Never Enough Nails: OPI Mariah Carey Holiday 2013 Swatches, Part 2!
*Sent for review*
Today I have the second part of my OPI Mariah Carey Holiday swatches. This part is all about the holidays reds and one lone champagne glitter. OPI is famous for it’s beautiful reds, especially in the holiday collection. Let’s start with my favorite red from the collection, OPI Underneath the Mistletoe. Underneath the Mistletoe is a juicy jelly-ish candy apple red with silver shimmer flecks. It’s definitely different than your standard red shimmer, I love this kind of large fleck shimmer. The concept of this polish reminds me a bit of the ever-awesome OPI Holiday Glow, just a different color. I still love Holiday Glow, so I think I’ll really enjoy Underneath the Mistletoe as well. 
This is three coats of Underneath the Mistletoe. As I mentioned, the base is pretty close to a jelly. I’d say, closer to a real jelly than to a crelly, so three coats for full coverage is definitely the norm for jelly-like polishes. The formula was excellent. All swatches in this post are topped with one coat of OPI Top Coat. 
OPI In My Santa Suit is definitely the classic OPI holiday red shimmer. It’s gorgeously glowing and festive. It’s a bit more pink-leaning than some other red shimmers I own. If you’ve been looking for a slightly pink glowy red, this one is for you. This is the kind of luminous red polish that I can never resist, despite the fact that I only wear red in December and I already own 30 red shimmers. 
This is three coats of In My Santa Suit. You could probably get away with two thicker coats, the pigmentation was pretty good. The formula was excellent, easy to control and apply cleanly. 
I was expecting OPI Visions of Love to be a standard deep burgundy creme, but it surprised me by being a crelly! The finish reminds me of OPI In the Cable Car Pool Lane from the OPI fall collection. It’s too opaque to be a true jelly, yet too squishy to be a creme- hence, a crelly. The crelly finish made me like this a lot more than if it was just your standard creme. It definitely makes it more unique too. 
This is three coats of Visions of Love. With jellies and crellies, I do always end up using a third coat, so I am OK with that. I love the squishy-looking result. The formula was good, maybe a tad prone to possible uneven areas, but it seemed to even out with the third coat. 
OPI My Favorite Ornament is the lone non-red in this section of my swatches. My Favorite Ornament is a super sparkly pale champagne silver glitter. This is another full coverage glitter, like All Sparkly and Gold in Part 1 of my swatches. Just like All Sparkly and Gold, I can’t wait to sponge this over one of the reds, probably In My Santa Suit. 
This is three coats of My Favorite Ornament and I found it to cover easily. I probably would wear just two coats. I just wanted to make sure it looked as opaque in pictures as it did in person. This kind of small, full coverage glitter is easy to apply, dries fast, and feels smooth after one coat of shiny top coat. Perfect for the busy holiday season! 
OPI All I Want For Christmas is OPI is a good example of why you should never form an opinion about a polish based on the bottle picture from the press release. OPI calls it a “marvelous maroon”, first of all. To me, it looks like a bright red creme. Secondly, in the bottle picture, it looks like it has shimmer. There is no shimmer. Anyway, weird press releases aside, this is a lovely bright true red creme. When I put the first coat on, it did look a bit pink, but after two coats, it was very obviously red. 
This is just two coats, I found this one to be excellently pigmented. Great formula too. 
Finally we have OPI Cute Little Vixen, a red violet shimmer. Cute Little Vixen is very purple-based and packs quite the shimmer punch. It’s one of those glowy shimmers that OPI does so well. 
This is two coats of Cute Little Vixen, this one was also very well pigmented. The formula was pretty good, maybe a tad on the thin side, but not difficult to work with. 
*Sent for review*
Overall, even if you own a lot of reds, I think there are some gems here, like Underneath the Mistletoe for sure. And I am always in the mood to wear colors like In My Santa Suit during the holiday season! Next I will be swatching the Liquid Sands from this collection and I CAN’T WAIT!! Those are what I’ve really been dying to try! Mariah Carey Holiday is available now at Professional Salons, including Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, jcp Salons, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, ULTA and ulta.com for $9.00 ($10.95 CAN) suggested retail for each nail lacquer.
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