Tag Archives: nail lacquer

Estessimo Tins The Neptune nail polish review

Posted on April 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

‘They’ve got SNILs!’ Boyfriend told me, as I continued to hunt around a shop for nail polish. I, of course, ignored him. What the hell are SNILs?! Probably some football-related nonsense. But he kept repeating himself until I was finally dragged over to see the ‘SNILs’, which were in fact Estessimo TINS, a Japanese nail polish brand renowned for their glitters that I had declared an interest in but days ago.

Most of their polish names begin with an entirely irrelevant and unnecessary ‘The’, which many find amusing but I find sort of charming and quirkily cool. Plus, the definite article implies special-ness and individuality, which these polishes have in spades. And good on them for not going down the boring names and numbers route so beloved of Asian cosmetics companies – hi Majolica Majorca V1494 and Sasatinnie FCGL002!

So here we have The Neptune, from their All Night Stars Collection, which was named entirely after planets. Perfectly-named, may I add, because these heady hits of colour and glitter send you shooting straight to the stars.

The Neptune is a mid-toned indigo shot through with silver glitter and larger round holographic glitter particles. In short, it’s total starry-studded night sky stuff. One coat gives you a pale pretty lilac kind of colour, two is the lovely shade of not-quite-blue not-quite-purple that’s pictured and three intensifies it to a deeper, darker colour that’s heading more towards midnight yet all look like they’ve come from a galaxy far far away. A galaxy that’s been hit with a shed-load of glitter, of course.

For those that love their glitterbombs, look no further. The Neptune is practically dripping in sparkle. And even though it’s saturated in silver glitter and bouncing off the ceiling with those bigger rainbow-reflecting particles, enough of that lovely base colour still shines through. Glitter may as well be Estessimo Tins middle name.

Application was easy, the brush was medium-sized leaning more towards the thin and it was pretty opaque in just the one coat. Yes, you’re hearing that right – ONE. Normally, glitters have to be built up to two coats on a good day but usually at least three or four to get any decent coverage of the sparkly stuff yet this has more glitter going on in one swipe than most polishes manage in a lifetime.

That amount of glitter obviously means you don’t get a finish that feels smooth yet it looks smooth and not at all gritty, which is, in glitter terms, practically as good as it gets. It stayed chip-free for an age… or should that be a light year… and what’s more, unlike OPI’s Sparkle-licious, it wasn’t utterly nightmarish to remove. I even managed it with a non-acetone remover without rubbing my skin off in the process!

I also loved the base colour of The Neptune. I mentioned in my review of OPI’s Ink how many nail bloggers seemed to have forgotten the term indigo existed, instead making up the word ‘blurple’, and I’ve also detailed how difficult a colour it can be to pitch right (remember the inky dull disaster that was Zoya’s Pinta). But The Neptune manages to nail (ho ho ho) even that! The perfect little bear portion of blue and purple, it would be a pretty dreamy colour on its own, and that’s before you’ve mixed in a solar system’s worth of sparkly stuff.

Seriously, look how prettily those particles glow against that indigo backdrop! Red, pink, blue, green, gold, copper, purple – they’ve got it all. Astronauts would probably be disappointed with how the real galaxy looks in comparison once they’ve seen this baby.

The Neptune was so impressive that it’s got me seriously wondering if I’ll ever bother with other brand’s glitters again. Even if I’ll never be able to think of Estessimo Tins as anything other but SNILs ever again!

Estessimo TINS 023 The Neptune nail polish, Winter 2003 All Night Stars Collection, $85, Nail Concept Company

Looks good with: Black, constellations, star-gazing
Drying time: 5-7 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: +7 days

Leave a comment

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sasatinnie Intergalactic Wow nail polish review

Posted on April 11, 2011 | 1 comment

Having given you time to mull over my first flakie nail polish, it’s time for another review from my Sasa haul. So following hot on the glittery-pretty heels of FCGL001, it’s… Sasatinnie FCGL002! Imaginative, right?

FCGL002 is waaaay too beautiful to be known by a string of letters and numbers that make it sound more like a hazardous chemical than a thing of wonder, so I’ve renamed it Intergalactic Wow. It’s a deep deadly nightshade purple swirled with silver micro-glitter and an abundance of glowing coppery-pinky-purply opalescent shreds, with such a mesmerising magic about it that you do feel like you’re being sucked into another galaxy. In case you’re in any doubt, it is 100% totally gorgeous.

Out of all three Sasatinnie flakies I bought, Intergalactic Wow had by far the biggest and the most ‘amazing shreds of rainbow awesomeness’ (I’m thinking of patenting the term). Again, there was a thin watery first coat and a somewhat toxic stink, but once you’ve layered on two to three coats of this lovely, you get a colour with such depth and richness to its shimmers and glimmers that you can barely remember your own name let alone whatever minor hardships it took to achieve. It reminded me of the photos you see from outer space – those vivid and multi-textured hues of a planet’s surface, topped off with starry sprinkles and flaming comets – hence the name I gave it. By now, the ‘Wow’ part should be pretty self-explanatory!

Hunting around the web, it looks like Intergalactic Wow may even be a dupe (nail polish jargon for identical twin) for OPI’s Merry Midnight, a colour from its 2009 Holiday Wishes Collection and long since discontinued. It certainly has the same red-based plum base colour, although from some photos, it looks like Sasatinnie’s polish may have even more flakie goodness going on! And for a fraction of the price to boot!

Intergalactic Wow was, unsurprisingly, my favourite of all the Sasatinnie lacquers I purchased. That it only cost $24 is nothing short of incredible; it easily outshines many of the other premium polishes I own, in terms of drying time, staying power and the most importantly, that magnificent colour pay-off. After all, why else would I have put ‘Wow’ in the name?!

Looks good with: black, star-gazing, cosmic wonder
Drying time: <2 mins
Coats required: 2-3
Chips: +5 days

Sasatinnie FCGL002 “Intergalactic Wow” nail polish, Super Dolly Fantasy Quick Dry Collection, $24, Sasa

1 Comment

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

OPI The One That Got Away nail polish review

Posted on April 11, 2011 | 2 comments

Slowly but surely, I’m attempting to review all of the Katy Perry nail polishes before OPI’s Summer Collection comes out, so it’s down to The One That Got Away to get us over the camel’s hump.

So far, we’ve had the colour-changing silvery star of the show Not Like The Movies and the pretty in pink Teenage Dream. The One That Got Away is a deep bold but cool-toned fuchsia, with the merest smattering of glitter and shimmer, and yet it’s by far the most boring colour of the bunch.

The fact that there’s no other way to describe this shade than fuchsia should indicate part of the problem. It’s utterly one-dimensional, despite the metallic-glitter-shimmer effect that’s similar to the finish of The Show Must Go On. Whereas that polish glowed in a million different ways and was made even more unique by that beautiful finish, here those little flecks of glitter can’t save what is ultimately a flat and run-of-the-mill colour from being boring – a word which, love her or hate her, is so very un-Katy Perry.

I think it looks nicer and sparklier in my photos (especially the one below, taken in strong sunlight) than it did in real life. Even my boyfriend, who rarely manages to rouse himself from anything but boredom in regards to my nails, said he didn’t like it. I wore it with First Mate, hardly the world’s most exciting colour, on the other hand – and somehow, an inky navy crème managed to outshine a bright glittery shiny metallic. Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

The One That Got Away? If only! Annoyingly for a colour that I didn’t like that much, it didn’t give me much of an excuse to take it off – opaque in two easy breezy coats and chip-free for WELL over a week. Since it hung around longer than a novelty record in the charts, I noticed that it seemed to lose some of its sheen as the week progressed, making a dull colour look even duller.

Without wanting to go on a full-on rant again, The One That Got Away does not even have the mitigating factor of being suited to its name. Once you’ve listened to the song itself, a wistful swoon down memory lane, it’s hard to reconcile this bright bold hue with any feelings of rose-tinted nostalgia – and for those that haven’t listened to the song, I’d argue that the phrase The One That Got Away has a sense of inbuilt sense of nostalgic longing anyway.

Perhaps I’m attaching too much stigma to the name; after all, ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. Alas, this rose smells of nothing but flat and uninspired. As far as I’m concerned, The One That Got Away can run for the hills.

Looks good with: Black, ignorance of the Katy Perry song
Drying time: 3-5 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: +7 days

Read my reviews of the rest of the OPI Katy Perry Collection:
     •  Teenage Dream
     •  Not Like The Movies

OPI The One That Got Away nail polish, Spring 2011 Katy Perry Collection, $168 for four of four minis, selected Mannings

2 Comments

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

China Glaze First Mate nail polish review

Posted on April 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

As some of you may know, I’m just a little excited about the Royal Wedding (she says, drinking out of a commemorative Royal Wedding mug, dining on commemorative Royal Wedding crockery and contemplating her giant commemorative Royal Wedding poster). I’ve also become obsessed with Kate Middleton – or to be more exact her amazing hair, which survives everything that horrible British weather and scores of unflattering paparazzi shots throw at it and still comes out looking beauty pageant perfect every time. So it was with Princess Kate in mind that I selected my next nail polish – China Glaze’s First Mate.

If you’re thinking that blue doesn’t seem a likely choice for the future Queen of England’s manicure (pretty neutrals all the way, right?), you’d be correct. I was in fact thinking of this iconic Kate moment in choosing it:

The royal blue Issa dress that Kate wore for the engagement announcement was just stunning. Flattering, sophisticated, just that little bit sexy and in an eye-popping shade that *stroke of genius moment* matches the iconic sapphire engagement ring. Apart from lusting after the dress (get me a cheapo high street copy, stat!), it’s had me lusting after that particular shade of cobalt for weeks on end. Enter First Mate, which has been photographed on many people’s blogs looking like this, i.e. a gorgeous hue of that striking blue:

(Note the long-suffering boyfriend’s look of disgust in the background, as I whip out a camera to take pictures of my nails yet again whilst probably droning on about Kate Middleton’s hair yet again.)

However, as I swiftly learned, First Mate only turns this colour in strong bright beating sunlight. Damn you bloggers with your indiscriminate use of flash! Under normal conditions, it actually looks like this:

That’s an inky, very dark, even a little dull, take on navy blue. Under most lightings, it’s actually almost black and is definitely a whole lot darker than the, dare I say it, Issa dress colour of the bottle. It’s got a nautical feel – well, it is from the Anchors Away Collection! – and also a certain Parisian chic to it. Navy in general is an underrated colour that’s extremely versatile and looks smart all year round, even if it isn’t a natural fit for spring. However, as has been well-documented, I’m just not a fan of dark colours on my nails, however great the polish.

This, incidentally, is First Mate’s middle ground, found in normal daylight. A nice enough navy but not exactly set to striking:

Application-wise, this was another China Glaze stellar performer. Nice smooth consistency, opaque in just one coat (though you might want to go two for added glossiness) and a steadfast defiance towards chipping.

I suppose First Mate will just about complement the royal blue found in the Union Jacks I’ll be frantically waving come April 29 and after all that, it looks like Kate’s dress, without the benefit of a million flash bulbs popping at it, also turns a similar inky navy too (see below)! So whilst First Mate is still flattering, sophisticated and just that little bit sexy, it’s just not the colour I was looking for. Even if that was the wrong colour in the first place… oh, never mind. God Save The Queen!

Looks good with: red, Breton stripes, the nautical look
Drying time: 5 mins
Coats required: 1-2
Chips: 7 days

China Glaze First Mate nail polish, Spring 2011 Anchors Away Collection, $60, Cher2

Leave a comment

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sasatinnie Blue Steel nail polish review

Posted on April 2, 2011 | 5 comments

I promised you reviews of my newly-purchased flakie nail polishes so let’s get the ball rolling with Sasatinnie’s FCGL001.

Oh dear, that’s hardly the most exciting of names, is it? In order to combat this undeserved dullardry, I decided to give it my own name – Blue Steel. Guess who re-watched Zoolander recently!

This means that FCGL001 Blue Steel has no option other than to be really really ridiculously good-looking. And I rather think it is. It’s a steely metallic blue-grey with a river of sparkling silver micro-glitter running through it, plus a scattering of those all-important flakes of rainbow awesomeness. These flakes are actually quite subtle, relatively small and a glowing pink colour but they’re still just as awesome as their showier counterparts.

As I said earlier, I was actually pretty impressed with the formula of this polish. Despite an extremely thin murky first coat, Blue Steel became opaque in just two coats, although I applied a third to intensify the gleaming depth of those awesome flakies even further. It’s also quick-drying and long-lasting, although as a cheapo drugstore polish, it’s unlikely to be part of the ‘3 Free’ brigade (reminder: free from the three biggest nail varnish nasties) and consequently, smelt just as toxic as the ones I remember from my youth. Similarly, the brush shape is nothing to write home about – medium-sized, quite flat, fans out nicely – although since these bottles are slung into a huge vat and no doubt sneakily opened and jammed back once a security guard’s caught them doing it multiple times by excitable schoolgirls, it’s worth checking to make sure you don’t get a brush with splayed bristles. The length of the brush feels rather short, like you’re having to get a bit too close to comfort to the nail to get the job done, but none of these criticisms are serious enough to make you regret the purchase. I mean, these are glittering flakes of rainbow awesomeness, remember?!

For a polish boasting so many elements from the gaudier side of lacquers – glitter, flakies, metallic and all done in blue – Blue Steel is surprisingly low-key but in a confidently gorgeous way. The dusty pewter blue is a really wearable shade that goes with most things but gets balanced out by the fine dusting of silver glitter, which gives it a sexy shimmer without turning it into a circus.

As for the flakies? Well, they’re everything I hoped they would be. They turn Blue Steel into a much more beautiful, unique polish, giving it that extra push of oomph yet staying true to its more subtle take on things. These opalescent shreds, plus the silver fairy dust, give it a depth that makes it all the more mesmerising to anyone that looks close enough. And trust me – that’s something you’ll be doing a lot of once you’ve started wearing it!

Looks good with: cool tones, metallics, doing the Blue Steel
Drying time: <2 mins
Coats required: 2-3
Chips: 3 days

Sasatinnie FCGL001 “Blue Steel” nail polish, Super Dolly Fantasy Quick Dry Collection, $24, Sasa

5 Comments

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

OPI Sparkle-licious nail polish review

Posted on March 31, 2011 | Leave a comment

Remember in my first nail varnish reviews, how I revealed my disdain for glittery nail polishes? Well, it’s only taken six months or so, but this contempt has been well and truly left in dust – and what better way to celebrate than with one of the sparkliest, shiniest, glitteriest polishes on the block, OPI Sparkle-licious.

OPI are renowned for their fun names yet Sparkle-licious could not be any more accurate unless it involved copious amounts of exclamation marks. It’s a veritable Mardi-Gras on the nails – large showy particles of gold, pink, blue and purple all joining together for a riot right on your fingertips.

One of my previous objections to glitter polishes was that they tend to look like a pre-schooler ran riot in the art cupboard, with pots of glitter just dumped haphazardly on the nails. And Sparkle-licious looks pretty much exactly like that – the mixed-up multi-coloured bags of glitter you’re left with once kindergarten kids have got a bit too enthusiastic with your craft supplies. Although the bottle makes it look like purple might be the predominant colour, once it’s on the nails it seems to burst into a brighter golden glow. So whether you love it or loathe it, this look is a difficult one to ignore!

If only getting this intense sparkle showdown was as easy as letting a child run amok with some PVA glue and a wild imagination. Unlike another recent OPI glitter polish, Teenage Dream, which had a coloured base, the particles in Sparkle-licious are suspended in a clear liquid, so I had to go four coats to get full coverage. I also found Sparkle-licious’ formula to be gloopy and very runny, meaning (in true kindergarten style) that I got glitter absolutely everywhere.

However, it didn’t have the overly gritty feeling of glitter polishes of yore, even if it’s obviously not an entirely smooth surface without a top coat. And, despite the four coats, it generally didn’t feel too thick or heavy either. The downside of this pure glitter hit that required plentiful coats? Brittle nail polish that chipped off in chunks sooner rather than later.

Another memory of glitter polishes that did unfortunately prove correct – they’re hell to remove. Don’t even bother trying a non-acetone remover with Sparkle-licious, as it merely laughs in its face and stays sparkling steadfastly into the night. The best way of putting out the party on your nails is to employ the foil method, which entails wrapping nail polish remover-soaked cotton wool around the nail, then wrapping foil around the whole fingertip and leaving it a few air-starved minutes to do its work. This removes the glitter in a fuss-free fashion but thanks to the acetone – the magic ingredient that does most of the removing but certainly doesn’t go about it quietly – your fingers will probably sting, tingle and remain highly sensitive for a while afterwards (and be prepared for a lot of wincing if you have any cuts!).

Sparkle-licious is an ostentatious glamorous glitterbomb that’s not for the faint-hearted or vanilla-loving amongst us. I also tried it as a top coat over The Show Must Go On  and it didn’t seem too happy to share the spotlight – frankly, I found it a bit too busy and overpowering to work with just one colour as its backing singer (shown below, although I think it looks better in the picture than it did in real life!).

Whether you look at Sparkle-licious and think ‘Too Much!’ or ‘Not Enough!’ rather depends on your feelings about glitter as a whole; honestly, for me, it was just too much for wearing round the house doing nothing more exciting than the washing-up. This baby packs more bling than the brightest Bollywood musical and more glitter than the wardrobe department for a beauty pageant. Be prepared for the term Sparkle-licious to sound like an understatement!

Looks good with: parties, more bling, your inner diva
Drying time: 3-5mins
Coats required: 3-4
Chips: 2 days

OPI Sparkle-icious nail polish, Winter 2010 Burlesque Collection, $132, selected Mannings

Leave a comment

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

OPI The Show Must Go On! nail polish review

Posted on March 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

I seem to have been on a bit of a roll with OPI lately – my recent-reviewed Not Like The Movies, Miami Beet and most of all, Parlez-Vous OPI, now rank as some of my favourite polishes period. So let’s usher in another OPI instant classic – The Show Must Go On!

I’ve read lots of posts comparing The Show Must Go On to Mac’s Bad Fairy from its Disney-themed Venomous Villains collection, a magical glittering red-orange-pink concoction in everyone’s photos yet, from when I tried it at a Mac counter, a streaky gritty hellish mess to apply. Whilst The Show Must Go On and Bad Fairy are certainly not identical judging from the pictures, by my reckoning, The Show Must Go On is a simply beautiful colour in its own right.

Not that OPI would have you know. Never have I seen bottle pictures more inaccurate. Google Image this baby and you’ll more than likely see a bright but boring fuchsia staring back at you. The bottle photo at the top of this post is slightly more accurate but still doesn’t nearly capture the depth and brightness of colour, nor the brilliance of its foil-like sparkle.

The Show Must Go On is primarily a metallic pink-based red, with a gorgeous shimmer that seems to come bursting from within the polish itself. It has a fantastically clean and bright finish, jumping straight off your fingers to instantly work its way into any nail polish lovers’ heart. But what makes this polish truly incredible are the subtle shifts in colour that flash at you throughout the day. Red, scarlet, coral, pink, copper, orange, gold – practically every colour from the warm end of the spectrum is there, winking at you like you’re sharing a particularly juicy secret. Needless to say, I couldn’t capture it in photographs, though I’ve tried to compensate with quantity over quality for the sake of this review (though I urge you to click and check them out close up)!

I was also quite impressed with the formula, despite a thin first coat that gave me bald patches all over. Somehow, it worked out its problems by the second coat to give me a truly flawless finish, as clean bright and shiny as a child all smartened up for her first day of school. Sadly, it did the trademark OPI thing of chipping slightly by the third day of wear, but I find their polishes self-levelling enough to fix relatively easily.

This is definitely one of my favourite polishes so far. It’s slightly reminiscent of Zoya’s Gloria, except warmer-toned, multi-coloured and with a more low-key approach to glitter (so not that similar at all then!). Whilst The Show Must Go On definitely boasts a certain shimmer, it doesn’t feel like an additional ingredient, more that it was an inseparable part of the polish all along. It’s festive without being singularly so and unusual enough to distinguish it from the stocking-load of other red foils out there.

Like a flickering flame of the most entrancing candle you’ve ever seen – we’d all be moths if flames were this gorgeous! – The Show Must Go On is a must-see. Get your tickets now!

Looks good with: your inner diva
Drying time: 5-7 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: 3 days

OPI The Show Must Go On nail polish, Winter 2010 Burlesque Collection, $168 for pack of four Mini Teasers, selected Mannings

Leave a comment

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

OPI Teenage Dream nail polish review

Posted on March 21, 2011 | 3 comments

My rant about the anticlimactic OPI Katy Perry collection over (see here for the colours that should have been), it’s time to deliver a nail polish review proper. Namely, OPI’s Teenage Dream.

Not Like The Movies, a shimmering silver chameleon is definitely the star of the collection (alas, definitely not the star of the album itself!) but from other bloggers’ photos, I thought that Teenage Dream might give it a good run for its money. A dreamy glittering pale pink, it captures the rose-tinted romance from the song itself with oh-so-pretty results.

Too pretty, in fact. The near-translucent peachy pink base of the polish is such a girlie colour to start off with that once you start tipping in sparkly silver micro-glitter, never mind the further dose of twinkle supplied by a scattering of larger round iridescent pieces, that it begins to verge on children’s party territory. Think Hello Kitty, unicorns and the girls clothing department in Mothercare and you’re pretty much there.

In Teenage Dream’s favour though is that, for the many lovers of glitter polishes out there, this is definitely one of the best formulas around. Usually, coloured bases of glitters are so sheer that by the time you’ve layered it to any semblance of opacity, your nail is almost as thick as the Yellow Pages. Not so with Teenage Dream. I was amazed when the pink became perfectly lovely in two – yes, TWO – coats. That’s opaque enough to ensure no Visible Nail Line (i.e. being able to distinguish the white tips of your natural nails), yet not so opaque that the delicate wistful qualities of this unusual pale pink are completely lost.

Secondly, the amount of glitter has been calculated to professor-like levels of precision. It’s easy for glitter to be either so sparse that you once again end up with more layers than a wedding cake or so dense that your nails look more bling-heavy than J.Lo’s jewellery box but Teenage Dream’s clever mix of a wash of peachy silver micro-glitter with the occasional bigger rainbow-reflecting piece floating through makes for a lovely multi-dimensional effect that’s both dazzling yet still reasonably subtle. As subtle as a glitter polish can be, that is.

Like most glitters, it’s anything but a dream to remove, but I expect you all knew that already. And whilst I was impressed by the formula, finish and staying power of Teenage Dream, it’s just not the colour for me (I also have very pale skin, meaning these pale pinks tend to blend in with my fingers!). My eight year-old self, however, would have been all over this like it was the latest princess Barbie. So if you have a pink-loving eight year old crying to get out or simply can’t get enough of glitters, Teenage Dream might just be your year-long Valentine.

Looks good with: sugar, spice and all things nice
Drying time: < 3 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: +5 days

Read my reviews of the rest of the OPI Katy Perry Collection:
     • The One That Got Away
     • Not Like The Movies

OPI Teenage Dream nail polish, Spring 2011 Katy Perry Collection, $168 for pack of four minis, selected Mannings

3 Comments

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Zoya Caitlin nail polish review

Posted on March 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

So how exactly do you follow a best-selling winter nail polish that got picked up by the likes of Vogue, Italian Elle and Daily Candy? Well, turn the shade down one notch and hey presto, you get Zoya’s Caitlin – a softer, spring-friendly sister shade to last season’s much-loved Kelly.

Caitlin, like China Glaze’s Sea Spray and OPI’s Parlez-Vous OPI, is another colour that made me fall in love at first look – I guess I’m still in thrall to a well-placed touch of grey… except this time it’s not just a blue-grey or a purple-grey but a combination of all three! Caitlin is so unusually pretty, a muted mix of lavender, cornflower blue and dove grey, that’s both perfect for spring yet has enough versatility to work all year round. Whereas Kelly’s slate-grey smokiness had a steely coolness to it, Caitlin is a much warmer softer affair – perfect for kitten-ish angora cardigans and delicate spring blooms – yet both are irresistibly impossibly chic without even trying.

As easy to apply as it is on the eye, Caitlin went on easily in just two coats and the finish was as smooth and creamy as Zoya’s consistently high standards have led me to expect. Just to re-iterate, Zoya’s brush size is my favourite out of the four main brands Cher2 stocks (OPI, Essie and China Glaze) and I continue to find it the easiest to grip, use and get good coverage with.

Although it might not show much imagination just to dilute your winter bestseller for spring, Caitlin is lovely enough to justify it. I’d say it’s low-key enough for work yet with enough hues to keep things interesting, whilst the blend of purple blue and grey is something a little bit different than the usual assault of spring pastels. Caitlin somehow turns cloudy into a colour you’re happy to see – a skill most weathermen would kill for, let alone a humble nail polish! Quick, someone tell Michael Fish!

Looks good with: most outfits, soft shades, spring meadows,
Drying time: 3-5 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: 3-5 days

Zoya Caitlin nail polish, Spring 2011 Intimate Collection, $80, Cher2

Leave a comment

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

OPI Parlez-Vous OPI nail polish review

Posted on March 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

My last nail polish post saw me declaring China Glaze’s Sea Spray as the perfect grey-blue. Well, strike me down if I’ve not just found the perfect grey-purple too. Step (or should that be nonchalantly stroll) forward OPI’s Parlez-Vous OPI.

As part of Fall 2008’s France Collection, it’s an oldie but a goodie, but one that feels especially current since the fashion world went gaga for grunged-out grey hybrids all last year, thanks to Chanel’s Particuliere (see OPI’s Over The Taupe and Zoya’s Kelly for further details). Parlez-Vous OPI is pretty much the most grey a purple can go whilst still remaining obviously and very much purple – which, for me, makes it the loveliest ‘grurple’ I’ve come across so far.

As a result, it’s a muddied muddled lavender but one that feels soft and lush as opposed to resembling the dregs of a dirty puddle. I’m pretty certain I used to own a cashmere jumper this colour, which of course, makes Parlez-Vous OPI an instant winner.

This was also one of the best formulas of OPI I’ve used so far – creamily consistent and opaque in two easy coats. For once, I didn’t find their trademark fat brush too cumbersome (whether this older brush was indeed slightly different or I’ve just got used to it remains to be seen!) and, clearly on a roll from their other star performer Miami Beet, it dried relatively quickly and didn’t chip too easily either.

But back to the colour, which is too insouciantly dreamy not to write more about. As befits a member of the France Collection, there is something quietly chic about Parlez-Vous OPI and it’s one of those perennially flattering shades that seems to go with just about everything and work for just about every situation. My purple obsession has been well documented but this may just be my favourite yet.

Pretty but edgy, soft but grown-up, perfectly purple and yet so much more… Parlez-Vous OPI will be my ‘It Colour’ for several seasons to come!

Looks good with: everything (but I may be biased)
Drying time: 3 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: +5 days

OPI Parlez-Vous OPI? nail polish, Fall 2008 France Collection, $90, Cher2

Leave a comment

Posted in Beauty

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,