Loose Powder

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!

The Show Must Go On is from OPI’s Burlesque collection. It’s a pinkish red microglitter polish with a slight gold/orange duochrome flash.

Sorry about the dry cuticles. You can see the duochrome much better inside the bottle.

I was actually a bit disappointed with this color at first as in incandescent light it’s a bit difficult to see the gold/orange. Outside in daylight from certain angles, though, you can see the color shift and it looks really nice.

The application was typical for an OPI polish and though I used two coats, I probably could have done three. The finish wasn’t gritty, but I did apply Essie 3-way glaze for a top coat.

Just a Fairy Tail is silvery nail polish that is made up of tiny shimmers. It can be used as a top coat or by itself. However, this polish is very sheer. I needed about three to four coats for it to be opaque, but even then it is still sheer. Despite the polish being sheer, I love the silvery color. Under the sun the tiny specks of shimmer are iridescent, which does not show up on the second picture taken outisde.

The polish color pretty much looks the same indoors and outdoors. This polish does not last as long as other OPI polishes I have tried. I noticed the polish to start chipping after about five days of wear.

Next time I might try using this polish as a topcoat since it takes too many coats just for it to get the silvery color like the bottle.

This is a quick look at the Sephora by OPI Rocker Chic mini collection. It retails for $18 at the Sephora site or in stores. There are four bottles in this collection, each bottle contains 3.75 mL of polish.

Overall, I found the formula to be a bit runny and it was hard to apply properly with such tiny brushes. Already Famous and Go My Own Way were very sheer and both needed at least 3 coats.

Here are a look at the individual colors in the set, starting with:

Fiercely Fabulous is a bright red creme that has just a hint of orange. It’s a very bold color and after wearing it for a few days, I grew to like it. Unfortunately, it did stain a bit when I removed it.

Just A Little Dangerous is a dark purple with blue shimmer. These photos show two coats, but it’s a bit streaky in places so I probably could have used another.

Almost Famous is a very sheer taupe with pewter shimmer. This needed 3 coats to get anywhere near the bottle color, but probably could have used 4. Strangely, this is my favorite color in the mini set. One coat of this over a dark color would look great. I might have to purchase a full bottle of this since you have to use so much at one time.

Go My Own Way is a sheer teal with blue shimmer. As you can see from the photos, it looks a slight bit greener in incandescent light. This needed 3 coats.

I’m not that impressed with these colors and almost regret having purchased this set. Honestly, I haven’t been that impressed with the Sephora OPI colors lately – there are things that catch my eye, but upon closer inspection, they aren’t really that amazing. This was, however, a less expensive way to try out the new line up of colors,  rather than purchasing full bottles, so there it that.

If you’ve seen the latest episodes of Doctor Who, you’ll have seen Amy Pond and her fantastic nail polishes. I’ve written previously about the grayish purple polish and now I’m in search of a dupe for the orange she had in “The Lodger” and “The Pandorica Opens.”

It looks a bit like three different shades, depending on the lighting, so I’m not sure what color it is, really. I think it’s a dusty pumpkin?

So far, the closest I’ve come is OPI’s Hot & Spicy:

I bought this at a local beauty supply shop and it’s much more saturated than I’m looking for. I’m hoping that one of the new Fall or Halloween collections might have something closer, or maybe I’ll try OPI’s In My Back Pocket if I can find it.

The polish itself is great, though. Typical OPI! Smooth application and two coats to get bottle color. It’s not what I was looking for, but it’s actually a great color and has encouraged me to try more orange polishes.

Some other colors that I’m going to look at as a dupe for Amy’s orange polish are Color Club’s Oh Naturale, China Glaze’s Peachy Keen, and Nubar’s Orange Cream, which was featured on the London runways earlier this year.

When I purchased Parlez-Vous OPI, I also ordered a bottle of OPI’s Do You Lilac It? which looked like a similar but more saturated purple.

This color is a very pretty, bright, pastel purple. It took two coats to get the coverage I wanted. With a top coat, there was minimal chipping after 5 days of wear.

For this manicure, I used e.l.f. polish in black to stamp on some stars from the Bundle Monster fauxnad plates.

Do You Lilac It? is a fun color for summer, but between the two, Parlez-Vous OPI is my favorite.