Sunday, December 2, 2012

OPI Skyfall - half a dozen

One of the most difficult births ever on this blog, may be this very post. Surrounded by nothing but darkness, I eventually succumbed to the use of the dreaded camera flash. The photos are accordingly.



Casino Royale. Three coats. Very red purple, almost beet colored, creme.




Live And Let Die. Two coats. Super pigmented, very dark green creme base full of gold fleck shimmer.




Moonraker. Two coats. Slightly semi-matte drying cool-toned silver chrome.




Skyfall. Two coats. Brown leaning red creme.




Tomorrow Never Dies. Three coats. Blue leaning purple with slight magenta duochrome properties. The bottom photo is really blurry, but fairly color accurate.

And the really special, but expensive, one:


The Man With the Golden Gun. One coat over Live And Let Die. 18 Karat gold flake topcoat.


There are five more polishes in this collection, that I haven't yet managed to swatch because of a broken nail, but hold on tight and I might get them up before Christmas?! I have already showed you two colors, and you can look at them again here.

This is indeed a Christmas or Holiday collection, and although very appropriate for the season, as well as incredibly classy, it's not that intriguing. There is only one color that I truly adore, but it's not in this bunch. Live And Let Die is a very nice one, but it doesn't make my heart skip a beat - or make an extra jump, for that matter. Despite the duochrome shift in Tomorrow Never Dies, it is not a very spectacular purple, neither is the barely-purple-at-all purple Casino Royale. However, I can see it sell well among the less lacquer enthusiastic general crowd, and the same goes for the sorta vampy warm red Skyfall. I love red cremes, and I like Skyfall, but it's just a tad too brown to really hit it.

I'm also a little sad to have seen Moonraker so widely misunderstood, as the most common description I have seen is that it has a frost finish. If anyone's still hesitant, let me calm you by stating that it is not a frost - it's a chrome. A cool-toned, barely blue-based, semi-matte drying chrome. Chromes are usually prone to brush strokes, and have to be allowed complete drying before evaluated. However, Moonraker would definitely benefit from a good ridgefilling basecoat underneath.

Most of all, I'm happy that OPI did not get to name these polishes in the silly manner we've gotten used to, but rather just after a bunch of more or less memorable James Bond movies. After all, it vastly increases the seriousness. And sometimes I tend to take polish a little too seriously, I admit that.

Last but not least, I'm sure you're already very aware of the increased pricetag on the special release The Man With the Golden Gun, the 18 Karat gold flakes suspended in a clear polish, meant to be put on top of any of the other shades. In Sweden it retails for a whopping almost 75 USD, which makes it immensely bourgeoise. Nonetheless, a desirable collector's item.

The Skyfall collection in its entirety is available in stores already.

All products were sent for review, except The Man With the Golden Gun which was purchased with own funds.

Swedish word of the day:
borgerlig -adjective bourgeois
Class-y?

10 comments:

  1. Well, I will say your flash pics are better than all my pics! lol! Your pics of Live and Let Die actually make me want to pick it up.....and I'm not usually a green fan!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Man With the Golden Gun is such a gorgeous gold flakie. Too bad it's $30. Love your swatches!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Live and Let Die is a perfect color for you. And it becomes even more perfect after The Man with the Golden Gun. Love your nails, they look so strong and healthy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I did not expect to love Tomorrow Never Dies so much - but it looks like royal velvet robes to me - the purple in mine comes up a lot. I love it with the Man With The Golden Gun over TND! Cannot stop looking at my fingers. The one I really thought I would love the most is You Only Live Twice - it's a new update for my fav winter magenta which has been the also glassfleck filled OPI Let Me Entertain you. Now that LMTY is getting soooo expensive, I think I will stock up on YOLT so I have a good 6 yrs worth of it! We finally are getting rain and real weather in Northern California - only no one told the clouds not to drop so much at once! We are on flood alert today after getting more than a foot in the past 2 days and it's pouring still...but heard my fav sky place got 2 feet of snow over the past day! Nice!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I actually find myself really loving Casino Royale....but they all look fantastic on you! Flash pictures are lovely, so don't be too hard on yourself!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your swatches of these are great. I am passing on these though, they are not very unique as you noted.

    ReplyDelete
  7. These really grew on me the more I saw them and I ended up with seven and am loving them all.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Awesome! Your nails are beautiful!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. great blog, great pix!!!

    http://kingloriousworld.blogspot.co.at/

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi! I'm new here :)
    Your blog is so so nice, I like it too much !

    I'm following you now ! If you want you can back me the follow !

    xxxxx

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for commenting! Please, NO LINK SPAMMING! Anonymous comments with rude contents, advertising and/or link dropping will be deleted.