Lacquer Slacker Liz: OPI Nicole

Showing posts with label OPI Nicole. Show all posts

Friday, June 20, 2014

Nicole by OPI Fresh Squeezed

It's about time I got around to swatching an orange polish again, no? It's been a while.

Fresh Squeezed was released by Nicole by OPI in 2010 (I think) . It's a medium translucent orange with a bit of a bittersweet tint to it, swimming with lovely duochromatic glass fleck shimmers. The shimmers have a gold to pink shift, which translates through the base as bright orange and rosy salmon. This is one of those polishes that shows its best face in shade or indirect light, which allows the glass fleck shift to be seen. In full sun the shift is overwhelmed and the shimmers read mostly as golden orange. The orange base has enough red in it to remind me of Portland Orange, the color of the electronic DONT WALK pedestrian crossing signal, but it's slightly lighter and less saturated. Orange is always going to be an eye-catching color, and this one has the benefit of a light-trapping translucent formula that gives it a radiant glow in addition to the shimmering glass flecks.

The downside to translucence is, of course, a dearth of opacity. Even at four coats, Fresh Squeezed is not truly opaque. The beautiful color and abundance of shimmers helps to make a bit of visible nail line less noticeable, but it is there nonetheless. The consistency is fluid and thin but easily manipulated, going on in thin coats with good flow over the nail and no runniness or pooling. Multiple coats are helpful in terms of coverage, such as it is, and also add increased depth and richness of color. Fresh Squeezed dries naturally in good time to a beautiful glossy finish.

Photos show four coats of Fresh Squeezed over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. These pics were taken late in the day in low light and show this polish at its deepest hue. In person in most lighting situations it is a shade lighter than what you see here.

Nicole by OPI Fresh Squeezed

Fresh Squeezed turned out juicier and more vibrant on the nail than I expected from looking at the bottle. That almost makes it worth the four coats it took to get this look. Almost. There have got to be other orange glass fleck jellies out there that don't have the opacity issues that Fresh Squeezed does, and I'm going to be on the look out for them. Until then, Pretty Serious My Darlin' Clementine retains its hold on my heart as my all time favorite orange polish.

love,
Liz

Monday, January 20, 2014

Nicole by OPI Cinna-man of My Dreams

Cinna-man of My Dreams was released by NOPI as part of their Gumdrops textured polish collection late last spring. NOPI describes it as a warm spiced pink and I agree. It's a medium rosy mauve with sienna undertones containing texture-adding particles and an abundance of very fine microglitter-type sparkly bits in a particularly complementary color mixture -- pink, copper and silver are what I see but others read brown, blue and gold in it as well. The overall effect is beautiful, complex and full of sparkle.

Application was great. The consistency of this polish is fluid and slightly dense but with plenty of flow over the nail. Cinna-man of My Dreams comes with OPI's pro-wide brush, which always catches me by surprise and takes a nail or two to reorient myself. Any swipage cleans up easily with acetone but the sparklies in this polish do tend to scatter across the skin. Coverage is excellent and Cinna-man of My Dreams applies very evenly, making just one coat look great even if complete opacity demands two. I waited a good twenty minutes between coats and had no dragging issues, nor did the polish become lumpy at all with the second coat. Cinna-man of My Dreams dries naturally in good time for a textured polish to a handsome sparkling textured matte finish.

Photos show two coats of Cinna-man of My Dreams with no topcoat.

NOPI Cinna-man of My Dreams

NOPI Cinna-man of My Dreams, macro shot in the bottle

NOPI Cinna-man of My Dreams

With Cinna-man of My Dreams, I think NOPI has demonstrated how to take a fairly tame color and craft it up into a minor masterpiece. It's unique among the matte textured polishes that I've had experience in color and with its use of multiple collaborative colors to produce a complex, very dimensional and visually interesting result. I think it would be easy to mix a bunch of variously colored sparkles together, throw it in a texture base and come out with a muddy mix, but Cinna-man of My Dreams is anything but. Well done!

love,
Liz

Friday, October 18, 2013

Nicole by OPI Shoot for the Maroon

Shoot for the Maroon from Nicole by OPI (NOPI for short) is a deep purpley red wine shimmer polish with shy color-shifting shimmers that appear purple, red, pink, gold or golden green depending upon the angle of light. The overall effect is of a deep dimensional burgundy with a blackened look around the edges, a quintessentially fall kind of color.

I'm not typically drawn to dark reds or purples but at some time I read something that someone wrote somewhere that must have really resounded with me because I immediately put it on my wish list. And there it stayed for a long long time.

Then a week or so ago I was in CVS picking up prescriptions and some other stuff and came across Shoot for the Maroon. My CVS is a complete slacker (and I should know) when it comes to nail polish. Except for Sally Hanson, the displays are always a wreck, the seasonal displays are only the smallest most pitiful things and they never have any new collection displays. Argh! So I was walking past the NOPI display which was a hot mess with a lot of empty slots and jumbled up mixed brands shoved in there and caught this polish out of the corner of my eye.

Shoot for the Maroon has great bottle presence. The shimmers show a golden color shift along the curvy edges of NOPI's bottle shape. It's hard not to notice it, even when it's slot in the rack is at the bottom of the display next to the floor. At the time, I'd been thinking about colors for my fall gradient post and when I saw Shoot for the Maroon a couple of light bulbs went on in my head and I grabbed it.

Application was easy. This polish has a nice formula, not too runny or too thick, and goes on really smoothly with the pro-wide brush that comes with NOPI polishes. Photos show two coats of Shoot for the Maroon over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.


NOPI Shoot for the Maroon

NOPI Shoot for the Maroon

As I said, I'm not usually drawn to dark polishes like this but I am totally loving Shoot for the Maroon. Something about the charcoal brown and red and warmish purple in this really sends me, I just love looking at it. And it's not so much the shimmer that is shy as it is the color shift. It's there but it's so subtle that it kind of blends into the overall dynamic of how light plays over this color. Just a beautiful, graceful, elegant look, I think.

What about you, Miss B? You like?

love,
Aunt Liz

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Zoya Darcy and Fall Nail Art Fail Y'all!

This entry is kind of excruciating to post. Why am I doing it then? I don't know. But I post with this caveat: if fails (and I mean, REAL fails) give you that queasy feeling that attaches itself like Pavlov's dog to events, persons or objects, please do not view this.

First thing's first! Darcy was released this past summer as part of Zoya's Stunning collection for summer 2013. It is a bright creamy buttercup yellow creme with a bit of secret yellow shimmer to it. This is the color that you would make the sun in your early crayon landscapes, and maybe add a smiley face to it because it is a happy sun.

Yellow isn't the best color for me as you will see but I really like this forthright honest beamer. I would have liked it even better had taken less than three coats to even out the coverage, but most all yellow polishes are reknowned for their streakiness so it isn't a question of being subpar. Streaks aside, the formula was light and liquid and I got it everywhere. Turns out I didn't do as thorough a clean up as I thought I did. Please try to overlook the winning way I included my cuticles in the paint job.

Photos show three coats of Darcy over treatment and basecoast with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Zoya Darcy

Using the Darcy manicure as a base, I created a gradient using the sponging technique. Fuzzy had picked up a leaf yesterday that was shed by the red maple in the front yard and I used that as my inspiration. The colors I used were OPI Nicole Shoot for the Maroon, Misa Bourbon on the Rocks, Zoya Livingston and Zoya Darcy. I sponged each color one at a time starting at the cuticle with Shoot for the Maroon. I made a little pool of color on a piece of tinfoil and dipping the tip of a small latex-type make-up sponge into the pool, sponged the color across all my nails before beginning with the next color. Once I had finished sponging, I did my clean up (such as it is) and applied a topcoat of Seche Vite to each nail.

Once that had dried, I added a tiny reverse glitter gradient beginning at the cuticle with Shimmer Polish Wendy. Another coat of Seche Vite and I was done.

It didn't turn out like I'd hoped at all but of course I learned a lot and realize that I must try more of these sponging manicures before I can even begin to know what to expect when I do it. There's more to getting it right than just dabbing color. Here are the pics....

polishes I used, l to r: Nicole by OPI Shoot for the Maroon, Misa Bourbon on the Rocks, Zoya Livingston, Zoya Darcy...

...and Shimmer Polish Wendy


fall gradient nail art fail

fall gradient nail art fail

*lol* Actually this manicure reminds me most of those reverse candy corns, you know the ones?

What I learned was: use a smaller bit of make-up sponge and dab more lightly and carefully (or I think I might try painting the polish on the sponge with the colors in stripes and do the whole nail at once that way), be more patient with the process, pick colors that have a similar finish. I also found it difficult to figure out how much of each color to sponge before quitting and moving to the next color. The clean up was tedious and I was kinda worn out afterwards! I think I may need a new and different clean up brush too.

This was my third go at sponging a gradient and while I know it's no beauty and doesn't compare to the wonderful creative manicures I've seen online using this technique, it was fun. At least, until I got to the photos. Ha! And Fuzzy liked it a lot. It was inspired by her leaf, so that makes me happy.

love,
Aunt Liz