OPI Bright Pair Collection with Paige Premium Denim: Brights 2009

In the previous post you saw some comparisons and duplicates from this collection, now here's the "real" post :)

There are also swatches of the collection at The Nailphile and Sterling Nails.

A Grape Fit. Rich lavender creme. This is my new favorite pale purple. The problem I have with the pale purples/lilacs/lavenders is that sometimes they're so pale they look lifeless. This one is soft but still rich and bright enough to be interesting for me, and it looks good with my skintone.


In My Back Pocket. A bright orange creme. Ooh, orange! For some reason we don't see oranges being released very often... I wonder why that is? They're so bright and happy and flattering on most skintones. This one is especially nice because it's a little softer than most of the oranges that I have. It's definitely not neon and it's a little softer than pumpkin.

No Room For The Blues. Bright sky blue creme. Not the least bit unique but still a beautiful color. I really can't resist these bright blues, they are just soooooo pretty that I'm always drawn to them!


On The Same Paige. Deep orange creme. I want to call this red-orange- it's definitely orange but has a much deeper red tint than the other orange in this collection. Maybe it's coral? Would you call this more coral or orange? Coral is extremely confusing for me.

Over The Taupe. Taupe creme. This picture came out a little warmer than the color looks on me in real life. This is another color I never thought I'd like, but it ended up being my favorite from the collection. It's the most unique in the collection and it has that soft, grungy, edgy 'mushroom' look that I love so much.

Shorts Story. Hot pink creme. I'm going to use OPI's description for this one: "Hot Pink. The end." Haha! It's to the point and pretty accurate. This is a nice cool hot pink though, so it doesn't make my hands look dirty. I have a hard time wearing pinks, but I can usually wear the cooler, more blue-violet toned ones like this and OPI I'm India Mood For Love.

This collection is supposed to pair with the Summer line from Paige Premium Denim. Admittedly, I had never heard of the brand until this OPI collection mentioned it, but then again, I'm neither a denim wearer nor fashion enthusiast. But since seeing the promo pics for this collection that feature Paige denim in all sorts of bright colors, I kinda want some now.

That looks awesome. Admit it. Except.... Those jeans are ridiculously tight. I'm betting they're those 'skinny' jeans that don't look good on anyone but Emo boys (wait, did I say it looked good on emo boys?)....

The formula on these was flawless. Smooth, thin and opaque in two to three coats depending on the shade. I had zero application issues and the drying time was very fast. The Pro-Wide brush in these makes application really fast for me as well- I was able to use one quick stroke on each nail!

This collection of brights is missing what made the previous OPI brights collections unique- fun shimmers! The original sets of brights had duochromes (like Electric Eel) and sheer crystal shimmers in fun colors (like That's All Bright With Me). The Night Brights collection introduced us to one of the greatest polishes of all time: My Private Jet. It gave me one of my most favorite purple polishes, OPI Ink. Unique colors with no duplicates to be found. Mod about Brights gave us green and yellow. The Bright Pair collection is really pretty and all the colors are nice, but there isn't really anything unique about them.

I do like this collection a whole lot. The colors themselves are gorgeous, the formula on them is perfect and they all look really nice together. I only wish there were six more shades to balance out the cremes. It would have been cool to have coordinated layering shades like the old collection. But, it seems like the polish companies are scaling back lately and not releasing as many shades as they used to.

So... OPI Summer 2009 is almost done (one more collection to go!) and then we get what looks like an amazing set of collections for fall and winter. Woohoo!!

Comparisons with OPI Brights 2009 Bright Pair with Paige Denim

This time I thought I'd try something a little different and put the cart before the horse, so to speak.

I do love this collection of brights, but they are very similar to other brights I own, especially ones by OPI.

Index and ring: OPI A Grape Fit
Middle and pinkie: OPI Do You Lilac It?

As you can see, they're similar shades of lilac purple but Do You Lilac It? is significantly lighter.

Index: OPI No Room For The Blues
Middle: OPI Just Groovy
Ring: Zoya Yummy
Pinkie: Misa Right Here Now, No More Later

There are minuscule differences between these colors, but can you really tell? I wouldn't know this was four different colors unless someone told me.

Index: OPI On The Same Paige
Middle: OPI Orange You Glad It's Summer?
Ring: OPI Don't Be Koi With Me
Pinkie: Misa Um You're Too Delicious

These oranges weren't as close as they appeared in the bottle. Similar, but I don't think I have an exact match yet.


Index: OPI Over The Taupe
Middle: OPI You Don't Know Jacques
Ring: Butter London Fash Pack
Pinkie: Orly Country Club Khaki

Hmm, no dupes here! Similar, but again, nothing exact.

Index: OPI Shorts Story
Middle: OPI I'm India Mood For Love
Ring: OPI D.C. Cherry Blossom
Pinkie: China Glaze Laced Up

I thought I had more pinks similar to Shorts Story in my collection, but I couldn't find a duplicate. I'm sure that one exists, but I'll have to keep looking to find out what it is.

Index: OPI In My Back Pocket
Middle: OPI Osaka To Me Orange
Ring: OPI It's A Bird, It's A Plane... It's OPI
Pinkie: OPI Orange You Glad It's Summer?

This one seems closest to my favorite orange, OPI Osaka To Me Orange.

Aside from No Room For The Blues, I haven't found an exact duplicate of any of these colors. In my opinion, they're unique and pretty enough to own all of them, but only if you really love the color. I happen to love them all even though they look like other things in my collection.

I only wish this year's brights had the matching crystalline shimmers like the old Brights collections, but I'll save my lamentations for the 'real' post :)

Jessica Summer 2009 Life's A Beach Collection

This is the second collection I've tried from Jessica and I love it even more than the first!

The Life's A Beach collection is a collection of brights and a few have a very jelly-like finish!


Bikini Bottoms. A bright fuchsia creme. This isn't really as jelly-like as the other shades in this collection. It's a nice, bright pink but it's not neon. It also looks good against my skintone, which is rare for pink!






Diva On The Dunes. Bright orange creme. This one is a lot more jelly-like, but doing three coats covered up the squishy look. It's a very bright but not quite neon orange.



Loving The Lifeguard. Rich red-purple creme. This looks a lot like some of the neon purples in my collection but with the 'neon' removed! It's not really bright but it is bold.



My Cabana Boy. Near-neon coral-orange creme. This color is hot! It was also impossible to photograph. This is as close as I was able to get to the real life shade. It's much brighter and more saturated. I don't think it's a true neon, it doesn't dry matte, but it is bright enough to be seen from across the room! I think this is my favorite one so far!



No Tan Lines. Bright bubblegum pink creme. Your standard girly pink.




Under My Umbrella. Near neon hot pink creme. This has the most obvious jelly finish out of all the polishes in this collection. It's also super bright but not a true neon. It's right on the edge of bright/neon! Bold and bright, perfect for a summer pedicure.


I didn't think Jessica did a whole lot of brights or neon-like colors, so this collection was another surprise for me. The more and more I experience this brand, the more I like it.

I especially love the name of this collection. Life's A Beach. Ha!

The polishes all have a great texture, not too thin, not too thick. They don't seem to have three-free syndrome. They all apply evenly with no streaking, running or pooling. They dry very quickly and the wear on them is really quite good. The bottles and brushes are also of a very high quality, and that helps a lot when applying polish.


I love these colors. Like I said, they're bright but not neon. Brighter than the colors in China Glaze Kicks but not as bright as the colors in Zoya La-Di-Da. Every shade is flattering and could be worn by a wide variety of skin tones and still look perfect. I was especially shocked that the pinks looked good on me. Pinks usually make my fingers look dirty or burnt. Bonus!


Overall, hot colors, perfect for summer. Great formula. Not the most exciting or unique collection, but at least there aren't any ugly colors. Perfect for someone who's not brave enough to venture into neons but wants to wear bright color.

I don't have an exact release date for these, but they're available at the end of April and can be purchased from Jessica's website.

Orly Summer 2009 Tiki Time Collection

One more summer collection, this time it's a collection of four bright cremes from Orly.

(And yes, I know that some of my pictures are blurry! My camera can't seem to focus very well anymore...)




Calypso Breeze. A dreamy bright blue creme. I don't have much to say about this- the picture says it all. It's beautiful. It is somewhat similar to Essie Mesmerize, but I don't have them to compare side-by-side at the moment.




Mint Mojito. Bright mint green creme. This reminds me of the color of mint chocolate chip ice cream! It's more of a bright green-yellow than I had anticipated. I thought it might be a match for MAC Peppermint Patti, but when it arrived I realized I was wrong! It is much better and brighter in real life. I am in love with this color. Right on, Orly!!




Sol Cabana. Soft yet bright orange creme. This is a lot softer looking in real life- these pictures seem to make it look almost neon, but it reminds me more of orange juice. It is quite bright and colorful but still has a soft, almost pale look to it- this seems to contradict itself, but once you see it in real life, you'll understand what I'm trying to say!





Teeny Bikini. Ultra bright red creme. Is there such a thing as neon red? Because that's what I would call this. This red is SO BRIGHT. It stands out so much against my skintone that you can't help but stare at it. This is definitely an attention grabbing sort of color.


The formula on these was wonderful. Thin, smooth, no runny/thick three free formula like a lot of other Orly polishes have. Drying time was much faster than I'm used to for Orly. Maybe they're working on their formula a little?

These pictures are all three coats of polish. They were a little sheer due to the thin texture of the polish, but they looked decent at two coats. I wanted to be absolutely sure they were 100% opaque, so I did three coats. You could probably get away with two.

Other than Mint Mojito, none of these colors are entirely unique. You could probably find matches for them from multiple brands- right off the bat, three of the colors are pretty close to three from the Misa Living On The Fast Lane collection. But still, they're gorgeous and if you don't already own similar colors they're worth having in your collection.

Overall, this is an awesome collection. I love every single color. I love brights, I love blue, I love green, I love orange, so I knew this would at least have three things I liked. The red was a total surprise. I don't normally like red, I find it boring, predictable and overdone, but certain shades of red appeal to me. There are a few reds that I really love- Maybelline Juicy Tomato, OPI Vodka and Caviar, OPI Keys To My Karma, Zoya America, Essie Russian Roulette, Essie E! Live From The Red Carpet, and now this.

It's also a nice small collection- easy on the wallet. Even better, this collection comes in a set of minis as well! It's a cheaper way to try out the collection and I really appreciate that Orly is making it more affordable to try their colors. Minis rock.

China Glaze Summer 2009 Kicks Collection

Like past China Glaze collections, Kicks is broken up into two parts. Usually it's a warm and a cool palette, but this time I don't understand the distinction between set 1 and set 2. Colors and nearly-identical pinks and oranges? Meh, who knows.




B-Girlz. Pink shimmer.




Breakin'. Light orange shimmer.




Custom Kicks. Teal with gold shimmer. WARNING: This picture is not accurate. In my picture it looks like an electric blue, but in real life it is a darker, less neon-looking teal with rich gold shimmer. I tried my best, but my camera wouldn't pick it up.




Entourage. Light green shimmer.





Fly. Purple shimmer.




It's Poppin'. Pink shimmer.





Laced-Up. Pink creme.




Oh How Street It Is. Red-orange creme.




Paper Chasing. Sheer green shimmer.




Sky High Top. Blue shimmer.



Sneaker Head. Light reddish creme.



Style Wars. Jelly-ish orange creme.



This is a collection of shades that are bright without being neon. They're not terribly bright, actually... They're more colorful and vibrant than bright. These are fun shades but they're not notice-me-from-a-mile-away shades.

I'm really happy to see some oranges! The thought never crosses my mind until I see an orange polish, but we really don't see a whole lot of orange polish being released. I love orange, and these are really great oranges.

I'm also extremely happy to see two greens and two blues in this collection, but I am a bit disappointed that the greens aren't very unique. Entourage is pretty similar to Tree Hugger (they're not exact matches) and Paper Chasing is almost identical to Piggy Polish Lily's Pad. Lily's Pad seems slightly lighter, Paper Chasing a little deeper.

My favorites are Breakin', Entourage, Style Wars, Custom Kicks and Sky High Top. I would have put Paper Chasing in my top five if it hadn't been so sheer! It's a fantastic color, but China Glaze formula and multiple coats don't mix- it would take days to dry!

The formula on these is all over the place. Some are very sheer, like Paper Chasing (five coats in that picture) and Style Wars, and some are very opaque (Custom Kicks, Sky High Top). Some are thick, some are thin, a little bit unpredictable. The best formula was on the creme oranges and the blues. The worst was the pinks, especially Laced-Up- thick and stringy but runny at the same time. Drying time seemed better on these shades than on previous collections.

Overall, not a bad collection but not terribly unique. You can't go wrong with brights, especially for summer, but I would have liked to see more variation in the shades. The pinks and oranges are only a couple shades off from each other. The greens were nice, but I also would have liked Paper Chasing more if it was less sheer.

One thing's for sure- China Glaze is not afraid of color! When was the last time you saw China Glaze release a collection of boring sheers and nudes? A long time ago. They've been blessing us with amazing colors for years and I hope that doesn't change!

While this collection may not rank up there with the awesomeness of collections like Ink, Rodeo Diva, Bahama Blues, OMG, Kaleidoscope or Ski, it's still colorful, un-intimidating, fun and totally wearable.