OPI Germany Collection Fall 2012 Swatches and Review

OPI has chosen Germany as the country for this year's regional-themed fall collection. Hmm... Ich könnte versuchen diese auf Deutsch schreiben... But I would probably butcher it with my horrible grammar. Anyway, here's the lovely OPI Fall 2012 Germany Collection, with twelve colors as always.


OPI Berlin There, Done That. A purple-tinged grey creme. It's pretty light and the purple is subtle.


OPI Danke-Shiny Red. A super shiny metallic red with a silly name. It's so metallic and luminous that it's hard to capture the true color because it glows too much. It's a cooler toned red, medium bordering dark, with a smooth, shiny, almost chrome-like metallic finish. Think Zoya Elisa, just cooler and darker.


OPI Deutsche You Want Me Baby. Absolute fall perfection in a bottle. This is a rich, rusty orange with a shimmer finish that's almost as metallic as Danke-Shiny Red. It has that look where it's a little darker around the edges and lighter in the center, and you know how much I love that. This is just such a perfect fall/harvest/thanksgiving type of color. I adore it.


OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons. Neutral pale beige creme. Soft-looking finish. Actually looks pretty good on me despite being such a plain color.


OPI Don't Talk Bach To Me. A really weird mix of dijon mustard yellow and spring green with subtle hidden shimmer. Like a lighter, dirtier, more faded version of Rescue Beauty Lounge Abi, or maybe even a lighter, less shimmery China Glaze Trendsetter. Very unusual.


OPI Every Month Is Oktoberfest. Another amazing one. This is a vivid purple base with red, purple and gold shimmer. It's dark and vampy but at the same time colorful. Like a blackened version of Max Factor Fantasy Fire or Urban Decay Toxin, but without the green duochrome. I want you to see how pretty the purple base is, so I took a picture of this at one coat:

OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest (one coat)

OPI German-icure by OPI. A dark, vampy, brown-tinged shimmery red. Looks velvety and shiny, not too dark, not too bright, ever so slightly metallic-shiny and even has a subtle gold shift to it. I always love these types of colors, and this one reminds me a tiny bit of La Boheme!


OPI My Very First Knockwurst. Pale putty pink creme. Little bit of grey or beige in it so it's not a clean pink.


OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! Ok Fine!. Dark green-tinted grey creme. Dries quite a bit darker than bottle color.


OPI Schnapps Out Of It!. OPI calls this color mauve, but I'm not seeing it mauve. I'm not actually sure how I would describe this color. Warm... rosy... earthy, like terracotta but more pink. Orangey-pink-brown? And with hidden silver shimmer.


OPI Suzi and the 7 Düsseldorfs. A red-toned purple shimmer. Lighter than Zoya Suri, redder than OPI Purple with a Purpose, and a more sheer, less frosty-metallic texture. Not as dark in real life as it looks here.


OPI Unfor-Greta-bly Blue. Medium dirty blue frosty shimmer that leans ever so slightly teal.

The formula on these was excellent. Perfectly smooth and even and with flawless brushes. Some of the shades were thinner than others, but none of them gave me any trouble. Most only needed two coats for full opacity, but I did three of all. Suzi and the 7 Düsseldorfs and Unfor-Greta-bly Blue look best with three coats. Dry time is very fast.

Pretty decent fall collection. The vampy shimmers are incredible and that glowing Autumn orange is perfect. Perfect! But then again, I really have a thing for orange and anything that reminds me of fall. The nudes/taupes/beiges are nice, but I could take them or leave them. I don't particularly care for Unfor-Greta-bly Blue (too plain) or Schnapps Out Of It! (too 1980s leftover nail polish), but the rest are good. And good formula.

My top picks are Deutsche You Want Me Baby, Every Month is Oktoberfest and German-icure by OPI. All three are gorgeous and definitely worth a look.

Germany by OPI will be available August 8, 2012, at Professional Salons, including Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, JCPenney, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, and ULTA, for $8.50 ($9.95 CAN) suggested retail for each Nail Lacquer.

EDIT: OPI has confirmed that Every Month is Oktoberfest is indeed the purple and German-icure by OPI is the red.

(This was sent for review.)

MAC Casual Color Collection Nail Lacquers Summer 2012 Swatches and Review

MAC Casual Color Collection Nail Lacquers
Delicate, Fiestaware, Please Me, Style Tip

MAC Delicate. Pale sheer ballet pink (limited edition). This is one of those Bubble Bath/Ballet Slippers type colors. It's very sheer and is probably best worn as a one-coat milky glaze rather than trying to achieve full opacity. I'm wearing three coats here and it's still very see-through. I didn't find it to be streaky, but I did notice that if my coats weren't completely even in thickness, the coverage would look patchy in the areas where I applied it thinner.


MAC Fiestaware. Mid-tone orange coral (limited edition). Soft, faded orange coral, almost more of a melon color. Dries slightly darker than bottle color. Very vintage-looking. This one is particularly interesting to me because of the name. It reminds me of the infamous Fiesta Red Fiestaware, which was mildly radioactive because of the uranium oxide used in the glaze.



MAC Please Me. Mid-tone warm pink (limited edition). This is a dusty-looking rose, but it has an odd brightness to it. It's so strange looking to me.


MAC Style Tip. Soft pink nude (limited edition). This one comes across as more brown than pink on my skintone, but the pink undertone is still there.


The formula on these was good. I didn't have any trouble with them at all. They applied smoothly without running, pooling, bubbling or streaking and the texture was perfect. Much nicer than the old MAC lacquer formula. I did three coats of all, but only Delicate needed the third coat. Dry time is average.

Very soft, subdued and vintage-feeling colors. All of them have a faded dustiness to them that makes them look old or antique. They're all marked with the Triangle of Doom, indicating that they're limited edition, but Delicate and Fiestaware are becoming part of the permanent collection in July. I do think that the $16 price tag is rather steep for these somewhat plain colors, especially considering that they're only 0.34 oz. For comparison, Deborah Lippmann is $16 for 0.5 oz and a regular OPI is 0.5 for only $8.50.

The MAC Casual Color Collection Nail Lacquers are $16 for 0.34 oz and are limited edition.

(This was sent for review.)

Illamasqua Naked Strangers Collection Summer 2012 Swatches and Review

The Naked Strangers collection from Illamasqua is a different take on summer colors. Instead of the usual summer brights and neons, they've created a mixture of fleshy nudes and gleaming metallics. The full collection consists of two new lipglosses in Intimacy (nude pink brown) and Stranger (platinum gold), Powder Blusher in Naked Rose (neutral beige brown), Cream Blusher in Zygomatic (naked pink brown), and three new nail varnish shades (Faithful, Monogamous, Swinger).

Illamasqua Naked Strangers Collection Nail Varnish

Faithful, Monogamous, and Swinger.

Illamasqua Faithful. Faithful has a light, dusty-looking, slightly grey-tinged brown creme base with lots of bright, shiny copper metallic shimmer and just a touch of golden broken flake microglitter. The contrast in this color is really interesting. In dim lighting, it looks like a dusty, faded, almost taupe-like brown with a bit of red shimmer. In daylight indoors it looks like an earthy copper bronze. When you see the polish in sunlight, then it really shines. All the metallic copper shimmer comes out and adds a glow to the dusty base color, like smoldering embers. Very cool color.



Illamasqua Monogamous. This color dries to a rubbery matte finish, much like the Illamasqua Theatre of the Nameless rubber mattes. The top photo is its natural finish, the bottom photo is with a coat of topcoat. This color is a light pink-beige creme. It looks like a bottle of liquid foundation, it's a very fleshy, skin-like color. Unlike a lot of pale beiges, this one has a very soft look and it isn't chalky or harsh at all. Because it lacks that harsh, chalky finish, it's very easy to wear and looks clean and flattering without being sheer. It looks a lot more peach against my fair/cool skin tone, but it seems lighter and more pink by itself in the bottle.



Illamasqua Swinger. Swinger is a foil comprised of multiple shades of metallic particles. The main color is gold, but a neutral, non-yellowy gold. There's also platinum, champagne, very light bronze and metallic taupe. The overall look of the polish is rough and speckled with a slight green tinge to it. It only looks rough, though. It dries flat and smooth, even without topcoat. Sparkly and dense.

The formula on these was perfect. They glided onto my nails like a dream and none of these shades gave me even a hint of trouble. I did two coats of each and that's all they needed. The drying time on these is slightly faster than the usual Illamasqua dry time, which was a nice surprise. Flawless formula and application, no complaints here.

Overall, a small collection, but a good one. I like the slightly different take on summer color that they've presented here. The palette of matte nudes, browns/bronzes and pinks with the contrast of gleaming metallics is really great for summer, especially on tanned skin. I was especially pleased with the formula of the nail polishes, it was even better than I expected.

This collection doesn't officially release until the end of the month, but if you're a registered member on Illamasqua.com, you can order these items starting today. Details below.

All you need to do is log in to your Illamasqua.com account, or register for an account. A hidden Naked Strangers pre-release category will then be revealed within the COLLECTIONS section on the left menu within the shop.

The Illamasqua Naked Strangers Summer 2012 Collection goes on sale May 31st, 2012 and will be available at Sephora starting on June 7th, 2012. Registered members on Illamasqua.com can order the collection now.

(This was sent for review.)