OPI Mariah Carey Holiday 2013 – Glitter and Gold Swatches & Review
OPI Mariah Carey Holiday
Due to her hit song, “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, Mariah Carey is as much a staple of the Holiday Season as Bing Crosby. And thanks to my mom’s office, where holiday music plays non-stop from Thanksgiving until the new year, it is ingrained in my brain.
For that reason, it makes perfect sense that OPI would continue its collaboration with Mariah in their holiday collection, OPI Mariah Carey Holiday 2013. Only this year, not only do we get the usual twelve shades, six being red, we get six new Liquid Sand shades as well. Today, I’m focusing on the non-red portion of the twelve.
Formula & Application: OPI is a 4-free brand (Formaldehyde, Toluene, DBP and Formaldehyde Resin). The OPI Pro Wide brush is flat, wide and medium in length. It’s of average stiffness and easily spreads out on the nail when pressed. The only downside to the Pro Wide brush is that it can be too wide for slim fingers or little toes.
Because there is such variation in application, opacity and finish with these shades, I’ll address that individually.
OPI All Sparkly and Gold is a burnished, antique gold fine glitter in a jelly-like, sheer base. It’s build-able, becoming opaque in three coats, drying with a texture that requires a thick top coat for a smooth finish. And yes, removal is a bother.
OPI All Sparkly Gold
File Under: What was OPI thinking! OPI I Snow You Love Me is kind of a disaster. In theory, it should be a fun layering top coat, with all those holographic, faceted glitters that look like rhinestones. The problem… they are so heavy that they sink to the bottom and even after minutes of shaking, I was lucky to get more than two pieces on a nail. Pass!
OPI I Snow You Love Me
OPI I Snow You Love Me Layering
OPI My Favorite Ornament is a pale champagne fine glitter in a sheer, squishy base that is easy to control. It reminds me of Essie Beyond Cozy only it’s a bit more golden. The first coat goes on kind of sheer but with three coats, it’s pretty opaque. Like All Sparkly and Gold, it eats top coat so use something like Seche Vite for a smooth finish.
OPI My Favorite Ornament
OPI Ski Slope Sweetie is a frosty white flecked shimmer filled with golden pearl. It’s like sun hitting fresh snow. It lacks in opacity so even after three coats, you can see the nail. But, because of the heavy gold shimmer, the color looks opaque when light reflects on it.
OPI Ski Slope Sweetie
OPI Warm Me Up is a cool, silvery dark brown shimmer. The base is like a Hershey Special Dark bar, chocolate-y but not in a warm, hot cocoa way. This one applied rather patchy so while I could get away with two coats on some nails, when I did a full manicure with it, I felt a third coat was necessary.
OPI Warm Me Up
OPI Wonderous Star [sic] has a clear base filled with icy, crystal flecks and a smattering of black hexagonal glitter. It’s easy to manipulate and you don’t have to work to get the black glitter on the nail but even after three coats, it’s not opaque. It’s best used as a top coat over other shades, though you can certainly wear it on its own.
OPI Wonderous Star
OPI Mariah Carey Holiday 2013
Bottom Line: I’m all about glitter and sparkle during the holidays so shades like All Sparkly and Gold and My Favorite Ornament are all me, all day long. I’ve been wearing Warm Me Up and I love its cool, unique take on vampy polish so it gets two thumbs up from me. Since Ski Slope Sweetie is similar to China Glaze White Cap, I don’t deem it a necessity.
OPI Mariah Carey Holiday is available now at salons and select retailers nationwide, including ULTA stores and ULTA.com. OPI nail polish retails for $9/ea for a .5oz bottle.
Which shades from this part of the collection are you digging? Have you tried any of these yet? Are you into the black glitter in Wonderous Star?
Disclosure: Product samples were provided by reps for OPI. Affiliate links appear in this post. When you purchase through an affiliate link, you help support this site. For more info view my Disclosure Policy.
Lisa N.
Ms Meatballhead
Birdie
Spa pediccure chairs
my faves – warm me up and my favorite ornament. Looks like a glitter ball on my hands!
Mainly this is not my bag, but this Warm Me Up…is it anything like the legendary Essie Martini Cocoa? Thanks!
I have Martini Cocoa and it’s a lot warmer with reddish tones in comparison. I have nothing even in the same color range as Warm Me Up.
A lot of other bloggers really liked the glitter when they put some onto a surface and individually placed the letters on their nails. Maybe you will like it better after that?! My favorite is Warm Me Up. Flawless in two coats for me!
Oh I’m sure that works but you shouldn’t have to make that much effort with a polish. I could just go buy glitter or rhinestones and place them myself without having to dig through the polish.
I agree with you on this. I was thinking that sponging would be the way to go with this, to soak up all that extra clear base so your nails don’t turn into a soupy mess, but who wants to bother with it? Save yourself a few bucks and just buy some glitter if you’re going to go to the effort of sponging or hand-placing it!
Exactly! No nail polish should make you work that hard.
Seems like I can skip all of these.. thankfully.
Are they too light? Too glittery?
I love Warm a Me Up, and I’ve worn it three or four times already. I’m glad I passed on the rest of the collection, removing all that fine glitter is a pain. As for the reds, they seemed boring. This is the first OPI collection in a long time where I’m underwhelmed.
It is a pain and I normally don’t do it but at the holidays, I make an exception for super sparkly tips.
I just had a mani done in “All Sparkly + Gold”, and while I liked it, it wasn’t nearly as gorgeous as my all-time gold polish fave: OPI’s 007 “GoldenEye” (which initially turned me onto gold/metallic polishes). Hands down, that one is a sure-fire winner guaranteed to garner many compliments (although some cool-toned gals have stated that it was more flattering on warmer tones). The flaky glitter in “GoldenEye” combines together to create a stunning gold-leaf foil effect, while “Sparkly” is simply that: sparkly with a semi-matte effect. I think for gold + silver metal polishes, the foil effect seems better suited than glitters, although both are beautiful in their own right (even though glitters are def. time-consuming in the removal process).
I missed out on the entire Bond collection and I’m still disappointed about it. GoldenEye especially.
The only one I have is My Favorite Ornament – it’s so fantastic I had to get a backup bottle. Love it to bits! Not really interested in the others, though.
I agree, that one is gorgeous. I have nothing like it.
I have been using My Favorite Ornament as a french base. I get a gel manicure and my manicurist uses one coat. It is the prettiest holiday french I have ever had. I have received so many compliments on it!
Oh that sounds really pretty. Thanks for sharing!
Ski Slope Sweetie looks a lot like Sephora OPI Wild About Shimmer. Seems like a lot of the large glitters OPI has been doing lately have failed. When Monkey’s Fly from the Wizard of Oz collection had curling foiled pieces.
Yeah, I don’t know who was in charge of those two concepts but they need to rethink things.
I love all of the golds. But not so much into the black glitter
I get that. The black glitter is an unusual choice.
I love Ski Slope Sweetie — the subtle golden shimmer and the pink color and just gorgeous!
I saw this collection at my salon and was deciding on some colours for my pedi. I tested Wondrous Star on my nail and it looked like I had dipped my nails in pepper. LOL. I eventually chose Under the Mistletoe which looked very festive.
Hahaha, the pepper reference is so true. I’m glad you like Under The Mistletoe
Ha! Wonderous Star looks like a slightly sheerer version of a Blue Cross Halloween pumpkin polish. I like it, but definitely like the pumpkin polish price point more than OPI.
thanks for the review. i’ll pass on these.
Sometimes there seriously is a thing as too much glitter. I love OPI but don’t think any of those colors are for me.