Lacquer Slacker Liz: OPI Eurso Euro and Deborah Lippmann Va Va Voom

Eurso Euro was released by OPI as part of their Euro Centrale collection for spring/summer 2013, a collection created to celebrate the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania. It's a saturated deep vivid ultramarine blue creme with subtle purple undertones, kind of like a cross between a cobalt and a dark royal blue.

This is a very nicely formulated polish. Liquid, creamy and dense and easily controlled with OPI's pro-wide brush, it glides over the nail surface and self-levels almost immediately. I love applying polishes like this, it makes me want to stand on the bow of a ship with my arms in the air and shout "king of the world!" Well, maybe not. But I do get a little thrill of victory when a polish goes on so beautifully.

Speaking of OPI's pro-wide brush, how does anyone paint their toes with that thing? I mean, I have fairly wide nails so it suits me quite well but I know that it makes application a little tricky for those with smaller nail beds and toe nails can be so tiny! How folks can use it on their toe nails and not get polish everywhere is a mystery to me.

Eurso Euro dries naturally in good time to a fabulous glossy almost jelly-like finish. It seems almost superfluous to put topcoat over it, but I'm a diehard fast dry topcoat fan. Photos show two coats (coverage is excellent, almost a one coater) of Eurso Euro with a topcoat of Seche Vite to accelerate the drying process and protect against smudging.

OPI Eurso Euro

Perfectly delicious! You can see from the bottle shots that this dries darker than the bottle color and not quite as vivid. It's still a wonderful rich blue that I think is more versatile than a royal blue. It doesn't quite pass for navy, which I think of as having more black/grey in it, but it almost could. Love it!

Like Fake It Til You Make It and Shake Your Money Maker, Va Va Voom is part of Deborah Lippmann's Jewel Heist collection for fall 2013. Va Va Voom is the "all blue and holo too" version of Shake Your Money Maker. It's a true glitter polish with dark sapphire blue hex glitters in different sizes and medium and small holographic hex glitters in a blue tinted transparent base. The glitters are abundant enough to provide opaque coverage in two to three coats or Va Va Voom can be used as a gradient or full coat topper over a base color.

I chose a full on approach to Va Va Voom. I applied (ploshed and spread) about two and a half coats over Eurso Euro, the half coat consisting of adding a bit more glitter to areas that seemed to want it. Application was a hot mess. Loads of glitter came out on each brushful and I was a little too cavalier about spreading it carefully and got glitters everywhere. In the midst of this a catastrophe occurred when I knocked over my little glass dapping dish that I keep full of acetone for clean up, flooding a patch of the WHITE PAINTED bath surround righter where my bottle of Va Va Voom was standing. I grabbed the bottle of polish by the top, forgetting that it was loosened as per application protocol, and whipped the brush (fully loaded) out of the bottle dripping syrupy dollops of polish down the side of the bottle as well as flinging them into the acetone.

Lord have mercy.

It could have been worse. I could have knocked the Va Va Voom bottle over when I snatched up the top, like I did the other day with my bottle of Seche Rebuild. Luckily I keep a folded paper towel underneath the dapping dish and quickly swiped up the mess with that, praying that it wouldn't decide to cement itself to the acetone-flooded white paint. It didn't.

Returning to the non-disastrous segments of this manicure, I gently tamped down the coats of Va Va Voom with my finger as it was drying to flatten any poke-ups and topped it with my favorite glitter taming topcoat sandwich of Seche Vite + Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food + Seche Vite. At that point I had towering heaps of polish on my nails, but they gradually reduce in thickness as everything dries. It's still a lot of polish though.

Photos show two and a half coats of Va Va Voom over the Eurso Euro manicure above, with a three layer sandwich of topcoat. We have dark overcast skies with rain today and my camera struggled to focus in this less than ideal lighting, so I suggest that you not view the full size pics here as some of them are slightly out of focus and are easier to look at in the in-line with text size.

Deborah Lippmann Va Va Voom over OPI Eurso Euro on the nail, Deborah Lippmann Va Va Voom in the bottle

Deborah Lippmann Va Va Voom over OPI Eurso Euro

Va Va Voom is what I wanted Lady Sings the Blues to be but blingier. The tinted transparent base does a great job of suspending the glitters, giving loads of dimensionality to the look. Almost too much for good pics, I think. This polish looks a bit chaotic in close macro photographs. It's much more coherent looking in person. For a dark polish it's pretty darn flashy in any light you get it into. The color is beautiful, a deep rich sapphire blue dappled by cornflower and rainbow flashes as light passes over it.

Jewelry for your finger tips!

love,
Aunt Liz

Lacquer Slacker Liz

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

OPI Eurso Euro and Deborah Lippmann Va Va Voom

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