OPI Serena Glam Slam! France 2011 - Rally Pretty Pink and Red Shatter

OPI and Serena Williams have just released the next installment of their Glam Slam! series to coincide with the French Open. This time there are two sets of colors which each have a sparkling polish shade alongside a new shade of OPI's Shatter crackle polish.


Rally Pretty Pink. This is a sheer dark pink/mauve/plummy brown base with insane amounts of bright, shiny gold metal flake sparkle. Looks and sounds familiar, doesn't it? Zoya Faye? They seem very similar to me. Faye seems deeper and richer, Rally Pretty Pink seems lighter and slightly pinker. I don't have my bottle of Faye with me so I haven't been able to do a true side-by-side evaluation to determine just how similar they are. I love this (like I loved Faye), it's a stunningly gorgeous color.


Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink. Red Shatter is really fascinating! As you can probably tell from the pictures, it's sheer. It's like a jelly crackle. Because if the see-through quality of this, details of the base polish show through the red. See all the sparkles from Rally Pretty Pink? Pretty cool. Another interesting effect of the sheerness is that the tone of the red shatter can change based on what you layer under it.



See how much warmer it looks here with the orange showing through? This is OPI Red Shatter over Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange. This looks awesome over glittery orange, like a big shiny sparkling fireball.

The formula on both was great. Nice and smooth, good texture, fast dry time. The crackle effect works much better over dry polish, but I used it over wet polish in these pictures and it's still pretty good. Just be aware that when applying over wet polish, the crackle will spread as it dries and take the base polish with it, causing bald spots.

I love both of these, but I must say... what an odd color combination. I don't know how much I like the red crackle polish over the golden-mauve base color, I think it blends in too much. I don't dislike them together, but I think the crackle effect doesn't seem as pronounced as with other colors. Needs more contrast. Maybe a yellow underneath?

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Serena Glam Slam! France 2011 - Rally Pretty Pink and Red Shatter

OPI and Serena Williams have just released the next installment of their Glam Slam! series to coincide with the French Open. This time there are two sets of colors which each have a sparkling polish shade alongside a new shade of OPI's Shatter crackle polish.


Rally Pretty Pink. This is a sheer dark pink/mauve/plummy brown base with insane amounts of bright, shiny gold metal flake sparkle. Looks and sounds familiar, doesn't it? Zoya Faye? They seem very similar to me. Faye seems deeper and richer, Rally Pretty Pink seems lighter and slightly pinker. I don't have my bottle of Faye with me so I haven't been able to do a true side-by-side evaluation to determine just how similar they are. I love this (like I loved Faye), it's a stunningly gorgeous color.


Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink. Red Shatter is really fascinating! As you can probably tell from the pictures, it's sheer. It's like a jelly crackle. Because if the see-through quality of this, details of the base polish show through the red. See all the sparkles from Rally Pretty Pink? Pretty cool. Another interesting effect of the sheerness is that the tone of the red shatter can change based on what you layer under it.



See how much warmer it looks here with the orange showing through? This is OPI Red Shatter over Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange. This looks awesome over glittery orange, like a big shiny sparkling fireball.

The formula on both was great. Nice and smooth, good texture, fast dry time. The crackle effect works much better over dry polish, but I used it over wet polish in these pictures and it's still pretty good. Just be aware that when applying over wet polish, the crackle will spread as it dries and take the base polish with it, causing bald spots.

I love both of these, but I must say... what an odd color combination. I don't know how much I like the red crackle polish over the golden-mauve base color, I think it blends in too much. I don't dislike them together, but I think the crackle effect doesn't seem as pronounced as with other colors. Needs more contrast. Maybe a yellow underneath?

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Serena Glam Slam! France 2011 - Rally Pretty Pink and Red Shatter

OPI and Serena Williams have just released the next installment of their Glam Slam! series to coincide with the French Open. This time there are two sets of colors which each have a sparkling polish shade alongside a new shade of OPI's Shatter crackle polish.


Rally Pretty Pink. This is a sheer dark pink/mauve/plummy brown base with insane amounts of bright, shiny gold metal flake sparkle. Looks and sounds familiar, doesn't it? Zoya Faye? They seem very similar to me. Faye seems deeper and richer, Rally Pretty Pink seems lighter and slightly pinker. I don't have my bottle of Faye with me so I haven't been able to do a true side-by-side evaluation to determine just how similar they are. I love this (like I loved Faye), it's a stunningly gorgeous color.


Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink. Red Shatter is really fascinating! As you can probably tell from the pictures, it's sheer. It's like a jelly crackle. Because if the see-through quality of this, details of the base polish show through the red. See all the sparkles from Rally Pretty Pink? Pretty cool. Another interesting effect of the sheerness is that the tone of the red shatter can change based on what you layer under it.



See how much warmer it looks here with the orange showing through? This is OPI Red Shatter over Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange. This looks awesome over glittery orange, like a big shiny sparkling fireball.

The formula on both was great. Nice and smooth, good texture, fast dry time. The crackle effect works much better over dry polish, but I used it over wet polish in these pictures and it's still pretty good. Just be aware that when applying over wet polish, the crackle will spread as it dries and take the base polish with it, causing bald spots.

I love both of these, but I must say... what an odd color combination. I don't know how much I like the red crackle polish over the golden-mauve base color, I think it blends in too much. I don't dislike them together, but I think the crackle effect doesn't seem as pronounced as with other colors. Needs more contrast. Maybe a yellow underneath?

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Serena Glam Slam! France 2011 - Rally Pretty Pink and Red Shatter

OPI and Serena Williams have just released the next installment of their Glam Slam! series to coincide with the French Open. This time there are two sets of colors which each have a sparkling polish shade alongside a new shade of OPI's Shatter crackle polish.


Rally Pretty Pink. This is a sheer dark pink/mauve/plummy brown base with insane amounts of bright, shiny gold metal flake sparkle. Looks and sounds familiar, doesn't it? Zoya Faye? They seem very similar to me. Faye seems deeper and richer, Rally Pretty Pink seems lighter and slightly pinker. I don't have my bottle of Faye with me so I haven't been able to do a true side-by-side evaluation to determine just how similar they are. I love this (like I loved Faye), it's a stunningly gorgeous color.


Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink. Red Shatter is really fascinating! As you can probably tell from the pictures, it's sheer. It's like a jelly crackle. Because if the see-through quality of this, details of the base polish show through the red. See all the sparkles from Rally Pretty Pink? Pretty cool. Another interesting effect of the sheerness is that the tone of the red shatter can change based on what you layer under it.



See how much warmer it looks here with the orange showing through? This is OPI Red Shatter over Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange. This looks awesome over glittery orange, like a big shiny sparkling fireball.

The formula on both was great. Nice and smooth, good texture, fast dry time. The crackle effect works much better over dry polish, but I used it over wet polish in these pictures and it's still pretty good. Just be aware that when applying over wet polish, the crackle will spread as it dries and take the base polish with it, causing bald spots.

I love both of these, but I must say... what an odd color combination. I don't know how much I like the red crackle polish over the golden-mauve base color, I think it blends in too much. I don't dislike them together, but I think the crackle effect doesn't seem as pronounced as with other colors. Needs more contrast. Maybe a yellow underneath?

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Serena Glam Slam! France 2011 - Rally Pretty Pink and Red Shatter

OPI and Serena Williams have just released the next installment of their Glam Slam! series to coincide with the French Open. This time there are two sets of colors which each have a sparkling polish shade alongside a new shade of OPI's Shatter crackle polish.


Rally Pretty Pink. This is a sheer dark pink/mauve/plummy brown base with insane amounts of bright, shiny gold metal flake sparkle. Looks and sounds familiar, doesn't it? Zoya Faye? They seem very similar to me. Faye seems deeper and richer, Rally Pretty Pink seems lighter and slightly pinker. I don't have my bottle of Faye with me so I haven't been able to do a true side-by-side evaluation to determine just how similar they are. I love this (like I loved Faye), it's a stunningly gorgeous color.


Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink. Red Shatter is really fascinating! As you can probably tell from the pictures, it's sheer. It's like a jelly crackle. Because if the see-through quality of this, details of the base polish show through the red. See all the sparkles from Rally Pretty Pink? Pretty cool. Another interesting effect of the sheerness is that the tone of the red shatter can change based on what you layer under it.



See how much warmer it looks here with the orange showing through? This is OPI Red Shatter over Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange. This looks awesome over glittery orange, like a big shiny sparkling fireball.

The formula on both was great. Nice and smooth, good texture, fast dry time. The crackle effect works much better over dry polish, but I used it over wet polish in these pictures and it's still pretty good. Just be aware that when applying over wet polish, the crackle will spread as it dries and take the base polish with it, causing bald spots.

I love both of these, but I must say... what an odd color combination. I don't know how much I like the red crackle polish over the golden-mauve base color, I think it blends in too much. I don't dislike them together, but I think the crackle effect doesn't seem as pronounced as with other colors. Needs more contrast. Maybe a yellow underneath?

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Serena Glam Slam! France 2011 - Rally Pretty Pink and Red Shatter

OPI and Serena Williams have just released the next installment of their Glam Slam! series to coincide with the French Open. This time there are two sets of colors which each have a sparkling polish shade alongside a new shade of OPI's Shatter crackle polish.


Rally Pretty Pink. This is a sheer dark pink/mauve/plummy brown base with insane amounts of bright, shiny gold metal flake sparkle. Looks and sounds familiar, doesn't it? Zoya Faye? They seem very similar to me. Faye seems deeper and richer, Rally Pretty Pink seems lighter and slightly pinker. I don't have my bottle of Faye with me so I haven't been able to do a true side-by-side evaluation to determine just how similar they are. I love this (like I loved Faye), it's a stunningly gorgeous color.


Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink. Red Shatter is really fascinating! As you can probably tell from the pictures, it's sheer. It's like a jelly crackle. Because if the see-through quality of this, details of the base polish show through the red. See all the sparkles from Rally Pretty Pink? Pretty cool. Another interesting effect of the sheerness is that the tone of the red shatter can change based on what you layer under it.



See how much warmer it looks here with the orange showing through? This is OPI Red Shatter over Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange. This looks awesome over glittery orange, like a big shiny sparkling fireball.

The formula on both was great. Nice and smooth, good texture, fast dry time. The crackle effect works much better over dry polish, but I used it over wet polish in these pictures and it's still pretty good. Just be aware that when applying over wet polish, the crackle will spread as it dries and take the base polish with it, causing bald spots.

I love both of these, but I must say... what an odd color combination. I don't know how much I like the red crackle polish over the golden-mauve base color, I think it blends in too much. I don't dislike them together, but I think the crackle effect doesn't seem as pronounced as with other colors. Needs more contrast. Maybe a yellow underneath?

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Serena Glam Slam! France 2011 - Rally Pretty Pink and Red Shatter

OPI and Serena Williams have just released the next installment of their Glam Slam! series to coincide with the French Open. This time there are two sets of colors which each have a sparkling polish shade alongside a new shade of OPI's Shatter crackle polish.


Rally Pretty Pink. This is a sheer dark pink/mauve/plummy brown base with insane amounts of bright, shiny gold metal flake sparkle. Looks and sounds familiar, doesn't it? Zoya Faye? They seem very similar to me. Faye seems deeper and richer, Rally Pretty Pink seems lighter and slightly pinker. I don't have my bottle of Faye with me so I haven't been able to do a true side-by-side evaluation to determine just how similar they are. I love this (like I loved Faye), it's a stunningly gorgeous color.


Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink. Red Shatter is really fascinating! As you can probably tell from the pictures, it's sheer. It's like a jelly crackle. Because if the see-through quality of this, details of the base polish show through the red. See all the sparkles from Rally Pretty Pink? Pretty cool. Another interesting effect of the sheerness is that the tone of the red shatter can change based on what you layer under it.



See how much warmer it looks here with the orange showing through? This is OPI Red Shatter over Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange. This looks awesome over glittery orange, like a big shiny sparkling fireball.

The formula on both was great. Nice and smooth, good texture, fast dry time. The crackle effect works much better over dry polish, but I used it over wet polish in these pictures and it's still pretty good. Just be aware that when applying over wet polish, the crackle will spread as it dries and take the base polish with it, causing bald spots.

I love both of these, but I must say... what an odd color combination. I don't know how much I like the red crackle polish over the golden-mauve base color, I think it blends in too much. I don't dislike them together, but I think the crackle effect doesn't seem as pronounced as with other colors. Needs more contrast. Maybe a yellow underneath?

(These were sent to me for review.)

Layering Nail Of The Day plus Random Eye of the Day!

Need to take a little break from doing spring/summer collection reviews. I still have a lot of things left to post until I'm all caught up, but right now I just want to post something fun and random. How about a manicure and an eye look from last week? I really liked these...


Nubar Ruby Red Glitz (one coat) over BB Couture Laced Corset (two coats). I started out with Laced Corset... It was the last thing I swatched (hope to have that review finished soon XD) and I left it on because I liked the color so much. But then I was thinking... It needs more sparkle. I wanted red. I actually wanted to do Revlon Slipper over it, but I couldn't find it. Ruby Red Glitz caught my eye and I decided on that. It turned out to be exactly what I wanted. The purple still shows through the red sheer base of Ruby Red Glitz, and the glitter in Ruby is sparse enough to not completely cover the base with chunky opaque glitter. Dare I say... this combination even looks a little 230-ish? Of course, nowhere near being a dupe or anything, but that red sparkle on top of purple with hints of gold sure makes me think of 230.

This is the eye look I was playing with last week:

This was:
Too Faced Shadow Insurance
Wet n Wild Blue Had Me At Hello Palette:
Left Side Browbone shade on lid
Left Side Eyelid shade on outer lid
Left Side Definer shade in crease
Right Side Eyelid on lower lashline
Urban Decay 24/7 Shadow Pencil in Clash on lower lashline (as a base for Wet n Wild Eyelid)
Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liner in Indigo
Cargo Highlight from the Warm Neutral Essential palette as highlight
Revlon Grow Luscious Mascara

And hey... My brows are almost entirely grown back now! That took a while.

I've been doing variations on this look for the past couple weeks, trying it with different colors of upper and lower liner... Adding glitter... I love that Wet n Wild Blue Had Me At Hello palette. Those shadows are amazing, Except... like Color Club Nothing But Truffle, this palette has accidentally given itself a new name due to the filename of a photo of it: Blue Had Meat Hello. Blue had meat, hello? Blue had Meat Hello? It's stuck. I can't help myself.

OPI Femme de Cirque Soft Shades Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

OPI's annual Soft Shades collection is circus-themed this year. I have to say, I like the theme! No Soft Shades collection can rival my love for the old Princess Charming collection, but the names of the polishes in this set are fantastic.


In The Spotlight Pink. A soft, squishy-looking milky pink jelly. This pink is mostly neutral in the bottle, but it does border on warmer/peachy-toned against my skin.


So Many Clowns, So Little Time. This name seriously cracks me up... It's going on my list of all time favorite OPI names. The color is a creamy off white with a slight splash of pink and grey. Reminds me a bit of the whiter version of Bubble Bath.


Step Right Up. This one has a similar finish to So Many Clowns, but it has more pink and peach in it. Very pale, very white-based, slightly muted, like there's one drop of grey in it.


My favorite part of this collection is the glitter topcoat, I Juggle... Men. Well, it's not quite a glitter, but it's a sparkle. It's sort of like... maybe Orly Fifty-Four or CND Sapphire Sparkle, but it's even more like the duochrome shimmer in OPI Unripened / Nicole Blues In The Night. Funky irregular particles, like mini-flakes... Broken crushed flakes... Super duochrome gorgeous. It wouldn't show up on camera all by itself on my nails, but it's really intended for layering anyway, so I've layered it.

OPI I Juggle... Men sparkle topcoat over In The Spotlight Pink.

OPI I Juggle... Men sparkle topcoat over So Many Clowns, So Little Time.


OPI I Juggle... Men sparkle topcoat over Step Right Up.

As you can see, it's subtle over the sheers, but it adds a nice touch of blue/purple duochrome sparkle. It really shows up best over darker colors. It's especially nice over Color Club Total Mystery.

The formula on these was difficult. I found it to be somewhat watery but goopy at the same time, a texture similar to early Big 3 Free polishes. I did have a hard time applying these. They wanted to run into my cuticles. The Pro-Wide brush seemed smaller and flatter than usual and that added to the difficulty. These are meant to be worn as sheers, but my nails are way too stained to wear them that way, so I did five coats of all. When worn sheer, they are very subtle, providing only a slight milky wash of color.

The exception is the I Juggle... Men topcoat, which is a nice thin, even texture. It dries very, very fast and quite shiny, which leads me to believe it is actually a topcoat, quick-dry even, and not just for layering. It's fantastic.

These would probably make a nice, soft, natural looking french manicure. One that looks like clean natural nails with a touch of softness.

While the colors aren't really my thing, I do love that glitter topcoat and I love the names. They're very, very sheer so if you're someone who is only into subtle tints on your nails, these might interest you.

(These were sent to me for review.)