OPI Brazil Collection Part One, The Hot Hues, Swatches and Comparisons

OPI kindly sent all twelve shades in the Brazil collection for Spring 2014 for me to review (plus the four mini Liquid Sand colors). That's a lot of colors, especially when I want to do some comparisons, which I most certainly do, so I'm going to split up my coverage of the collection into three posts. Today I've got six hues from the warm side of the color wheel: I Just Can't Cope-acabana, Where Did Suzi's Man-go, Toucan Do It If You Try, Live Love Carnaval, Kiss Me I'm Brazilian, and Red Hot Rio.



Perhaps because I still have my Valentine's Day decorations up in my office and have pink and red together on my brain, I combined Kiss Me I'm Brazilian, the warm pink creme, with an accent nail of Red Hot Rio, the red creme. Kiss Me I'm Brazilian was very pigmented and opaque; I used two coats but with a good base and top coat, I think it might even be fine with one (my swatches as per usual lack topcoat). In contrast, Red Hot Rio had a thinner, less pigmented formula, with a bit of a squishy crelly look to it. I used three coats of it to get the opacity I wanted.





The other four cremes in this group seemed to want to be together, so I swatched them that way. Starting at the top, it's the yellow Just Can't Cope-acabana, then the yellow-leaning orange Where Did Suzi's Man-go, the soft coral Toucan Do It If You Try, and the vibrant coral Live Love Carnaval. All of these had a formula similar to Kiss Me I'm Brazilian and needed only two coats for full coverage, even the yellow, which was pleasant surprise given how finicky yellows can be.





This quartet was fun on its own, but I wanted to amp it up even more so turned to my trusty dotting tools. On each color, I did dots of the other three hues in diagonal rows. Toucan and Carnaval are similar enough to each other that they blend more than I'd like for this particular look, but I still thought it looked quite festive. I did use topcoat at this point, to help the dots blend into an overall look rather than just sitting there as individual entities. The shiny-ness did give my camera some issues with glare but to the naked eye it looked fine.







I promised comparisons, and comparisons there shall be, starting with yellows. I am not overly endowed in the yellow creme area, so one subtle shimmer joined the party. Left to right below: Sally Hansen Insta Dri Glow With It (from Spring 2014 limited edition release), OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana, Barry M Lemon Ice Cream, Milani Hi Speed Fast Dry Yellow Whiz.



Shown in the same order on the nail below. Glow With It is the shimmer, though you really can't tell unless you're way too close or the light is really bright. The Barry M is the only one that took three coats; the others were two. The Barry M is a slightly less intense, more lemony color. I think Yellow Whiz wins this group, at least for U.S. based folks, as it's core and reasonably priced and has an amusing name (that's fast and easy to type, as well).



Where Did Suzi's Man-go reminded me of Sally Hansen Insta Dri Dreamsicle (another Spring 2014 LE), so I put those side by side, and one of the new Gold Label Milani colors, Colorful Coral, seemed like it might be a good match for Toucan Do It If You Try. Left to right below: Sally Hansen Dreamsicle, OPI Where Did Suzi's Man-go, OPI Toucan Do It If You Try, Milani Colorful Coral. Neither of these pairs are dupes. Dreamsicle is more yellow than Man-go (and less flattering on me). Colorful Coral is a touch more pink than Toucan.



In the vibrant coral/red orange arena, I had two possible matches for Live Love Carnaval in the scrum of bottles in the process of making their way through my swatching queue. Left to right below: Nicole by OPI Some Hearts (Carrie Underwood collection), OPI Live Love Carnaval, Barielle Fifth Avenue Boutique (from the New York Style box set, which I'll be reviewing of soonish). No dupes here, either. Carnaval is more orange than either of the other two (and Fifth Avenue is brighter than Some Hearts).



Surely I could find a dupe for Kiss Me I'm Brazilian. It's pink, and I have many many pinks. I didn't even have to go into my Helmers to find likely candidates; I just pulled from my recently swatched and soon to be swatched piles and found two Milanis and a Nicole by OPI. Left to right: Milani Popping Pink, OPI Kiss Me I'm Brazilian, Nicole by OPI Color Me Country, Milani Splendid Strawberry.



Same order on the nail below. Popping Pink is a pretty good match for Brazilian; the other two are a touch too orange-leaning (Splendid Strawberry more so than Color Me Country).



That Barielle New York Style box set I mentioned above also had a red creme in it, Big Apple Red, so grabbed that, along with the very subtly shimmery Nicole by OPI American As Apple Pie, to compare to OPI Red Hot Rio. Left to right below: Barielle, NOPI, OPI. The Barielle is the coolest toned of the three. Despite the shimmer, the Nicole by OPI actually looks a lot like the OPI, maybe a touch less warm.



So there you have it, the hot hues from OPI Brazil. My favorite of this group is Where Did Suzi's Man-go; it's bright yet also soft, a happy pretty color and not a shade we see all the time.

If you've got an opinion on bottle shots for comparisons, let me know in the comments. I usually take at least a casual bottle shot when I do comparisons (like for the pinks), so if I lose my notebook I will at least know which polishes I used, but I don't know if seeing those is interesting and/or helpful to anyone other than me.

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