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

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.

My Polish Loves – China Glaze OMG Collection

I wanted to revisit a few of my favourite polishes from my collection that I haven’t worn in a while, so I decided to start off with the polishes I have from the China Glaze OMG Collection.  For those of you not familiar with collection, OMG was a collection of twelve holographic polishes released in 2008.  The polishes are renown for having some of the strongest linear holographic finishes available combined with a variety of extremely wearable colours.  Most holographic polishes that are available have what is known as a “scattered” effect which means the holographic effect appears randomly through the polish, much like glitter.  A “linear” effect describes the linear rainbow effect that can be seen in these polishes.  Unfortunately this collection is discontinued but can be found on eBay quite easily if you’re willing to pay for it.  I own four polishes from this collection that I want to show you today:

OMG – A smooth silver beauty and the namesake of the collection.  This has the strongest holo effect of my polishes and it can even be seen in the shade.

LOL – A medium purple that doesn’t lean towards blue or red.  The holo particles in this one just show as silver in the shade which give it a slightly washed out appearance.

DV8 – A bright teal blue and the only other polish I own that still shows a slight holo effect in the shade

2NITE – A periwinkle blue that leans more towards a dark grey in the shade.  This is my personal favourite, I love how it look in the shade as well as in the sunlight.

OMG – SunlightOMG – Shade

DV8 – Sunlight

DV8 – Shade

LOL – Sunlight

LOL – Shade

2NITE – Sunlight

2NITE – Shade

Swatched – Nubar Cotton Candy

Nubar Cotton Candy is a teal jelly with small gold flakies and very subtle superfine glitter in gold, green and blue.  The formula is beautiful to work with, if a bit on the sheer side.  Even after four coats there was still VNL as you can see below.  I would recommend layering this beauty over an opaque teal or turquoise for the best effect if you don’t like VNL.  I’ve swatched it with one layer on my pointer finger, going up to four layers on my pinky nail to show the different levels of opacity.

Sunlight

Shade Photo

Nubar Cotton Candy - Detail