OPI California Dreaming Summer 2017 Swatches and Comparisons

The hoarder in me is responsible for the purchases I made from this collection. This basic, pink and red filled boring collection did not thrill me, but I have at least one polish from every collection for the past 4 years at least... so I just had to grab a few. None of these shades seem particularly exciting or special, so I will be comparing them with other OPI polishes from my collection. Also, I'm sure you have all seen this collection many times already. I'm super late to the party because I could not find these polishes anywhere. So strange considering I live in California, you would think the California Dreaming collection would be freaking everywhere.

Swatches

To The Mouse House We Go

4 thin coats and there is still some minimal VNL. But I mean... hello Disney red! I'm a huge Dis-nerd so even if this color was ugly I would probably have picked this polish up anyways. This is a squishy red jelly, not my favorite formula but this color is so bright and pretty. My bottle does have some random black specks mixed in with the polish, you can see those on a few of my nails sadly. 

Me, Myselfie, and I

3 thin coats of this white based orangey coral. This is so pretty but so basic. As much as I love this kind of color, it does tend to make my fingers look a little gray/dead. 

Santa Monica Beach Peach

2 medium coats here. First this is orange. Not peach. Not even a little bit peach, just bright orange. I'm not an orange polish fan, but I like this shade because the formula is pretty good. I will definitely be pulling this polish out for Halloween/fall nail art and again in a few months when I start a new internship in Santa Monica.

Comparisons
Mouse House (pointer/middle) vs Red Hot Rio (ring/pinky)

I have many more OPI red shades, but because these are both jelly finishes I'm only comparing these 2. Rio is deeper, more pink toned and more opaque, but I prefer the color of Mouse House.

Selfie (ring) vs Aloha From OPI (pointer) vs Race Red (middle) vs Living On The Bula-Vard (pinky)

Race Red is obviously the odd man out here being redder and darker, and is also my favorite of these 4 polishes. The other 3 are way too similar in my opinion, particularly Bula-Vard and Selfie considering they came out within a few months of each other. Come on OPI, you can be more creative then this.. but there will always be collectors like myself who will keep buying.

SM Beach Peach (pointer/ring) vs Toucan Do It If You Try (pinky) vs No Stopping Me Now (middle)

Definitely not dupes, but for someone meh about orange, probably not necessary to have all 3. Beach Peach looks like what you would get from mixing the other 2 polishes together but I think it is my favorite of the 3.

Did you pick up anything from this collection? Let me know :)

Stay Sparkly,
A

OPI Fiji Collection Spring 2017 Swatches

This collection is chock full of creme polishes, and even though that is my favorite finish I skipped most of the polishes in this collection. There were 12 in the main collection and then 3 Ulta exclusive shades. I picked up 5 of the main polishes and skipped the Ulta ones entirely.  I'm glad OPI put some fun colors in this collection because the summer collection looks like a boring mess of pinks and neutrals.

Living On The Bula-Vard

3 thin coats of this weak sauce polish. This color is beautiful but OPI has so many polishes like this, so thats what makes this shade exceptionally disappointing. If you have an orangey red OPI creme, skip this guy.

Polly Wanna Lacquer

3 thin coats. This is a slightly blue toned pale purple and the formula is ok, not great but not awful. This polish just seems very basic to me. I have so few purples that this polish stands alone in my collection so I'll keep it, even if the formula is meh. 

Suzi Without A Paddle

3 thin coats. I love this kind of color, but this formula is pretty terrible. It's thin, patchy and blah. This color is super dupeable, so if you have something similar I would skip this.

Is That A Spear In Your Pocket?

3 easy, thin coats. This color is nice and dusty, not the most summery shade but I like it. 

Super Trop-i-cal-i-fiji-istic

Beautiful polish, worst freaking name ever. 2 smooth, easy coats. No complaints about this even though it isn't the most original shade of blue, I still like it. 

Stay Sparkly,
A

Painted Polish Glitter Spam

I've posted a lot about my love for Painted Polish. Of all of the indie polishes I have-- which admittedly isn't a huge amount-- I have the most from Painted Polish. For a while I had mostly blue, green and silver toned polishes, but now that I have broadened my collection I thought I should showcase my sparkly Painted Polish Rainbow.  This is going to be a long post, grab a drink and get ready to look at some holo spam.

The most important thing to me, aside from Lexi's wonderful customer service and fast shipping, is that all of her polishes are so smooth. Considering they are so full of glitter, there must be some magic put in them that makes each polish dry so smooth.

Sleigh Bells Silver

Rudolph Red

Fireside Flannel

Dreaming In Rustic

Holo Harvest

Lush on Lime

Painted Pines

Holo Haze

Resting Witch Face

 Vampy Valentine 

Heartthrob Hustler

Sinful Suitor 

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A

Pink Dry Brush Mani

I did the mani for Valentine's Day but I never got around to posting it :( but it's a pretty fun mani so I figured why not post it now. I was swatching some of my untried Painted Polishes and was inspired by Mystery Holo Un. I did not top coat this mani because I actually like the texture created by a dry brush mani. 

Painted Polish Mystery Holo Un

OPI I'm Gown For Anything!

Kiss Me I'm Brazilian

Twinkled T Single Heart Vinyl

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A

Pastel Flower Nail Art

I have totally neglected my nails lately, but now that I'm interning at a middle school I decided to bring back some nail art in hopes of earning some cool points with my students. Spoiler alert, nobody noticed my nails :(

This mani is loosely inspired by armstrongnails, if you aren't following her yet... what are you waiting for?!?! I've been pretty exclusively wearing indie polishes lately, so to switch things up I used only OPI polishes for this mani.

Polishes Used:
My Boyfriend Scales Walls

Sunrise... Bedtime

Let's Be Friends
I Manicure For Beads
Kiss Me I'm Brazilian
My Dogsled Is A Hybrid

I'm seriously lacking nailspiration and motivation these days, share your fav nail instagrams with me in the comments :)

Stay Sparkly,
A