Loose Powder

I’m very behind on reviewing Sephora’s Princess Collection, but I’ve just barely gotten around to using the Cinderella nail polish set, and the Jasmine set is already out and before you know it the next Princess set will be out. From what I heard, the next princess may be Ariel.

The first color I tried out was “Step Off, Sister!” This color consists of mostly blue and silver glitter. I’m not sure why the second picture (indoor) has the polish with a pink hue, but it is blue and silver. The first time I did this manicure, I used three coats and a clear top coat, but that manicure only lasted one day before chipping.

Since I really liked the color, I decided to give the manicure another try. This time I used Orly’s base coat and topcoat along with three coats of “Step Off, Sister!” This time the manicure lasted two days before I noticed some very minor chipping around the nail tip edges.

As much as I liked this color, I still need to have at least three coats to get the glitter close to the bottle, and this makes the polish chip easily. Maybe next time I’ll use this polish as a top coat for a color polish and see how that goes.

Here’s a quick look at a great sheer polish from OPI, Princesses Rule!

This pretty pink polish has shiny crystal flakes, which gives it a shimmery glass look. I’m not usually interested in sheer pinks, but this color is gorgeous! It’s a perfect color for those times when you want something a bit more fun than the usual french manicure.

Look at those flakes! Very, very pretty. This is  two coats with a top coat and I was able to wear it for almost two weeks.. Because it’s so light and sheer, edgewear and chipping are not obvious, which allows you to wear this color longer.

I’ve actually worn this color twice already, which is rare considering the amount of polish I have waiting around to be tried. It’s fair to say that Princesses Rule! is a keeper.

Liz actually reviewed OPI‘s Significant Other Color two years ago, but I thought I’d just post some photos I took, as well as brief thoughts. If you look at her review, her photographs show more of the purple shift, while mine show the pink.

It’s really difficult to see in these photos, but this sheer polish shifts from lilac to pink to a pale green. It’s very pretty!

This is a great color for when you feel like you need a break from bold manicures and because of the sheerness, chips are far less noticeable.

OPI’s Peach-A-Boo! is a very sheer peach with pink and gold shimmer from their Summer 2008 collection. I picked up a bottle of this at Ulta at the end of last year at a discount.

This is two coats of polish. You might be able to layer three or four coats to get a more opaque look, but you’d be better off starting with an opaque nude before using this color if visible nail line bothers you.

I liked the sheer look, though, so it doesn’t bother me. It is, however, very shimmery for such a sheer color! A color this sheer wears quite well since you can’t see the edge wear to easily. I got a week out of this color with no problems.

I know this review is about a month late, but for the new year, I decided to use OPI’s It’s My Year from their 2011 Miss Universe Collection. The name alone seemed to be a good way to start the year.

This pretty plum colored polish has fine gold shimmer and looks great with just two coats, but you could use three for more opaque color.

With base coat and top coat, this manicure last about a week with minimal edge wear before I switched it out for a new color. Removing was easy with no staining, but the bits of glitter did get on the skin. It was easy enough to clean that up with some extra remover.

Warm & Fozzie is part of OPI’s The Muppets Collection. The collection is full of bright shimmery and glittery polishes, but only two of them caught my eye and this was one. I picked up at my local beauty supply store.

Warm & Fozzie is a dark base with lots of gold, copper, green, and pink microglitter. When you view the nail surface in direct sunlight at about a 90 degree angle, it looks gold, but from most other viewing angles, it’s a glittery bronze.

This is a fun color and I love the shifting you get in different light conditions. The wear is about average – 4 days before some edge wear. Removing this polish was a bit more difficult than usual since there was lots of gold and pink flecks all over my nails and surrounding skin. You’ll probably want to use a removal method similar to what you’d use for glitter polishes.

These OPI polishes contain no DBP, toluene, or formaldehyde. You can purchase it online at etailers like Amazon or in beauty supply stores.

This is a polish that has been in my stash for years! I’ve worn it before, but not since I’ve started Loose Powder, so I thought I’d give it a quick review.

The OPI Suede collection was released in Fall 2009, about the same time as the matte collection. Having tried both, I liked the suede finish a lot more and with I’d picked up the rest of the collections. Anyway, here are some swatches of You Don’t Know Jacques!

Application is pretty easy and though you could probably get away with one coat, I did two to smooth out the brush strokes. This polish also dries quickly, only slightly slower than a matte polish.

As with matte polishes, I didn’t apply a top coat. I still got over a week with this color with little edge wear. The suede finish didn’t stay fresh for long though, since I put on hand lotion a few times during the day, the finish became more of a satin as the week went on.

This manicure actually evolved over a week. I started with China Glaze Heaven:

The glitter is from a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust:

Love the bit of hologlitter the Fairy Dust adds to the nail surface:

After about a week, the base of the manicure was still okay, but I wanted a different look, so I tried one of thew new OPI Shatter polishes:

The OPI Turquoise Shatter is great! I actually like the formula better than the China Glaze crackle polishes I’ve tried. The formula is thinner, which makes it much easier to  spread quickly. I also like the way the cracks form. Here’s a closer look:

I’m not sure I really like the look of such a sheer polish under the turquoise shatter, but I did like the OPI Shatter polish! It would look great over silver or black.

When Katy Perry’s OPI Collection was revealed I was not that interested in the colors. However, when I saw them in person, Not Like the Movies caught my eye. It’s a shimmery silver with a blue/purple/green duochrome (multichrome? Hmm…)

But! I remembered reading on a couple nail blogs that there are two different batches of Not Like the Movies – the first batch is the one with the pronounced purple duochrome and subsequent batches are missing that purple, so it’s more of a silver with a slight blue shift. I ended up finding and buying both at the beauty supply store.

First, here’s the original formulation:

Very pretty! And here’s the subsequent batch:

As you can see, the later  batch of this polish is quite nice, but not as interesting. Here are some photos of the two polishes side by side:

Two coats were used for both and I applied Essie 3-way Glaze as a top coat. Wear was average. I think both colors are great, but I like the original batch much more. I’ll be wearing this again.

For a month I was on a sheer polish kick and this was one in my stash that I hadn’t tried yet. OPI’s Pearl of Wisdom was part of their Spring 2010 Hong Kong Collection.

I have two coats on in these photos, but probably could have done a third to get a more mother of pearl look. You can see the lovely iridescence and subtle pink shimmer in the bottle that is less obvious on the nail. Very pretty and I would definitely wear it again!