OPI early 2012: Nicki Minaj and the Holland Collections

Hi people!

What's the buzz on 2012?

Well, the Olympics are coming here, to London, it's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, it's my quarter-of-a-century birthday year, and all the nail companies are gonna be releasing some new and doubtless exciting shades for us nailphiles to feast our eyes on!

Start celebrating, it's gonna be a great year!

Ok, so OPI have recently announced that they're collaborating with Nicki Minaj... Expect some crazy colours here and some even crazier lacquer layering combos!

Nicki Minaj for OPI

...And a close up of the shades:

...Ooooh, shiny!

What do you think, good, bad or indifferent!?

Personally, I must admit that on first impressions, I'm not exactly going crazy for this collection... Still, OPI's Spring release is looking quite interesting to me.

We're taking a trip to the lovely land of tulips, bicycles and clogs this year. We've already been to the US, Spain, Australia, India, France and many more so it was about time!
Actually, now that's just got me to thinking where OPI should go next.... on that wishful note, here are my Top 5 OPI 'Holiday' requests, in no particular order:

*South Africa (Rainbow shades to represent the Rainbow Nation)

*Cuba (Dusty 1950s-esque shades-very unique and cool)

*Morocco (Amazing jewel shades here!)

*China (The red shades would be plentiful and amazing, for sure!)

*Brazil (Can you even imagine the Carnival related glitters!? Aaaaahhhh!!! I may be experiencing heart palpitations!!!)

Anyways, back to Holland now. Here is the collection:

OPI Holland

There sure is something for everyone in this collection! ...Having said that... Blimey! Not a true red shade in sight! I can't work out whether this is a good or a bad thing... I mean, I do love a red nail, it has to be said! Still...

Which country do you think OPI should go to next? I'd love to hear what you think!

x L-L :)

OPI French Quarter For Your Thoughts

Hi everyone!

It's Monday morning here in London, but it's a beautiful clear blue sky day (so far!) which is always nice!

Seeing as it's the start of the week, I'm gonna post what is reckon is quite a work appropriate shade- OPI French Quarter For Your Thoughts. I don't own many real greys really, not counting things like OPI Skull and Glossbones, the 'truest' grey I can think of in my stash is probably China Glaze's Pelican Grey.... Whoops! American spelling! Pelican Gray, I meant!

Anyways, I think French Quarter For Your Thoughts is very nice. It's sophisticated and elegant. I can imagine going somewhere like Paris in the winter wearing this shade.

I got perfect application with this one in a standard two coats, and it's an extremely smooth cream finish. Again, as with the other Touring America Collection Lacquers I have tried, this polish dries darker on the nail than it looks in the actual bottle.... Just something to be aware of.

Here are the swatches: Feast your eyes!

Yup, unfortunately the hands are looking a bit red in this pic...... Hmm. Lucky, it turned out that this this polish didn't have that effect on me all the time....!

Grey Jumper + Grey Nails = A London A/W staple!
 

Match the sky with your nails!

OPI French Quarter For Your Thoughts

What do we think, everyone? Pretty and ladylike, non?

*OPI French Quarter For Your Thoughts was provided to me for reviewing purposes. I was not paid to review this polish or to say great things about it. All opinions, good or bad, are my own*

The Muppets are finally here!

Hi guys!

Just thought I'd let you know that if you're in the UK, like me, you can now FINALLY get your beautifully manicured little hands on the Muppets collection by OPI at the official online OPI stockist Lena White http://www.lenawhite.co.uk/store/the-muppets/animal-istic or do like me (insanely impatient) if you live in London and go directly to Selfridges to pick up all your favourites!

OPI The Muppets Collection

Which Muppets shade are you most excited about purchasing?  

World's oldest OPI fan?

Last week I went down to my Dad's parents who live quite near to me in London, and gave my 96 year old grandmother a manicure using OPI's classic and very popular shade, I'm Not Really A Waitress.

Here are the results:

OPI I'm Not Really A Waitress

I think they look great! She was a bit worried at first at having such a 'young' colour on, and because of her, in her own words, 'ugly hands' (she has arthritis!) but apparently she has since had lots of compliments on them and is enjoying having some nice painted nails now!

She'll probably want to slap me for posting her 'ugly hands' for all the world to see, but ummm.....

...Sorry Nanny, I think they look great!

:)

OPI Honk If You Love OPI

Hi everyone!

Today I'm going to start going through the OPI Touring America Minis Collection!

Three of the lacquers in this pack I think are very Autumn appropriate- French Quarter For Your Thoughts, A-Taupe The Space Needle and Honk If You Love OPI. The other one, My Address Is Hollywood, to me is more of a Spring/Summer colour.

But anyways, all are very pretty shades that I think sum up the essence of the 'Touring' collection.

So, to start: Honk If You Love OPI.

This colour is a very pretty deep Aubergine (or for my American readers, Eggplant!) shade. To me, it's one of those shades that pops more when you put it next to black- it's easier to see the real colour of the lacquer when compared to black. It's very smoky and murky, which I really like.

Originally when I put it on, I thought it was quite a burgundy sort of aubergine, but no, in the sun you can see that it's definitely purple.

Onto the swatches!

Like the other 'Touring' shades I've tried so far, this lacquer looks at least a shade or two lighter than it dries to on the nail, so that's something to bear in mind when purchasing.

Two things I'm sorry about with these pics: one- I wore this mani for about four days before photographing it, waiting for some nice natural light, hence the scratchy bits on the nails! and number two- shrinkage! I think my bottle of Seche needs replacing asap!

I used three coats of Honk If You Love OPI here to even everything out. Application was smooth and good with this lacquer, also like the other 'Touring' colours I've tried so far.

To be honest, I think this lacquer's nice enough, but I'm not bowled over by it really. It's just the colour that bores me a bit... others may disagree. Just my humble opinion!

:)

*OPI Honk If You Love OPI was provided to me for reviewing purposes. I was not paid to review this polish or to say great things about it. All opinions, good or bad, are my own*

OPI Parlez Vous OPI & OPI Uh Oh Roll Down The Window

Hi everyone!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in nearly a week! The end of last week was pretty busy and then at the weekend I was down on the Kent coast making a visit to my 102 year old grandmother, who was very curious about my blogging activities! Try explaining blogging and the Internet to a 102 year old! :)

Anyways, I'm back, and showcasing a pretty cool mani I wore for a few days last week.

It's a funky French, using OPI Parlez Vous OPI & OPI Uh Oh Roll Down The Window, both of which I haven't tried before.

Here it is!

OPI Parlez Vous OPI & OPI Uh Oh Roll Down The Window

I thought of this combo as I reckoned that even though Parlez Vous OPI isn't part of the Touring America collection, it's muted and smokey, so I thought it would go quite well.

Parlez Vous' application was literally a dream- it was fantastic, so smooth, and brilliant around the cuticles- no clean up required here!

I painted on the tips with freehand application using Uh Oh Roll Down The Window but I found they were fairly easy to do, despite the fact that I didn't have the benefit of using my smile line as a guide.

OPI Parlez Vous OPI & OPI Uh Oh Roll Down The Window

I really like how this mani turned out- great for Autumn, I think.

 OPI Parlez Vous OPI & OPI Uh Oh Roll Down The Window

What do you think?

:)

OPI I Brake For Manicures

Hi!

Here today to show you guys is a mani I had on for the first time last week.

It's I Brake For Manicures, from OPI's Touring America Autumn 2011 Collection.

 This was the second colour I wanted after Roadhouse Blues, which is my favourite of the collection. Aside from that one and this polish, the only other TA shade I have is Uh Oh... Roll Down The Window.
I thought a lot of other shades in the Touring collection were much more summery looking, and at this time of year, I'm done with the crazy neons and want something a bit darker, more muted.

So- with that in mind, OPI I Brake For Manicures fits the bill pretty well!

Here are a couple of pics- I made the first pic a teensy bit brighter so that you guys can see the colour more accurately:

 OPI I Brake For Manicures (a bit brighter)

OPI I Brake For Manicures (regular)

What do you think?

I like this shade, I think it looks quite sophisticated, and I like the fact that it's fairly neutral.
I will say, this is (I found at least!) one of those shades that you can really appreciate the actual colour of when you put it next to black. The dried eventual colour on the nail is definitely darker than the colour the lacquer looks in the actual bottle.
The colour is a lovely smoked/greyed aubergine- eggplant for my American fans! :) sort of shade, very Autumn appropriate.

Another point about this varnish- for some strange reason, I found my bottle to be very runny, and it was the first time I had used this shade, aside from opening it to put a swatch of a nail wheel... That seemed a bit odd, but it could just be my bottle.

I'm not obsessed with this colour but I certainly like it and I'm sure I'll be wearing it again this coming Winter...

What do you think?

OPI Swimsuit...Nailed It! and OPI Absolutely Alice

Hi everyone, and Happy October!

I hope the month is going very well for all of you so far and that your weekend was a good one!

Here in London, we've started the month with some freakishly unseasonal weather. It was 28c here yesterday! Unbelievable, no?!

Because it's been so hot here over the last few days, I decided to do a summery sort of manicure before all I'll probably be wearing are more Autumnal/Wintry shades.

So- I did a mani with OPI Swimsuit...Nailed It! and OPI Absolutely Alice. It's a very pretty combo, and reminds me of a sparkling blue sea in the middle of summer. I think Swimsuit...Nailed It! should have been called Dive In! if it weren't part of the Miss Universe collection- this colour reminds me of the sea, and as it's a foil, it's very glowy and has a lot of depth.

Some pics:

OPI Swimsuit...Nailed It! and OPI Absolutely Alice

I found that Swimsuit...Nailed It! was a bit thin, so I used three coats in my application, and then did a gradient with Absolutely Alice. The yellow 'Alice hair' pieces of glitter in Absolutely Alice remind me of sand!

I did this crop on my index finger to show off the glitter- and the natural starburst effect my camera captured! It looks really cool! :)

On another note, sorry about the crazy amount of shrinkage and cuticle area rubbishness of this mani! Apparently, Seche Vite and Swimsuit...Nailed It! is not a good combination... The shrinkage was very bad indeed...

...As you can probably see. I had to re-polish the cuticle areas of my nails... Check out my ring finger in the pic above- yes, that ridge on the top of my ring finger came from shrinkage! Not very good....

A blurry pic of this mani to show off the sparkliness of it- it really shines in the sun.

And a close up blurry pic! It's a very sparkly manicure.

So, I really liked this combination, it's very nice for Summer. I think Swimsuit...Nailed It would look amazing with gold shatter as well, so I might be trying this combination with my newly-released Barry M Gold Shatter...

Stay tuned!

OPI Samoan Sand & Konad M59

Hiya!

I thought I'd post about my current Mani.

I wanted a chic, neutral base this time (in contrast to all the crazy shades I've been rocking recently!) so I used the classic nude shade, OPI Samoan Sand.

I was pretty apprehensive yet seriously excited about doing this manicure, because it would be a first for me- I purchased three Konad plates at the Olympia Beauty Expo the other week, after years of wanting to try Konading out. For some daft reason, in all that time I failed to buy into the Konad system on the Internet, (no real idea why!) so when I discovered that Konad would be at Olympia... Well, the time had definitely come!
So yeah, I was so excited about doing these nails, but a bit worried that I'd screw up my nails, etc. as I'd had no prior Konading experience!

Turns out, I needn't have worried so much!

I decided to do a 1950's themed Mani, so did my Samoan Sand base and then dotted black spots onto all apart from my middle finger nails. On these, I used Konad plate M59 and used the plain bow (also using black lacquer) and honestly, I was so excited and happy at the way my nails turned out!

Have a look:

 OPI Samoan Sand & Konad M59 view I

OPI Samoan Sand & Konad M59 view II

OPI Samoan Sand & Konad M59 view III

They're cute, right?

Now that I've finally (!) hopped on the Konad bandwagon, already I can't get enough!

Stay tuned for way more Konading to come!

:)

OPI Warm & Fozzie

OPI Warm & Fozzie is the last swatch from the Muppettes Mini Lacquer collection.

It's a bronze foil shimmer with gold, rose gold plus greenish shimmer in there. This polish has quite a lot of depth and dimension to it, which is pretty cool.

Check it out:

OPI Warm & Fozzie

This one was a three coater too. Strange that all of these Muppets polishes have been three coaters, but there you go. If you're impatient and lazy like me, two thick coats will probably suffice... Just about!

Like Designer... de Better! I'm not a huge fan of Warm & Fozzie; there's nothing wrong with it at all, it's just that this colour doesn't make my heart skip a beat, but it's nice to be experimental with colours and not always go for the same sort of shade, right?

:)

OPI Designer... de Better!

This is the third polish in the Muppettes mini pack.

OPI Designer... de Better! is an interesting polish- it's an extremely shimmery chrome-look foil finish with scattered copper shimmer particles.

The shimmer particles aren't really that noticeable if you're looking at the nail polish from afar, but they make the overall hue of the polish more of a very pale champagne/beige shade than a silver.

Observe:

 OPI Designer... de Better!

Shimmery, no?

It's quite a unique shade, I don't think I've seen any kind of dupe for this one.

This lacquer went on very smoothly again, I'm very impressed with what I've tried so far in the Muppets collection with this in mind.
Again, in keeping with the Muppets formula, this polish needed three coats as it was pretty thin.

I must say, I'm not the world's biggest fan of this colour, but that's just a personal preference...

What do you think about this shade, hit or miss?

OPI Excuse Moi!

Another polish from my OPI Muppettes mini collection for you now!

This one is pretty cool, it's a saturated pink glitter. Not as saturated in base shade as OPI DS Bold, but saturated all the same. It's a light, feminine pink shade, but definitely not work appropriate!
This polish pretty much contains all the colours of the rainbow!

Obviously, the base is light pink, and inside there's red, purple, green, blue, pink, silver, gold glitter... You get the idea!

All that makes for a pretty darn sparkly manicure!

Here it is:

OPI Excuse Moi!

This looks, to me, like a lighter pink version of DS Bold and with multi colour glitter instead of DS Bold's pink/silver glitter.

Also, there are two different sized glitters in Excuse Moi!- a very fine glitter which makes up the base, and then the addition of the multi coloured glitter pieces.

This polish was very easy to paint with, it spread onto my nails very well. I went with two thickish coats for my swatching, but three thin ones would probably be better and longer lasting for a complete Mani.

It's a pretty polish, no? :)

OPI Wocka Wocka!

Hi!

I've got something very cool to show you guys now- Wocka Wocka! from the as yet unreleased in stores Muppets collection by OPI!
Exciting!
I got this shade from the Muppettes Mini Nail Lacquers pack at the OPI Trade stall at the Olympia Beauty Expo here in London last weekend. It was a great show, I loved every minute of it, and I especially enjoyed getting my mitts on this mini Muppets pack!

So- here is Wocka Wocka!

OPI Wocka Wocka!

I think this shade is really pretty. I must admit, I was surprised by it because, as a red lacquer lover, I have so many reds (especially shimmery reds as I'm a big fan) in my collection already, and I was just kind of expecting it to be a bit sort of mehhhh, seen this before...

But no!

It's a gorgeous cherry red, with a pinkish shimmer to it, which gives it much more depth. It's a shade that's perhaps a contender for a more subtle and lighter toned I'm Not Really A Waitress... Definitely cherry in colour.

OPI describes it as a 'berry' shade....

Is a cherry a berry or not!?

Answers on a postcard, please! :)

OPI DS Bold and OPI DS Temptation

Hi everyone!

New OPI DS shades here for you today!

These two are OPI's diamond dust formulation, and are brand new releases. I picked up my bottles last weekend at the Olympia Beauty event. I hadn't seen them in person before, and DS Temptation especially caught my eye immediately. These two shades are such a riot of glitter and colour!

Have a look:

First up is OPI DS Bold

OPI DS Temptation

Nice, huh?

Firstly, about the application on Bold. I liked this one because the base is pretty saturated with colour, so you can wear this polish on it's own. Some of OPI's polishes, such as Last Friday Night and Teenage Dream from the Katy Perry collection, had such an undersaturated base colour that it pretty much became necessary to layer them to prevent a washed out (yet amazingly sparkly) looking Mani.

So yeah, no problems with OPI DS Bold. Application was great, perfect and saturated (no bald spots!) in two standard coats.

Some images:

 OPI DS Bold view I

OPI DS Bold view II

As you can see, the glitter in this polish is very saturated. I definitely prefer that over sparse glitter polishes, but OPI has been great at producing saturated glitter polishes recently, probably my favourite would be Crown Me Already! from their Miss Universe collection- it's incredible!

Onto OPI DS Temptation now-

OPI DS Temptation view I

OPI DS Temptation view II

I really like OPI DS Temptation. The base in this one is pretty blue, and it isn't as saturated as Bold so I used three coats of colour for Temptation. The application was excellent.

It's a beautiful polish. It reminded me of the wonderfully deep hued Tanzanites I've seen in jewellery shops in Cape Town, South Africa. Lots of purple, blue and also pinkish glitter in this polish produces more depth in the shade.

Talk about dramatic!

I think both of these polishes are lovely. Not exactly work appropriate, unless you work for someone like Zandra Rhodes, but for everything else, big thumbs up!

With both of these polishes you'll need a nice big thick swoop of a topcoat like Seche (which I personally love) to make the sparkliness as eye catching and blingy as possible!

Great stuff, OPI!

Olympia Beauty 2011

Hello everyone!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Yesterday, Sunday 18th and Monday 19th of September, were days I had been looking forward to for nearly two months! The reason? It was the the Olympia Beauty event in Kensington Olympia, London.

BIG woooooo!

...Anyways, more about that in a minute. First let me show you guys the manicure I did for the event. Seeing as I blog about Nails, I wanted to create a really special, completely blinged out Mani for the event.
This is what I came up with:

Nail Expo Special Mani!

A close up-

Pretty, no?

For this Mani, first of all I used two coats of Orly Dazzle, then two coats of OPI Crown Me Already!, then glued a Swarovski crystal onto each nail with nail glue.
It came out pretty cool I think, I felt a bit like GaGa or something- this is one impractical manicure! Still, I got lots of compliments on them whilst going round all the stalls, so that was nice.

To start, can I just say, omg! The event was so much fun!

OPI was there, as was Nubar, China Glaze, Color Club, Essie, Jessica and more!

Here's a video I shot on my phone- as you can see, it was busy, busy busy!

Olympia Beauty Event

Some pictures of the stalls:

The OPI stall was insanely busy the whole time! -Look at those brand new, unavailable in shops Muppets Mini packs! I picked one up, of course! Swatches coming soon... :)

To prove how busy the OPI stall was all the time, here's a picture of the queue:

OPI Mania! (And yes, in case you were wondering, the queue was this long all the time! Go OPI!)

...And who can blame people when OPI was being sold at trade price!? Discontinued Lacquers were discounted to £3.00!

£3.00 OPI's!? Thank you very much!

I also had a lot of fun getting my greedy little polish loving mitts on some lemmings I've had for certain polishes from other brands:

The China Glaze stall view I

China Glaze view II

Here's the Nubar Stall:

The Nubar Stall

Discontinued Lacquers at Nubar were only £2.00!

 What a bargain!

The Color Club stall was brilliant. I was really excited to see this stall here because I've only ever seen Color Club available on the Internet. It was great to see all the shades in person...

Color Club view I

Color Club view II

And some general shots of the Exhibition Centre:

View I

View II

View III

As you can guess, I was loving every minute of it!

My Top 5 new acquisitions from the Expo are (in no particular order):

* China Glaze Skyscraper
* OPI DS Temptation
* Color Club Wish Upon A Rock-Star
* Nubar Purple Rain Glitter
* OPI I Brake For Manicures

Lots of new swatches to come soon for your viewing pleasure!

Have a great day, everyone! :)