OPI Starlight collection for Holiday 2015, Part III: The reds and the rest

OK! So let’s wrap up this up finally, shall we? Way to drag out a review, huh? At least I’m getting it done before the years’ end 🙂 It only took me almost a month! (which, sadly, I feel kind of proud of lol…goes to show you just how free time I have!) I apologize for not getting the festive reds to you before Christmas – but red is the kind of color you can wear any time of year, really, so I guess it’s not that bad.

Alternately, the other 3 polishes I’m going to show you are…well here, first let me show you what they look like in the bottles:

The look fairly innocuous, no? Sparkling, shimmering, glittering polishes for the holidays – perfect, right? But IRL, they’re just…no. Trust. You are NOT missing out on anything with those three, which is why I saved them for last. Here, lemme show you them first so you can feel reassured:

Is This Star Taken?

Of the three, this one is the least offensive – prismatic bar glitter in a silvery-pewter base. This one *could* be so cool but it still falls flat somehow. Maybe the base color needs to be more sheer? I took the swatch on an angle to show you the prismatic effect but for the most part it’s lost when looking at the nail directly. ~sad face~ It’s easy enough to apply though, 2 coats and you’re done.

Comet Closer

This has a similar pewter-silver base but heavier on the silver, and I don’t like it as much on my skintone. Besides that, it contains gold micro glitter that leaves it just looking rough and bumpy, and again the effect is lost anyway in the opaque base. Overall BLAH.

By the Light of the Moon

This is the worst offender! Silver glitter chunks of varying size floating around in an opaque base – I think OPI is trying to make this a ‘thing’ but honestly, it’s just horrid. Remember Pineapples Have Peelings Too? BLECH. I just can’t with these, they make me angry just looking at them!

Ok, so those3 are a no-go…but the next 3 are quite nice, so this post isn’t a total waste! Let’s check them out:

Love is in My Cards

Though I don’t wear red polish much (despite having like, 10 red polishes…WTF), I really like this one! It’s bold, bright and leans ever so slightly cool, and I find it very flattering on my skintone. I’m tempted to hang on to this and maybe ditch a couple other bright reds I have. Great formula too, super easy to apply and I think this swatch is only 1 coat!

Ro-Man-ce on the Moon

A cool-ish red metallic, standard holiday fare. In my photos this looks almost identical to ‘Love is in My Cards‘ but the metallic effect is more pronounced in person. I like this one too, but I prefer my Misa Red Pumps at the Nordstrom more – I think the depth of color is a bit stronger in that one (also the name of the Misa polish is awesome). Again, this is only 1 coat!

Let Your Love Shine

You don’t need me to tell you that this polish is GORGEOUS! This is the kind of red I gravitate toward (and most of the reds I own are similar to this – more of a deep shimmering red). This is kind of a cross between Lippmann’s Through the Fire (for the color) and Zoya India (for the larger shimmer particles). It did require 2 coats but that ain’t no thang. I love this one – definitely a keeper.

That’s it, we’re done! Hoo-frickin’-ray. Overall I am really digging the collection (see Part I and Part II here if you haven’t seen them already!) save for a couple of weird shades – it’s probably tough to come up with original polish mixes so I’ll forgive OPI for trying something new and failing miserably. I like that there weren’t TOO many reds and that they had a handful of non-traditional holiday shades, so that the collection is still wearable for the whole winter season.

And of course – some outtakes for your viewing pleasure – hope everyone had a great holiday and has a fantastic New Year!!

I tell ya…you gotta move fast with this one! She’s getting more and more mobile every day 🙂

OPI Starlight collection for Holiday 2015, Part II: The silvers & (rose) golds

…Dang it. Getting this post up later than planned (surprise), but at least we’re still before Christmas Day! These next 6 polishes scream ‘New Years Eve’ to me anyway, so you have lots of time to grab ’em and wear ’em 🙂

I wasn’t sure what to call these 6 as one shade only contains rose gold, and there are other silvers in the collection – but to be honest, these are the good ones. The others are…a bit strange. You’re not missing out, trust me. Anyway, on to the swatches!

I Drive a SuperNova

This is a lovely silver foil that shimmers in the right light. As silvers go, I actually like it! Buuuut not as much as OPI’s Centennial Celebration, so I’m keeping that one over this one. CC is more sparkly/blingy and is slightly more pewter-leaning. But this is good! A teeny bit fussy to apply, but if you’ve got a steady hand you could probably get away with one coat (this is two), so it’s not such a big deal.

Super Star Status

Because I hate glitter removal, I just polished one finger in Super Star Status, over my existing ‘SuperNova‘ manicure. However, this is all sorts of amazing and in-your-face glittertastic that I would *almost* be willing to wear this as a full mani for a big occasion. So gorgeous! The base is slightly sheer so I’d suggest putting one coat over top of another polish (I really like it with ‘Super Nova‘ rather than two coats of it on it’s own, because that removal process would be a major PITA!

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Meteorite

This is such a cop-out swatch, I’m sorry! I took shots of this over Press * for Silver (swatch below) and stupidly didn’t check them before removing the polish – they were all blurry and TERRIBLE and I just couldn’t bring myself to do the whole mani again. I suck, I know! If the polish was more fabulous, I would have taken one for the team, but at it is, this glitter is – blah. It didn’t look good over the polish either (actually it probably looks nicer here on a bare nail), the pieces are so weirdly shaped and it just isn’t my thang. The only thing I will say is I loved the color combo of gunmetal and rose gold.

Press * for Silver

This is probably the most subdued polish in the collection, though it’s still quite nice. I liked it when I wore it, but looking at it again in swatches I’m kind of…bored by it? Maybe it’s too complimentary to my skintone…I need a little bit of contrast. Super easy to apply though, a quick two coats and you’re done.

Ce-less-tial is More 

I meant to put Ce-less-tial is More over Press * for Silver but completely forgot, so I had to go back and do a whole new manicure – but this time I wore Dior’s Gris-Or – it’s quite similar to ‘Press *‘ but it has that mild duo chrome flash that makes it stand out more. Obviously I’m keeping the Dior over the OPI! Anyway, I also think ‘Ce-less-tial‘ is all sorts of pretty, and I think I might wear it for my wedding manicure. Since it’s kind of a HUGE moment in my life, I guess I can deal with the glitter removal that one time 😉 ‘Ce-less-tial‘ is more opaque than ‘Super Star Status‘ so you don’t need any other shade underneath unless you want to! Both glitters eat top coat like there is no tomorrow so to get rid of the texture I’d say load it up (like 2-3 coats…seriously).

Infrared-y to Glow

These weird über-chunky glitters! I don’t get it. They’re really pretty in the bottle but on the nail…erm, not so much. Especially this one – at least the colors in ‘Meteorite’ were nice, this is too tone on tone and I’m not feeling it at all. Also, because these glitter pieces are so large, even with top coat they kind of flip up and don’t lay smooth. Ach…not a fan.

So there you have it! Two nice shades, two GREAT shades, and two WTF shades. Definitely don’t miss out on the sparkling goodness that is Super Star Status and Ce-less-tial is More, for a glitter hater like myself I can’t believe how much I loved them both – if you like glitter, you’ll LOVE these! If you’re a silver fan, I’d check out I Drive a SuperNova too, it’s great (just not as good as CC for me).

I’d like to say I’ll get the last six up before Christmas, but truthfully that’s unlikely! I’ll give you a quick spoiler in case you just can’t wait – Let Your Love Shine is a stunning sparkling deep red and is a must-have for the holiday season (or any time, really!). The two other reds are nice but not original, and the three other glitters are kind of bizarre, so I feel you can safely skip all those and not miss out.

YSL La Laque Carmin D’Or: Christmas in a bottle

You know you’re a beauty junkie when you buy things and forget about them. During the Sephora sale, I kept thinking I should buy something festive from one of the holiday collections, since I didn’t pick anything up from any of them….OH WAIT, YES I DID – the YSL Carmin D’Or polish from the ‘Kiss & Love‘ holiday collection, a gor-ge-ous scarlet with fiery golden shimmer throughout. Oops. I forgot. (I also bought Dior’s insanely beautiful Gris-Or from the ‘State of Gold’ holiday collection, which I ALSO forgot about….eeks. Review to come!) Right. But! Now it’s December, and it’s time to wear all my pretty festive nail polishes! So, we’re starting with this beauty:

Natural light

Artificial light

It’s actually got a significant blue lean that I had a hard time capturing on camera – meaning it’s not a true red at all but more of a pink-red. I didn’t realize that when I swatched it in store, but I kind of like that because it makes it different than your standard golden red polish. The shimmer is incredible, it absolutely GLOWS no matter what light you’re in (although my outdoor pic doesn’t show that). The formula is also wonderful, with a thin-to-medium viscosity to allow easy application – two coats to full opacity, no fuss. This is my second YSL polish and so far I’m very impressed. It hurts to pay $27CAD (although it pleases me that it’s the same price in the US) but the upside to buying less polish overall is that when you do, you don’t feel so bad spending the big $$ on a shade you love. And that squared off bottle? SEX-AY.

I just received the OPI Starlight Collection yesterday so I have a bunch of holiday polish shades coming your way. I may do a countdown with a different shade each day…I’ll try my best! I’m in a major holiday spirit, we put up our lights on the house last night and it looks fab! I’m working on the inside now – we went to Homes for the Holidays here in Halifax on the weekend and looking at all the decorations makes me feel so festive! And also brings out my inner Martha. Check out this wreath I made!:

Yahooooooo!! Let the holiday season truly begin! 🙂