OPI and Serena Williams Glam Slam! US Fall 2011

The final installment of the Serena Williams Glam Slam! series- Glam Slam! United States. If you ask me, this is the greatest duo yet. They seem to have saved the best for last!


Love Is A Racket. This color was impossible to photograph properly. It just wanted to look all radioactive glowy and freak out my camera. That's because it really is a little radioactive-glowy. It's a super fun bright coral glass fleck. My picture doesn't capture even half of its beauty; you simply must see it in person. It's more of a coral-magenta than the red OPI classifies it as and it's full of shiny little pearls of duochrome shimmer. It dries a little dull so I'm thinking there's a little neon pigment in this making it so bright.



Pros & Bronze. This... This is just too good. I mean, look at it. It's insane! It's a foily-duochrome-glitter. The base is a light golden bronze foil particle shimmer. Overlaid on the bronze is rose gold duochrome sparkle. There's some dark copper microglitter and there's some pink and yellow duochrome flash on top of that. It's bright, it's shiny, it's sparkly. In my humble opinion, this is one of the best polishes OPI has done in the past few years. It has everything going for it- unique color, stunning microglitter finish, good formula. It is perfect.

The formula on these was good. A little thinner than the polishes in the Touring America collection, but still easy to control. I did three coats of each color. They looked fine with only two but an extra coat gives them more of a kick. Fast dry time. No issues here.

I think these are awesome. They make up for the lack of sparkle in the main fall collection. Love them both and I couldn't have asked for a better end to the Glam Slam! series. I'm even thinking about getting a backup of Pros and Bronze. It's that good. And hey.... No more crackle polish! Great color choices, good formula... I'm having a hard time finding any downside to this duo.

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Serena Williams Glam Slam! England Summer 2011 Swatches and Review

The latest installment of the OPI/Serena Williams Glam Slam! collection has arrived. The press release is really rather informative for this one, so I'm going to copy and paste what it says here:


"OPI joins tennis superstar Serena Williams in announcing the latest three lacquers in the Glam Slam! collection. To celebrate the world’s oldest, most prestigious tennis tournament, Glam Slam! England features two duo-packs filled with sparkle.

The first Lacquer set includes Your Royal Shine-ness, a metallic silver shade, paired with Servin’ Up Sparkle, a shimmer-packed silver glitter. The second Lacquer set also features Servin’ Up Sparkle, along with Grape…Set…Match, a metallic purple.

“England’s premier tennis tournament warrants colors with extra glitz and glamour,” said Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, OPI Executive VP & Artistic Director. “The next big trend in nails is making lacquer look 3-dimensional by adding different micas and glitters, turning fingertips into jewelry. With two bold metallics and a sparkling glitter, these colors are fit for royalty.”

“For stand-out nails, I love experimenting with different glitter shades,” explains Serena Williams. “The new Glam Slam! England lacquers can be worn alone for a bright pop of color, or layered with Servin’ Up Sparkle to create a textured effect.”

Serena Williams has received the World Number One in singles ranking by the Women’s Tennis Association on five separate occasions, along with being listed as sixth on the all-time greatest champions list. Additionally, she has won two Olympic gold medals in women’s doubles and has earned 27 Grand Slam titles to date. Serena is the most recent player to have held all four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously and only the fifth woman in history to do so.

New shades in the Glam Slam! collection will be introduced to coincide with each of the four major tournaments, beginning with the Australian Open in January 2011, followed by launches in May 2011 for the French Open, June 2011 for Wimbledon and August 2011 for the US Open."


So, instead of having crackle/shatter polishes, these sets have a glitter for layering. Here are the shades:


Grape... Set... Match. This is an extremely gorgeous purple. My picture doesn't do it justice- in real life it's about a shade lighter and much more red toned. It's made up of tiny purple-based iridescent sparkles in a purple base. And... it's duochrome! I tried to show the duochrome effect in the second picture. Can you tell? It flashes blue/purple.

Your Royal Shine-ness. First, can I complain about the name a bit? Your Royal Shine-ness. Did OPI forget that they already have a polish named Your Royal Shyness? Way to be confusing, OPI. But, other than the name, the polish is very nice. It's a sparkly silver foil. Unique? Nope. But it sure is pretty.



Servin' Up Sparkle. This is the layering glitter that comes in each set. I think it looks pretty good all by itself. It's a silver-based holographic glitter. It tiny silver and holo particles and some larger round and hexagon holo silver glitter. It is sheer as it is meant for layering, but I'm wearing three coats here and it looks light and sparkly but not opaque.

And layered...

One coat of OPI Servin' Up Sparkle over Grape...Set...Match. Oooooh I like this combination. The glitter in the topcoat enhances the sparkles in the base polish and the end result is really flashy!



One coat of OPI Servin' Up Sparkle over Your Royal Shine-ness. I have mixed feelings about this combination. In the right light it looks spectacular, like a glittery disco ball. But in the wrong lighting, it looks pitted and chunky, like the glitter has sunk too deep into the base polish and left divots. The silver foil does look rather stunning with holo accents, though.


The formula on these was great. No application problems whatsoever. Texture was smooth and even, not too thick, not too thin. I did three coats of each polish and still had a short dry time. Nothing worth noting on the formula end of things.

I think Grape... Set... Match is amazing. It reminds me of a lighter, redder, non-blackened version of OPI Ink, which is still one of my top favorite polishes of all time. I can't think of another polish that looks quite like this. Grape Set Match is awesome and I only wish the other two shades were as unique. The silver foil is easily duplicated, as is the holo glitter topcoat. That's not to say that they're not beautiful, they're just... common. Even within OPI and Nicole's current line you can find similar colors. Maybe the final Glam Slam set will have some truly unique shades.

EDIT: For rmcandlelight, the closest I can do to a comparison at the moment:

OPI Designer Series Radiance
vs

OPI Your Royal Shine-ness

Different lighting, but you can sorta see the similarity, right?

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI and Serena Williams Glam Slam! France 2011 - Spark de Triomphe and White Shatter

Here's the second duo-pack that makes up the OPI/Serena Williams Glam Slam! France collection. The other set was Rally Pretty Pink and OPI Red Shatter topcoat, this set has a glitter nail polish called Spark de Triomphe with a new white shade of OPI Shatter crackle topcoat.


OPI Spark de Triomphe. This is a sheer glitter that can be layered for more coverage. I have two coats on here and you can still see a bit of my nail through it, three coats would be completely opaque. This glitter is a mix of tiny round particles and larger round particles. The color is an interesting mix of silver metallic base with golden-green tint. Really unusual looking, I have to say I'm a fan!


And here's the crackle pairing:
OPI White Shatter crackle topcoat over two coats of OPI Spark de Triomphe. Like the last set, I thought the white with the golden-green glitter was a weird combination and I didn't think they would go together, but I was again proven wrong. I think White Shatter looks awesome over the glitter! It looks like a fancy party. I'm also surprised at how opaque the white is, I didn't think it would give me as much opaque coverage over the glitter as it did. It's very nice.

The formula on both of these was flawless. The glitter applies smoothly and isn't too thick. It's sheer enough for layering but can also be worn at three coats for full opaque coverage. The crackle applies evenly and crackles well. The drying time on both is stellar and I really have no complaints about either. OPI did good. Great formula.

Overall, I think I prefer this half of the Glam Slam! French Open collection. The glitter is sparkly and gorgeous and it looks fantastic with the white shatter. I guess there's a bit of a downside, though... I feel like I've seen this glitter before. Is it an old Nicole color? The green-gold-yellowy tint seems unique, though, but I know I've seen this glitter configuration in silver. In fact, they just released the next installment of Glam Slam! that includes a similar glitter in silver.

Unique or not, both colors are very pretty and the formula is spot on.

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Serena Glam Slam! France 2011 - Rally Pretty Pink and Red Shatter

OPI and Serena Williams have just released the next installment of their Glam Slam! series to coincide with the French Open. This time there are two sets of colors which each have a sparkling polish shade alongside a new shade of OPI's Shatter crackle polish.


Rally Pretty Pink. This is a sheer dark pink/mauve/plummy brown base with insane amounts of bright, shiny gold metal flake sparkle. Looks and sounds familiar, doesn't it? Zoya Faye? They seem very similar to me. Faye seems deeper and richer, Rally Pretty Pink seems lighter and slightly pinker. I don't have my bottle of Faye with me so I haven't been able to do a true side-by-side evaluation to determine just how similar they are. I love this (like I loved Faye), it's a stunningly gorgeous color.


Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink. Red Shatter is really fascinating! As you can probably tell from the pictures, it's sheer. It's like a jelly crackle. Because if the see-through quality of this, details of the base polish show through the red. See all the sparkles from Rally Pretty Pink? Pretty cool. Another interesting effect of the sheerness is that the tone of the red shatter can change based on what you layer under it.



See how much warmer it looks here with the orange showing through? This is OPI Red Shatter over Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange. This looks awesome over glittery orange, like a big shiny sparkling fireball.

The formula on both was great. Nice and smooth, good texture, fast dry time. The crackle effect works much better over dry polish, but I used it over wet polish in these pictures and it's still pretty good. Just be aware that when applying over wet polish, the crackle will spread as it dries and take the base polish with it, causing bald spots.

I love both of these, but I must say... what an odd color combination. I don't know how much I like the red crackle polish over the golden-mauve base color, I think it blends in too much. I don't dislike them together, but I think the crackle effect doesn't seem as pronounced as with other colors. Needs more contrast. Maybe a yellow underneath?

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Katy Perry and Serena Williams Grand Slam Collections (with Black Shatter Crackle Polish!) Spring 2011

These are technically two separate collections, but they really seem to go together and combined they make six polishes which is about the size of the average polish collection.

I don't know anything about Katy Perry besides the fact that she's cute, has really cool nail designs and blue hair. I do know Serena Williams, though; champion tennis star and brand new nail tech. That's one of the most interesting celebrity collaborations I've seen!

Katy Perry has four brand new colors plus Black Shatter crackle topcoat and Serena Williams has one color plus Black Shatter to go along with it. Black Shatter really is the star here, but all the colors are fantastic:

Katy Perry for OPI Collection

Last Friday Night. This is opalescent glitter with some tiny iridescent electric blue sparkles in a sheer blue tinted base. I know I have at least one other polish that's similar to this- it's either Sally Hansen or Confetti, possibly both even... But this one has that extra something to it. The tiny blue sparkles. They're amazing. They glow and shimmer and light up the whole polish. This is a very sheer shade. It's perfect for layering but you can also wear it alone and I think the end result is magical. Since it's so sheer it doesn't have the same depth as bottle color, but I think it still looks fantastic.


Not Like The Movies. I took a million pictures of this one because it's too awesome for just one shot! It's a purple/green duochrome with some really delicate shiny flaky shimmer in it. It's a little sheer and frosty but it totally works. This is one of the few metallic duochromes to incorporate glitter and actually have it work. Normally a metallic frost formula like this creates a lumpy, bumpy, bubbly look when combined with glitter, but OPI totally nailed it. No lumps. All the glitter shows up and it's absolutely perfect. It seems like a lot more care went into creating this frost/glitter shade than some of the ones from other brands I've tried lately. It's not too frosty, the duochrome is really strong and the glitter adds a really nice touch to it. This might be my favorite of the collection (aside from Black Shatter). I love the name, too.


Teenage Dream. This reminds me of the pictures I've seen of some of those really rare Japanese and UK exclusive OPI glitters I've seen, but I don't have any of them to compare! This is a light pink fine glitter mixed with some holo-opal medium sized glitter in a clear base. It's an opaque glitter and might be a little too dense for layering. It's so pretty and fairy-like. Am I getting sick? That's two pinks in a row that I've fallen for this year!


The One That Got Away. My pictures of this aren't the best- it's one of those crazy luminous shades that make my camera do that weird glowy radioactive looking thing... But if you'll take a look at the bottle color you'll get a better idea of how it looks in real life. It's a red-toned wine purple with some really shiny metallic flaky shimmer in it. You have to see this in person, it just glows!

This collection comes with the brand new Black Shatter topcoat. If you've been into nail polish for a while, you may recall some of the older crackle polishes- namely the Cover Girl Crackles. You apply them over a base color and as they dry they crack and give a neat two-toned cracked/shattered look. This is basically the same thing but with a much improved formula.

It is recommended to apply this over completely dry polish and I agree with that recommendation. You get the best shatter effect that way. When the polish is still slightly wet, the topcoat doesn't crack as much and you end up with larger pieces and not as much of the under color showing through. And, if the polish is too wet, the crackling action and fragmentation of the topcoat takes the wet polish with it, leaving bald spots in between the cracked pieces.

Black Shatter does dry a bit matte and it has texture to it, so I'd recommend a good coat of topcoat after it's done doing its thing. This smooths the texture but also helps keep the cracked pieces on- they can actually fall off when they're fully dry!

Here it is over the Katy Perry shades:

OPI Black Shatter over Last Friday Night.


OPI Black Shatter over Not Like The Movies.

OPI Black Shatter over Teenage Dream.


OPI Black Shatter over The One That Got Away.


Serena Williams Grand Slam Collection

Simply Smashing. This is a yellow-green "lemon lime" type of shade. It might just be the power of suggestion, but it reminds me of a tennis ball. Am I that impressionable? But it really does make me think of a tennis ball, especially one that's been used for playing fetch for a couple weeks. It's a little bit dirty, not quite neon green like a brand new tennis ball. It has a glass fleck type of shimmer- really bright shiny particles of shimmer. Slightly duochrome, too, there's a bit of orange reflect on this shade.

And here it is paired with Black Shatter:

OPI Black Shatter over Simply Smashing.

Isn't Black Shatter great? I'm a bit obsessed with it already. It applies so easily and shatters so quickly. With the old ones you used to have to wait a while and it would take forever to dry. The old generations of crackle polish were also a huge pain to remove. They stuck to your nails like cement and took forever to dissolve with acetone. OPI's Black Shatter crackle polish removes as easily as any normal polish and dries really quickly. It's really, really great and I kinda want to use it for every manicure now.

Just for fun, here's what it looks like over yellow:

I had China Glaze Lighthouse on when Black Shatter arrived and I had to play with it immediately. In my opinion, it's quite a stunning combination. I love the contrast between the creme black shards and the glimmery yellow brightness. I think Black Shatter looks amazing over sparkly shades.


This is one has a coat of OPI Last Friday Night over China Glaze Lighthouse and then a final coat of OPI Black Shatter. The pretty opal glitter might be a little hard to see in these pictures, but it added a really nice subtle something that made it just that much more interesting.

The formula on these was good. All of the shades were on the sheer side and needed at least three coats. I did three coats in all these pictures. Last Friday Night was unusually thick and I'm not sure if that's normal. It applied just fine, but it was almost jelly-like, I'm wondering if mine was a little dried out when I got it because it didn't look completely full, either. Anyway, application was good aside from the sheerness of the shades. Dry time was very good and removal was painless.

I love all the colors in this set. Nothing boring, nothing plain, it's 100% fun. I love the edgy and fun look of Black Shatter and it does look rather nice over all these shades. I think OPI did an excellent job on these. It's bright and shiny, glitter-heavy, sparkly, playful and includes an improved formula Crackle topcoat to make it even more fun. I'm absurdly happy to see that crackle polish, too. It's such a fun look and it really makes people stop and ask you how you did it!

My only complaint is that I wish there were more colors! But I am quite satisfied with the collections as they are. There's duochrome, glitter, a little holo, and an awesome crackle polish. Not finding any flaws at all. They didn't play it safe this time and I'm thankful for that!


(These were sent to me for review.)