo to share from my holiday last week. Once again, Mr. Karen and I ventured to our vacation home on Schweitzer Mountain in Idaho. One of the highlights of the trip was a hike up a trail on a nearby peak that neither of us had made it to the top of before. This time the elements cooperated and we were rewarded for our efforts with views like this:



Now it's time to leave thoughts of Idaho behind and move on to thoughts of San Francisco, as that's the locale OPI chose as the focus for their fall collection this year. There are six cremes and six shimmers, split about evenly between cool hues of blue/silver/grey and warm ones of red/rust/brown. It's hard to fit a dozen bottles into one photo, so I didn't even try; we'll just move right along to the swatches, starting with the cooler-toned half of the collection.

Dining Al Frisco is a medium sky blue that leans toward the frost side of the shimmer spectrum. I like the color; I didn't like having to be mindful of keeping my brushstrokes straight.



Direct low light seemed to bring out the frosty-ness of Dining Al Frisco:



Haven't the Foggiest is a pewter metallic. I found it refreshing that this is not just another silver foil, which is what I expected when first glancing at the bottle; it's deeper and more complex than that.





I swatched the two blue cremes together. Keeping Suzi at Bay is a deep royal blue; I accented it with Incognito in Sausalito, a blackened navy.



The cooler tones in the collection are rounded out with Peace & Love & OPI, a charcoal to plum to green multichrome shimmer.





Peace & Love & OPI does exhibit some brushtrokey-ness in low light, but the color shift nicely distracts from that aspect of things (as does the fact that it's not necessary to layer this over black to get the shift to show).



The second part of the collection has colors more traditionally associated with fall, like I Knead Sour-Dough, a deep brownish red shimmer.



I Knead Sour-Dough showed a few more brushstrokes in low light than I'd prefer but I thought the color and shimmer were quite nice nonetheless.



Embarca-Dare Ya is a pinkish red shimmer. This was more interesting on the nail than I'd expected; it leans ever so slightly toward a metallic/foil finish and at some angles shows shimmers of gold and pink.



Here's Embarca-Dare Ya in low light, getting its glow on:



Muir Muir on the Wall is a deep brownish plum shimmer. In the bottle, it looked like there was a greenish gold duochrome shift to it, but I didn't have much luck getting that to show on the nail, though I know it's possible because I've seen other people's photos of it.





Low light shot of Muir Muir on the Wall:



First Date at the Golden Gate, is described in the OPI press materials as a "shimmery ruby". I didn't see any shimmer in this at all; if it's there it's so subtle as to be nonexistent. As far as I'm concerned, this is a red creme. I swatched it with an accent of A-Piers to Be Tan, a caramel brown creme.



Lost on Lombard is a dark red creme. I paired it with an accent of In the Cable Car-Pool Lane, a deep berry creme.



I used two coats of each of these, with the exception of First Date at the Golden Gate and In the Cable Car-Pool Lane, which took three because they seemed just a bit more sheer than the others. I skipped topcoat, as usual when I swatch, though I think a few shades would have really benefited from more shine, like Muir Muir on the Wall.

I did use topcoat when, just for fun, I put on A-Piers to Be Tan and dotted it with most of the other colors in the collection:



I did do some comparisons with these colors, both with shades in other fall 2013 collections and with older OPI colors. I'll share those later this week.

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