This year's spring nail polish collection from OPI is Texas-themed. I've never been to Texas but I have a lot of Texan friends... I wonder what they'd have to say about these shades? Any Texans want to weigh in on them?

There are twelve shades as usual, and they are:


Austin-tatious Turquoise. You know, this looks like such an amazing color in the bottle and it looks pretty great in the picture... But it's actually a freaking nightmare. The color is great- a sheer turquoise glass fleck shimmer with subtle pink duochrome... But the formula! Oh, the formula. It's sheer and watery, a combination that can only spell disaster. What you're seeing here is SIX COATS. Six watery, runny, goopy coats. The color is dustier and less vibrant in real life. If you want something similar (glass fleck duochrome turquoise) without the weird formula, try Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus.

EDIT: I've been receiving reports from people who own this color, and a few of them say that their bottle isn't watery and sheer like mine. However, the majority of people I've heard from say they have watery bottles like mine. It seems like there are multiple batches of this color floating around.



Don't Mess With OPI. Nice dusty medium green. I like the muted quality of this, it's not your standard green creme. It's like if OPI Jade Is The New Black and Rescue Beauty Lounge Orbis Non Sufficit had a baby.


It's Totally Fort Worth It. Very, very hard to capture the finish of this color. It's not just a plain silver shimmer, it has tiny pink-red sparkles! You can see some of those elusive sparkles in the middle of the bottle on this picture. It would be my favorite color of the collection if it weren't for the sheer, watery formula. This is four coats.


I Vant To Be A-Lone Star. I'm not understanding the name of this. I get the "Lone Star" part, but 'vant'? Is that like a Green Acres reference or something? Wait, did Green Acres even take place in Texas? Eh... guess it doesn't matter. The color is nice. Light greyed-out blue with silvery shimmer. Tranquil and serene. Reminds me of another ancient discontinued OPI... drawing a blank on the name.


San Tan-tonio. Light milky brown creme. Surprisingly flattering on my cool skintone. Makes me think of suede.


Suzi Loves Cowboys. I used flash on this color because it looked too black in natural light. The flash shows the base color and how it looks in sunlight. It looks about two shades darker in dim light. It's just a dark chocolate brown creme, nothing too exciting... But very unusual for spring!

Now for the surprise: the jellies sorbets.

Big Hair, Big Nails. A red coral, or a light cherry sorbet.


Do You Think I'm Tex-y? A deep beet pink/purple sorbet.


Guy Meets Gal-veston. A medium orange coral sorbet.


Houston, We Have A Purple. Haha, my favorite name out of all of them! This is a deep magenta borderline purple sorbet.


Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em. An awesome saturated pink sorbet. My picture doesn't do it justice, you have to try it out! (Fixed my typo, oops!)


Y'all Come Back, Ya Hear? A medium orange sorbet.

Now, OPI is really pushing this "sorbet" finish pretty hard lately. They describe it as a completely new finish. It's a semi-sheer or translucent wash of color which has the effect of looking like hard candy or popsicles... If you've been into polish for a while, this should sound familiar, because it's what we polish junkies know as a "jelly" finish. Jelly polishes have been around for a long time, but they're not very common. Despite the whole "It's not a jelly, it's a sorbet, it's brand new!" thing, OPI does this finish really well.

I mean, just look at them, they're beautiful. You may not be able to pick up on the jelly effect of the finish from my pictures, but the finish is really spectacular. It's not so sheer that it looks clear, and it's just translucent enough to look soft and squishy. The colors they chose are vibrant and candy-like and they're perfectly suited for the jelly/sorbet finish.

Initially, I did not have high hopes for the sorbets. They all looked like boring colors and I thought they would be too sheer. And, as usual, my mind changed once I actually put them on my nails. They're lovely. I did three coats of all and I think they're perfect.

The formula on this collection is varied. The sorbet/jelly shades are nearly perfect, only a little on the thick side. The other six shades are watery, runny and sheer. I had a really hard time applying them with Austin-tatious Turquoise being the most difficult and I Vant To Be A-Lone Star being the easiest. The brushes were inconsistent and uneven in shape, size and smoothness. Some were rough, a few were normal. I am used to OPI having a very consistent and reliable formula, this collection is hopefully just a fluke.

I'm torn on my opinion of the collection overall. I had written off the sorbets before I even tried them and they ended up being my favorite part. They're very spring/summer appropriate predictable colors, but the sorbet finish makes them wonderful.

The other shades seem too random. There doesn't seem to be one cohesive theme within the color range. You've got brown, green, sparkly turquoise, silver.... They just don't mesh well. And they're a little bit sleepy, I have to admit. Though, I've realized that OPI's spring collections have been very sleepy for the past few years and the summer collection is the exciting one.

Also, the names are starting to be a little too ridiculous. Some are cute, but others get dangerously close to Misa-level cheese and length. I did really love "Houston, We Have A Purple."... I'm still giggling about that one!

So, overall, the new sorbet polishes are definitely worth trying on if you get the chance. If you've never tried a jelly finish polish before, you'll probably be delightfully surprised. People with longer nails may have issues with visible nail line, but if that doesn't bother you, you'll probably love them. The inconsistent, watery formula on the rest of the colors turns me off to them a bit, but Don't Mess With OPI and It's Totally Fort Worth It are worth the frustration.

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Texas Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

Uma

Rose (this has green duochrome shimmer!)

Riley

Racquel

Quinn

Portia

Parker

Mia

Kat

Jaime

Isabel

Heather

Diana (jelly finish!)

Dharma

Celeste

Angel

More random Zoya swatches- Sheers, nudes, reds/berries

I've been holding off on posting this until I could photograph all the colors next to the originals, but I can't seem to find my Full Metal Jacket and can't get my hands on King Kong and I just need to post these before they become irrelevant. Argh! So much for plans.

Anyway, this year NARS was awesome enough to bring back a few of their old discontinued shades including the mythical ZULU. I'm insanely happy about this and it really makes me view NARS much more positively. Many of us have been begging for a Zulu re-release since the day it disappeared- and apparently they listened!

Here are the shades:


King Kong. Rusty brown shimmer. I never recall this being a super popular shade as far as NARS polishes are concerned, but it's actually really pretty. Reminds me of fall for sure. Very smooth and velvety looking on the nail.

Full Metal Jacket. A silver-grey frost. This is one of the few frosts that I actually like. It's a little streaky but not obnoxiously so, it does dry a lot smoother than it applies. It's very shiny and metallic looking, but not quite chrome-like. It's sleek and sexy.


MASH. I think I'm just as happy about the re-release of MASH as I am about Zulu! This is an incredibly beautiful dark olive green with gold shimmer. One of NARS' best old shades, if you ask me.


Midnight Express. This one can change appearance a bit depending on how it's applied. This is two rather thick coats, but I think it looks better with three thin coats. It's a jelly, so the more even you apply the coats, the better. Really brings out the jelly effect. This is a super dark blue which looks especially nice in a jelly finish. Illamasqua Propaganda is similar in color and finish, but this was easier for me to apply and had a more jelly look.


Zulu. I apologize for the strange pictures. Zulu is really hard to capture and I wanted to show the green-ness of it. If you're not familiar with Zulu, it's a super dark blackened green jelly. One of the most unique and gorgeous polishes ever released. I know some would disagree with the 'unique' label, but I've really never worn, seen or frankened an exact match for this. The closest I've used is George Evergreen. Somehow none of the Zulu-clones have that dark jelly depth and squishiness that the original Zulu has. Unfortunately, the new Zulu also lacks a lot of the jelly effect of the original. Still awesome, though.

The best thing about the re-released polishes has to be the formula. It's three-free and greatly improved. The old ones were a little on the sheer and slightly runny-goopy side (I think they were three-free before, weren't they?) and took a while to dry. These are now thicker and more opaque which means they're easier to apply and need fewer coats. They also dry quickly. NARS' brush is not my favorite- too thin- but that's the only complaint I have about the bottles and formula.


I do wish they had re-released Platoon along with these to make a full six. But, they re-released Zulu, MASH and Midnight Express so I really can't complain! Really cool of NARS to bring back the old shades. If only some other brands would do the same- like Urban Decay or Revlon!

(These were sent to me for review.)

NARS Vintage Collection Fall 2010