OPI Color Paints Collection - Swatches & Review

Tuesday 2 June 2015


Recently I managed to get my hands on the OPI Color Paints collection.  Now I haven't really had a huge amount of time to play with these properly yet so my opinions on these for nail art are still not fully decided but I will share with you my thoughts on how these swatch.  For this post, I decided to swatch all the colours over the Silver Canvas base as I figured this is mainly what they were designed for.  There are lots of reviews with swatches worn by themselves but I am not a fan of visible nail lines or having to do five coats of polish.

Silver Canvas is described as "a clean-slate silver to illuminate your masterpiece".  To me this seems like any other metallic silver (I can do a silver comparison post if you would like), so you can probably pass on this if you already have one in your collection.  The formula is easy enough to work with, but brush strokes are visible.  I also found it to be slow drying.  I used two coats for my swatch below but with careful application you can use one coat.

Chromatic Orange is a sheer orange.  The formula is great.  It's easy to use and applies evenly so you can get away with using only one coat over a base.  For my swatch I used two coats over Silver Canvas.

Indigo Motif is described as a deep, midnight blue.  This is quite dark and is more opaque than Chromatic Orange.  It is easy to use and can be left as one coat.  I used two coats over Silver Canvas.

Landscape Artist is described as a lush, verdant green.  Now this one I found did apply evenly, although it is easy to work with.  I needed three coats for it too look even over Silver Canvas.

Magenta Muse is described as a sultry red-violet.  The formula and application is the same as Chromatic Orange - easy to use and you can get away with only one coat as it applies evenly.  I used two coats over Silver Canvas.

Pen & Pink is described as a rosy pink.  Again the formula of this one is the same as Chromatic Orange and Magenta Muse.  I used two coats over Silver Canvas for my swatch.

Primarily Yellow is a sunny yellow.  The formula is the same as Chromatic Orange to use but I did find that this one bubbled and wrinkled when I added my top coat (as you can see on my index finger).  I am not entirely sure why it did that.  I am guessing that something wasn't fully dry.  Anyway, my swatch is two coats over Silver Canvas.

Purple Perspective is deep purple.  Again, the formula is the same as Chromatic Orange.  I used two coats over Silver Canvas.

Turquoise Aesthetic is described as a deep aqua.  The formula of this one is easy to use although it doesn't apply as evenly as I would have liked.  This one is quite bubbly too.  I used two coats over Silver Canvas for my swatch.


Now I was interested in seeing what these polishes would look like over white (I figured I would probably use these for the lead lighting technique over a white base) so here are some quick swatches over OPI Alpine Snow.

L-R Chromatic Orange, Indio Motif, Landscape Artist, Magenta Muse (all two coats)

L-R Pen & Pink (2 coats), Primarily Yellow (2 coats), Purple Perspective (3 coats), Turquoise Aesthetic (3 coats)


Wow!  I can't even begin to tell you how long these took me to swatch.  They are quite slow drying.  Now my overall thoughts - I am not a huge fan of these as a full nail swatch, so if you were going to buy them to wear as a full mani then I would say skip it and go for something else.  They are slow drying and to tend to bubble on the second coat.  As for nail art, I have done one lead lighting mani using them and I love them.  They give such a cool look over silver and have a great colour payoff.  I definitely can't wait to play with these some more.  What do you think of these?  Will you be picking them up?











3 comments:

  1. These were marketed as a better version of the sheer tints and yet they don't look sheer enough to me to lead light without having to be really careful to not go over the lines. Were they quite easy to use in this way? I'm desperate to find something better than the sheer tints

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  2. I've only used them once for lead lighting over the silver base and I really liked them. They aren't thick and gluggy like the Sheer Tints are. They definitely have more colour payoff than the sheer tints which is good. I can't recall if I went over my black lines, I know I missed going to the lines so there were some gaps, but I blame how shiny it was and poor lighting. I'll have a play tonight and will get back to you :)

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