{Mad About Nails} 2013 OPI Mariah Carey Collection

I've had quite a few people comment on my nails in the past ask what I was using or wish I'd done a close-up so they could see better, etc., etc., and had a realization: Why not do a feature on nail polish? It's not book-related (Unless you're wearing the new HUNGER GAMES-inspired line from China Glaze, but I'm not even going into how wrong that is...), but it's fun. Plus, if I do this feature, I'll be more likely to re-paint my nails this week and less likely to let them chip their way to the bare bones (which would mean that I could see my nails...and if I see them, I want to bite them!).

Sorry for the poor lighting!  It was overcast today and rained
soon after I took this one! There's a lot more glitter in
Stay the Night than you can see; it's not all black!

Welcome back to another edition of Mad About Nails!  I've been neglecting this feature since September.  In part, the weather has been too dreary to photograph well.

You'll see what I mean below; the colors in my current manicure didn't come out well at all in terms of showing you how pretty everything actually looks in person!  In fact, it rained soon after I took this.  Grr!

I really like what I'm wearing right now, though, and wanted to share it with you because all of the polish is available to buy right now and not from a sold-out collection.

My nails indoors
...still dark lighting :(

All three of the colors I'm wearing are from the January 2013 Mariah Carey Collection from OPI.  You can find it at ULTA, FLIRT, or any other Beauty Salorn.  I actually bought these from Amazon because my local ULTA put this out early during the holidays and was completely sold out!

You can see truly gorgeous swatches showing off the colors in this collection from The PolishAholic's blog.  I discovered her blog recently and fell in love.  She makes me want even MORE nail polish than I already have...and that's dangerous!
(I will not even tell you what I've already spent on nail polish this year, in large part thanks to her...)

Anyway, her swatches show truer colors than my lighting does at the moment!

Check out the video below or keep reading to see what I used and what I thought of the formulas!

YouTube Link

I started off with Sally Hansen Nail Nutrition Green Tea + Olive Growth as my base coat.  This winter has been harsh on my nails, and they've been peeling, which makes them even weaker.  They're also softer at the moment.  When I was sick in December, my medicine destroyed them even further.  So now they're short and growing out again. (Sorry they're not nicer to look at!)  I'm hoping this new Sally Hansen stuff I bought will help get them back into shape!

Next, I added a coat of Anti-Bleak from OPI's new Mariah Carey Collection to four of my nails.  The color went on smoothly and was opaque right away.  I was surprised at just how good the quality of this polish was because I'm used to sheer polish that needs to be layered from OPI.  Plus, it rarely looks the way it does in the bottle.  Anti-Bleak, however, was a dark, perfect plum of a color.  I used two coats on my thumb and left one on my other three nails because I knew I was going to coat the color with glitter.

The glitter is also from OPI's Mariah Carey collection, entitled Pink Yet Lavender.  It's a mix of small silver glitter and large hexagonal glitter.  I was again very impressed with the formula for this one.  Usually with glitter, I need to put on a coat, push the glitter around, let it set, then do it again until I build-up to the amount of glitter I want on the nail.  All that glitter on my nails is from ONE COAT of Pink Yet Lavender.  ONE.  With other polishes, that would be at least three coats of glitter!  I have to say, I'm really impressed with the formulas in the Mariah Carey line!

I snagged this swatch from Beauty Geeks
to try to show you Stay the Night.  See?
It's not black at all! Just bad lighting!

On my ring finger, I used Stay the Night, also from the Mariah Carey collection.  Stay the Night is part of OPI's new line of technology, which they're calling Liquid Sand.  It's a textured matte polish.  If you leave it alone versus putting a top coat on top, it turns into two completely different colors!  The swatches of each treatment on The PolishAholic's blog were incredible and made me realize I had to have this shade, too! It doesn't photograph well in bad lighting, so it doesn't look like much in my picture or my video, but check out her blog for Stay the Night in all its glory!

I finished everything off with OPI Top Coat.  My bottle is old and sticky and close to empty, and I've misplaced my new bottle of top coat, so it made my thumbs bubble and look gross, which makes me really upset because they were so smooth and shiny!

Anyway, I'm very impressed with the Mariah Carey line and would recommend it to everyone.  The formulas are solid, and I felt like this was money well spent.  I don't regret buying any of these colors.  Plus...a lot of purple!  I could build a collection out of nothing but purple and be happy in life...

 Is anyone else obsessed with nail polish? What are you wearing right now?