Manic Moanday Mani - OPI Oz The Great And Powerful

Finally after months of deliberating, I've finally gotten by lazy ass down to setting up the blog and writing the first post!  I'm quite excited about this!  For one, I'll finally be able to have some sort of a record of that insane amount of polish I've managed to hoard over the years.  It's becoming quite the obsession - scary.

Without further ado, here's the first of the lot (and also first of the series of Manic Moanday Manis for the awful mondays of the week)!  I've taken quite a number of pictures of swatches/speedy manis over the past few months but because I've fallen hopelessly in love with the OPI Soft Shades 2013 collection, I've decided to start off with my favourite combination from the collection - When Monkeys Fly! over Glints of Glinda.

When Monkeys Fly! over Glints of Glinda

Glints of Glinda is a soft nude crelly (creme-jelly) polish with a very slight peach tone to it.  The formula is great, and definitely one of the best sheer polishes I've worked with.  Together with the OPI Pro-Wide brush, there's almost no streaking and very little cuticle drag (you still have to be careful and apply second and third coats with a light hand).  The photos show three coats, but you could easily get away with two, depending on how much visible nail line you can stand.  Do note that the polish is still not fully opaque with three coats - but I sort of like it like this.  Soft shades are meant to be a little cheeky that way!

When Monkeys Fly! (don't you just love the name?) is a glitter topcoat with semi-fine and small holographic hex glitters with some large gold hex glitters thrown into the mix.  It's nothing to shout about on its own, but layer it over Glints of Glinda and you'll be hooked.  The photos do no justice to how gorgeous this combination is in real-life (I need to start working on my photo-editing skills).  Definitely week-long worthy :) 

eeps! please excuse the lobster claws.  oh goodness, my fingers look drunk.

There's just one teeny weeny problem with When Monkeys Fly! - the large gold hex glitters curl (some reviews said they "taco-ed" but it's pretty much the same thing).  What results is a relatively 'rough' manicure, even with two coats of Seche Vite (at least the glitters did not scratch me like the glitters in Lush Lacquer's Birthday Cake did!  But that's another story for another day).  Here's what I mean by curling (refer to ring finger):

When Monkeys Fly! hex glitter curl

I've read that the curling was a deal-breaker for some, but for some reason I quite like it.  The 'prickliness' of the glitter may be slightly annoying but I feel that it adds some dimension to an otherwise flat-glitter polish that would be dubbed "yet-another-glitter-topcoat".  The curling increases light reflection and therefore also increases the sparkle of the glitter.  

I'm not sure whether the roughness of the glitter may be evened out with Glitter Food.  Will definitely try that out when it arrives in the nail mail :)  As for those who have purchased When Monkeys Fly! (I keep typing "moneys"...) and dislike the glitter, OPI has addressed the problem by issuing the following statement on its facebook page:

 "On the “When Monkeys Fly!” issue: We are grateful and appreciative for all of your feedback. We have determined that in some instances, due to the glitter’s size and shape, it can curl over time as it sits in the lacquer base. This was not experienced during field-testing and is now being addressed. Those of you who are dissatisfied can contact our customer support team with the batch number listed on the bottom of the bottle and they will replace it with another Oz shade of your choice. (Customer Support: http://mail.opi.com/HelpDesk/HelpDesk.nsf/WTSF?OpenForm) Thank you for your continued passion for OPI!"

I haven't bothered to submit a service request for mine, so I can't advise if OPI is willing to ship replacement bottles to Singapore customers.  It's worth a try though!

till next time!

love
mich  

*I didn't purchase these online, but for the online shopaholics, timtam00 carries the entire OPI Oz The Great and Powerful collection at S$12 a pop.