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Swatched – OPI Glacier Bay Blues

An unexpected post tonight – I hadn’t planned this one at all. I’m going to waffle a bit about how this all came about and my love for Canada, so feel free to skip to the photo spam 🙂

Anyway it all started a couple of days ago when I saw a swatch of Glacier Bay Blues on Nightly Nails’ Duochrome Week. I had to have it. My partner is a very proud French Canadian and he always enjoys it if I pick up any polish related to Canada or with a french name but until I set eyes on GBB, I hadn’t felt any affinity towards OPI’s 2004 Canada collection at all (past the names – I seriously wish Nice Colour Eh? was actually a nice colour because it’s the best name ever to me – there is no Canadianism I love more than putting eh at the end of sentences – sorry to any Canucks out there pigeonholing you but I seriously love you all for saying it). More research told me that this polish is quite highly sought after and isn’t permanent collection, I was bummed at this news because I knew it would probably mean a hunt to find it and paying quite a bit. I priced it up on eBay at $25 but decided against it as GBB is a dark teal-green-purple duochrome which isn’t too appealing for spring to me. I signed it off for autumn and went on with daily life.

Anyway I went out on a planned shopping rampage on Saturday (thanks to both mine and my bf’s paydays falling on the same day for once) with my mum. We went to the local factory outlet as I needed some new work clothes and I struck out there – barely spent anything, so we went to Costco (my mum’s first time – it was like a kid in a candy store) and I picked up exciting things like an 1800 pack of Qtips (cotton buds for those outside of North America) and a kilo of dates for my bf. By this point I was totally mad that I hadn’t got anything of great interest for myself so I decided to show my mum what all the fuss was about with my local nail supplies store – Pro Nail. Pretty much everyone into nails in Sydney goes here – it’s the only specialty store I know of but their stock can be variable. I don’t think they’ve restocked their Orly or Essie stands in at least 3 months now. However it can be a gem for HTFs – they always have the China Glaze OMG collection and there are a fair few OPI DS polishes too. And there on the bottom shelf (we’re talking all the way on the floor here) was OPI Glacier Bay Blues. It made my day. I had created a new HTF lemming only 3 days before and I already had it in my hands for the measly sum of just $12.

Ok enough story telling – you just want to see the photos! As I’ve said, this is a dark teal-green-purple duochrome. It’s from the days before big 3 free and the OPI prowide brush (yay, I hate that brush). The formula is very thin and quite sheer and streaky. I needed 4 coats for opacity but the bonus of all those chemicals is that it dries quite quickly. Downside is that it’s quite stinky (I think this is my first non 3 free polish and pooey, I never expected it to still smell after it dried!). I have a few photos for you as I just couldn’t get everything in one:

OPI - Glacier Bay Blues - Sunlight Photo

I couldn’t get much out of this polish at all in direct sunlight – it just looks like a blackened blurple (look at that beautiful blue sky reflection though!)…but it gets better

OPI - Glacier Bay Blues - Indoors Daylight

I don’t know what is different about the sunlight once you put a window in the way, but here you can see two angles – two extremely different colours. Inside I found it mostly leaned towards the dark teal and green shades which was lovely. At some angles I could even get it to a full on emerald green but failed to get a photo of that.

OPI - Glacier Bay Blues - Artificial Light

Finally I cut my losses and tried a photo in my bathroom – sometimes I find artificial light is easier for catching duochromes. It’s still not perfect, but you can see hints of the purple and green – especially on my pinky. I had to put a coat of Seche Vite over it for this photo as I got an almighty ding chasing the cat around the garden in between photos. Hence the extra shine.

So that is what I have for tonight. Time to go and put on something a little more spring like now…just have to figure out what.

Posted in Nails, Swatch

6 Comments

Tags: Blue, duochrome, green, OPI, Purple, teal

Swatched – Nubar Moon Shadow

Nubar Moon Shadow is the last of three Nubar Duochromes that I have to show you. Moon Shadow is a berry purple shimmer that shifts to either a pink or gold colour. The formula on this one is still sheer and looked OK with tree coats but I preferred it with four coats. There is one layer on my pointer finger, going up to four layers on my pinky.

Sunlight Photo

Sunlight Photo - Detail

Shade Photo

Shade Photo - Detail

Posted on August 17, 2011 | Image

Swatched – Nubar Iris Dust

Nubar Iris Dust is the second of three Nubar Duochromes that I have to show you. Iris Dust is a berry pink shimmer that shifts to an orange-gold colour. The formula on this one if the sheerest of the three and it took a full four coats to get to opacity. You can see even with three coats there are still bald shots. There is one layer on my pointer finger, going up to four layers on my pinky. I think this is probably my favourite of the three because it can flash a really strong pink or copper and there are no so-so shades in between….so I went a bit photo crazy!