Pink and Undecided: O.P.I liquid sands

Nail Diary 10 : O.P.I Bond Girl Collection Liquid Sand Nail Lacquer (NL M50 Pussy Galore)

Hello, my dearies!

For my fellow Indonesian, did you vote today? I did, but honestly i didn't even know who to vote *LOL*, i picked two familiar names (a mother of a popular singer who's a senior singer herself, and Indonesia's first president's son) but the other two i just picked blindly (we had to vote for four different people and not even for the president yet. Is this common outside Indonesia too?? And we had to dip our pinkie in an ink as a sign that we voted *LOL*. There are a lot of brands and supermarkets also offering promos/free stuffs if we vote. It's a sign that Indonesian still needs to be encouraged to vote, including myself. Can't really blame them since it's so confusing, so many people *that we don't know* trying to get a position and all) *LOL*. Anyway, this blog has no place for politics, so let's move on!

Time for another review and swatches for a nail polish, or in this case nail LACQUER hehe (they're the same thing, in case someone doesn't get the message!). It was my birthday celebration's nails and it shouldn't be a surprise that i only get to review it many months later :p.

O.P.I Nail Lacqure in NL M350 Pussy Galore from their Bond Girl Collection, photo from Google

I first laid my eyes on this beauty when i was visiting my cousin's nail spa, Me-Nail, in one of their color wheels and fell head over heels in love. I kept on thinking about it so in the end i asked L (my cousin A.K.A the lady boss) if she has any stock for sale (they sell nail polishes and other nail related stuffs too now) and she did! That's when i realized that it's from the Bond Girl collection and that the name's kinda dodgy *LOL*.

Isn't it a total beaut?

I gotta say i'm very proud of the photos i took for this review. I mean... it's the clearest, brightest (with zero editing, not even auto correct :P) pictures i've taken for a review so far *LOLOLOL*. I guess sun light is photography's best friend, thing is... I am a half vampire and feel sleepy when the sun's shining but wide awake once it start to set, so blogging thing... I almost always do at night *sigh*.

How can i not fall in love with this shade? It totally scream ME!

Well okay, so this one's blurry. It's really hard to take close up pictures with pinko (and even NX 300, for that matter. But all of the pictures in this review's taken with pinko-my pocket camera!). It clearly stated NL M50 right, because when i Googled lots of sites refer it as NI M50, so confusing!

The brush looks no different than any other O.P.I's brush, but i had a problem with application. It made me wonder if the brush's bigger than their other brush, then? Because i had no problem with my other O.P.I nail polishes hmmm... It's a bit too big for my liking that i couldn't apply the nail polish neatly, i painted all over my cuticle, a total mess *LOL*. You'll see what i mean soon.

Close up of the color, pearly pink with pink glitter

As usual, i teamed it with my trusty Revlon Top Speed, i used it as a base coat

One coat or Revlon Top Speed+one coat of Pussy Galore *giggle at the name again*

Close up

The texture of the nail polish, like all O.P.I nail polishes, is JUST RIGHT. You know, not too thick/clumpy, not too runny/sheer. It was a breeze to put on (except for the messy part) and it was pretty with one coat already. Drying time is also very speedy (i am having a lot of struggles with that with my recent manicures zzzz, reminds me how much i love fast drying nail polishes!), total thumbs up!

One coat of Revlon Top Speed + 2 coats of Pussy Galore

Looks pretty already even though it was still very messy, right?

Pussy Galore (HAHAHAHA, oops. Sorry, i am very juvenile, i know) is an uber pretty pale matte baby pink polish with super soft, fine shimmer and sandy texture (obviously). There's no big chunks of glitters, unlike the other Liquid Sand polishes i've ever tried from their Mariah Carey line (check out my reviews on them here and here). I'm pretty sure the difference in texture plays a big part on their staying power. While both Mariah Carey liquid sand polishes i've tried chipped super fast, Pussy Galore stayed perfect for 5 days! Without top coat, of course because it'd defeat the purpose of the liquid sand texture, wouldn't it. I do wonder if matte top coat will change the texture? If not then it'd definitely be a great partner for liquid sand nail polishes, wouldn't it?

I'm always curious on how a liquid sand manicure would look with a glossy top coat though, so when this manicure started to fall apart, i put on some top coat (Revlon's of course) on my pinky finger and... it looked hideous. I really hated it *LOL*. No glossy top coats for my liquid sand polishes, please!

Aside from the longer staying power, i totally prefer this type of liquid sand polishes (very fine, subtle glitter) than the ones with huge chunk of glitters (like Mariah Carey's), it just look prettier and classier for me. From afar i thought it looked like i had a velvet nail arts, but it's definitely not fluffy to the touch, au contraire!

One minus thing about this particular shade that it gets dirty easily (since the color's so pale and the matte texture attracts dirt easier than glossy ones), i accidentally got some black liquid eyeliner on them and it was not very easy to clean them (while you can just wash glossy nails with water if it gets in contact with your make up!). That's not a big deal for me though, i just need to be more careful when i apply make up while i am wearing this shade!

Final result

LOVE it!

Bottom line is, i'm so very in love with this shade, it's definitely one of my all time favorite nail color and that's saying a lot because i have hundreds of nail polishes and didn't usually prefer one than the other! Now i have two favorites and both are from O.P.I (the other one's glittery and super blingy, will review it sometime *not very soon* in the future).

I highly recommend this for every pink/pastel lover, textured nail polishes fans or even rookies who wants to try textured nail polish for the very first time (one thing that i really love about liquid sands' that they're totally FOOLPROOF! You CAN'T mess it up, not even if you try! They'd be even and pretty even if you have a bad technique like mine. I don't mean you'd paint them neatly without getting on your cuticles, but after you shower and all of the mess peeled off, the polish on your nails would definitely be flawless!).

Not recommended for people who hates rough texture (of course) and only like glossy polish (it's not dead matte because it's pearly and shimmery, but not glossy in the least).

Repurchase? Well, not in this shade because God knows when i'll ever finish a whole bottle (if ever) but i'd love to try out this type of liquid sand nail polishes (ones without chunky glitters in them) and i will keep on buying O.P.I of course, my fave nail polish brand!

Have you ever tried liquid sands nail polish? Do you like them?

#Pink

11:16:00 PM
13 Comments

Review : O.P.I Mariah Carey Liquid Sand in The Impossible

nail polish

Hello everybody!

I just had a stressing day spent scolding my Baby Boy because his pre-tests results were horrible and he didn't want to focus long enough to study! I understand he's only 6 (primary school official age's 7, but since he studies in National Plus instead of the regular school, age was not an issue) and he probably is still not used to the concept of tests (i asked why his Mandarin pre-test score was so horrible and he said "Because i couldn't peek into the book and copy" -____-), but since he IS already in Primary school, he needs to keep up, doesn't he???

Anyway, i lost my temper after countless times trying to be as patient as possible, urghhh this is so frustrating! I so do not have what it takes to be a teacher. Props to Primary students (and younger classes) teachers! They really are the unsung hero! I de-stressed by make-overing my niece Au and i must say i did a pretty decent job (if i may say so myself hahaha), too bad i didn't take a step by step pictures or i might be able to do a tutorial hahaha. I will do so soon though :p.

Okay, enough ramblings! Let's get on with the review, shall we?

So, most of you surely are very familiar with textured nail polishes that are on the rage right now already. Liquid sands, caviars, velvet, etc. I am not a huge fan of textured polishes to be completely honest, heck-i don't even like matte nail polishes! I dunno, i guess i am just a bit conventional when it comes to nail polishes, for me they have to be as glossy as they possibly could to be considered pretty haha.

But when i saw the Mariah Carey Liquid Sand nail polishes from O.P.I, i was intrigued! I was not sure i would like it enough to commit to a full sized one, so i was extremely attracted to the mini set!

However, i wasn't about to pay IDR 160.000 (that's the price of the set at the online shop where i bought it) for four tiny bottles of nail polishes that i might or might not like, so when G (the OS owner's her cousin) told me that we can actually buy one or two bottles as long as there were other customers that were interested to split the set, i jumped at the chance!

I didn't even remember if i specifically chose the two shades i ended up getting (the reddish hot pink-The Impossible and the purple-Can't Let Go) or i just said "Give me whatever the other customer didn't want" anymore because, well... i simply couldn't care less which colors i get! It's the texture i was curious about, not the colors (read the haul post when i feature these nail polishes here).

So, the first color that i tried *months ago, i just never gotten round to write the review yet) was The Impossible :

Of course, that picture i got from Google was the full sized bottle, while mine was a lot smaller :

The consistency of this nail polish was, well... Sandy *LOL*. Not like, rough sandy, more like sands trapped in a thick liquid, if i made any sense to you. When i swipe it on my nails, i notice it was thicker than normal nail polish, and i saw huge chunks of glitters (fine ones and bigger ones). I wasn't paying attention to the bottle and i thought when i put them on my nails that all of the glitters were the same color as the polish itself (red), but i was wrong. It WAS the same color as the polish when you first used it, but give it a day and the real color of the big glitters would reveal itself.

Let's see how it looks on my nails. Please be informed that my application was really messy, but as usual, any excess nail polish on my cuticles peeled off by itself once i showered.

1 Coat of Revlon Top Speed + 1 Coat of O.P.I The Impossible

I was quite surprised when the polish started to dry off because unlike how it seems in the bottle (RED!), it translated to a more hot pinkish (with frosty finish because the real color of some of the glitters were silver!) color!

I didn't think it was opaque enough so i added a second coat :

Like i said, the chunky glitters looked red at first

I didn't realize when i capture these pictures, but they were not dried off completely and it's apparent in the picture-you can see patches where it looked brighter red. That's not uneven color consistency, but that indicated that those spots were not completely dry yet while the frosty, lighter colored parts were fully dried.

So messy, sorry! 1 coat of Revlon Top Speed+2 coats of O.P.I The Impossible

I would say that application was really easy (like almost every O.P.I polishes) and it's good for messy nail polish applicant amateurs (like me) because it's impossible (hey!) to mess! Once it dried off completely, you won't be able to see any mess even if you applied it less than neatly!

Like i said, color finished off differently than how it looked in the bottle. And the bigger glitters that looked red/hot pink when you first applied it will turn silver in one day or so. I was shocked when that first happened, i thought it was already ruined/chipped off! LOL. Little that i know that it WAS their original color, they were just concealed by the liquid!

It dried off really fast, but looking back it's probably wise to wait a bit longer after you thought they were dry (because i just realized that they were not evenly dried when i saw the pictures above!) to do stuffs with your fingers.

The end result after i showered and the mess naturally fell off from my cuticles

On me (because the nailist in Me-Nail said otherwise, but i'm writing this based on my own experience) they didn't last very long. Most probably due to the fact that you couldn't use a top coat without defeating its purpose (for it to look matte but glittery at the same time, and to get the sandy feeling), but it chipped off as fast as 2 to 3 days (with normal O.P.I my nails could stay chip-free for 5-7 days, with top coats of course).

Fixing the chips, however, was a piece of cake. You just need to fill in the chips and once it dried off, they would look as good as new. But they will chip off again as fast as one day hahaha, but that's still good if you needed to go somewhere (as long as it's not longer than a day) and for your nails to look pretty without having to take them off and re-do your entire manicure.

I am curious to see their staying power WITH a top coat (because they are still bulkier than regular polish so i think they'd still be more prone to chipping), i saw beauty/nail bloggers applied top coats on them and they looked pretty (even though it's totally defeating its purpose, i am OCD, it's hard for me to do stuffs like this on the opposite way it supposed to be done, ZZZ) so i will try it out (and let you know once i do).

All and all, i think they looked quite pretty (even though CW said they looked like the nail polish that i used turned bad and lumpy already when i used them LOLOLOL, pay no attention to her, she's just like that) and for someone that claims to hate matte nail polishes, i like how they look *and feels* quite a lot too. #Undecided almost had this exact same color used on her nails at our last mani/pedi session at Me-Nail but changed track and used the black based one, Stay The Night and she was IN LOVE with it (that reminds me, we should totally blog about our last sessions at Me-Nail).

I would recommend liquid sand polishes to people who wants to try textured polishes but not going too far from their comfort zone (Caviar manicures are as far as it gets to my comfort zone), likes matte but glittery finishes (if you're like me, hates matte polish but love glitters, this still works), couldn't be bothered to put their nail polish neatly/spend too long to put on their polish and wants an easily fixable manicure, also don't mind if their manicures doesn't stay perfect very long.

Not recommended for people who hates non-glossy/slippery feeling to their nails (i somehow kept on stroking my nails when i had this on because they felt weird but nice hahaha), hates lumpy (it can be quite lumpy) looking finishes, and cannot stand their manicures to chip off fast.

Would i buy any more liquid sands type of polishes? Yes, in darker and lighter colors. I saw a madly cute liquid sand polish in baby pink at Me-Nail and am dying to get my hands on them! (errr, this entry was clearly written a few days/weeks ago because i might already placed my order by now...)

I also used the Can't Let Go one already but will be writing about it in another entry.

Have you tried liquid sands types of nail polishes? Do you love them or hate them?