I bought the three glitter Gelcolors that OPI released with the "Oz the Great and Powerful" collection this spring, but for some reason I really took my time posting this review/overview! I've already worn two of the three glitter colors that I bought--I wore "Lights of Emerald City" with Gelish's "Seafoam", and before that, I wore "Which is Witch?" with Gel Haute Polish's "Pewter". So it's about high time I post my reviews of these polishes.
First of all, the basics for all three colors: they all come in a clear base, and they all have a slightly thicker formula than other OPI Gelcolors. I think these gels are thicker so that the glitters stay suspended in the base a little better--since gel polishes in general have a different consistency than regular nail polish (RNP), and they don't seem to have those steel mixer balls that RNP would have, either. What this means is that the gel polish doesn't self-level quite as easily as other gels, and it doesn't flood into your cuticles quite so easily, either. It also means that you may be more prone to creating bubbles on your nails if you are not careful, especially if you are going to "dab" the gel on to try and place your glitter in a specific spot. These aren't top coats, and you WILL need a top coat for maximum shininess. You may also need the top coat to keep any glitter from escaping--since the glitters may fall off if they are not fully encased in gel.
And one quick tip that I hear many suggest before I get to the photos--I didn't do it for these swatches, but it may be helpful to you if you want to get more "bling" out of your glitter shades. That is: store your glitter gel polishes upside down the night before you want to use them. The theory is that the glitter will be drawn downwards (to the top of the bottle) by the pull of gravity, so when you turn the polish upright to use it, the glitters will all be gathered at the top, ready for use. This may be especially helpful with some of the large glitters found in this collection!
All swatches are two coats, over NaiLuv's "Hard Core Rock", a creme black.
When Monkeys Fly!: This is the only one I haven't used on my nails yet, so I'll do this first. The glitters in this shade come in three sizes of hexagons: small silver holographic, medium sized silver holographic, and extremely large true-gold glitter. I would say the biggest gold glitter is 3 millimeter in size, and it is the only glitter that isn't holographic in this "shade". The RNP version of this gel has a lot of faults--the large gold glitter curls or "tacos" due to the chemicals found in regular polish, but I'm happy to say that this is not the case for the Gelcolor version at all! The glitters all look great, although you may want to do some "dabbing" to get an aesthetic placement of the largest glitter.
Lights of Emerald City: All the polishes in this collection are neat, but this one is particularly different, mostly because the glitters are square! Actually, though, they're not perfectly square, as you can see in the macro, and there are some rectangular pieces hanging out here-and-there. But generally, on the nail this is not an aesthetic problem at all. The larger glitters are a plain white, and the smaller ones are a sheer opalescent. The opalescent glitters mostly shine warm tones, but every so often shines green, too. My only problem with these sheer opalescent glitters in general is that they look funny on your nails if they are not catching the light. When I wore this with the seafoam color, the glitter looked flat blue-green, and in this swatch, when not hitting the light correctly, they look kind of like hairs in my polish (you can see this on the left picture). You may need to dab with this one as well, to get a nice placement of the white glitters. I found myself wiping them off of my nail entirely if I wasn't careful.
"Which is Witch?": This is kind of a throw-back gel polish for me. I remember having some holographic bar glitter polishes when I was a kid, so this doesn't seem too original, but what saves it is other varieties of glitters mixed in with it. Oh, that and it's the most jam-packed polish in this collection! I used two coats, but I think with three it would pretty much create an opaque layer of glitter. The glitters here are all silvery holographic; there is a small holographic glitter that is almost like a "shimmer", a larger hexagon glitter, and a classic bar glitter. Because it's so packed of glitter, it is also a great "shade" to use to create a glitter fade or "ombre" look, as I did on my nails.
Lastly, here's the video if you want to see these glitters in action:
These are pretty. It's funny how Lights of Emerald City squares are really square :)
ReplyDeleteI agree; I think they're the best part of this collection, so I'm glad that they're in gel, too!
DeleteThe squares look kind of strange up close, but from a normal person's view (or at least arm-length away), you don't notice it at all. I didn't even notice myself until I uploaded the photos from my camera onto the computer screen.