Essie Leading Lady collection
Left to right: Essie Beyond Cozy, Butler Please, Leading Lady, She’s Pampered, Snap Happy, Where’s My Chauffeur?
There isn’t much to critique about Essie collections, because they’re so consistently amazing both in terms of quality and ingenuity. This winter’s Leading Lady collection is no different, a mix of very wearable shades and a few unexpected pops of color.
The six shades in the collection are: Beyond Cozy, a mix of very fine silver and gold glitter particles; Butler Please, a bright royal blue crème; Leading Lady, a dark red jelly base with slightly lighter-colored small glitter particles; She’s Pampered, a medium red crème; Snap Happy, an orange-based red crème; and Where’s My Chauffeur?, a light turquoise crème.
The red shades She’s Pampered and Snap Happy are pretty, yet not so unique. But Beyond Cozy, Butler Please, and Leading Lady—those are undeniably collection standouts.
PRICE AND AVAILABILITY: $7.79 each at Target store locations or $8 each at Ulta.com and Ulta stores or Nordstrom.com and Nordstrom stores.
OPI “Skyfall” collection
Left to right: OPI Live and Let Die, Moonraker, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Living Daylights, The World is Not Enough
I saw “Skyfall,” the latest James Bond film, for Chesapeake Family’s Popcorn Parents movie review blog last month and loved it, so it was pleasant to fall in love with the OPI “Skyfall” collection, too. Of the 12 shades, these five are my favorite, and I think they’re very mature, sophisticated shades that can work for an older giftee.
My standout five are: Live and Let Die, a very dark green base with gold shimmer; Moonraker, a greyish silver frost; On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, a greyish bluish silvery base with very fine green, pink, silver, and blue glitter particles; The Living Daylights, a clear base with copper, blue, and silver largish glitter particles; and The World is Not Enough, a brown base with a silver shimmer and very fine light pink glitter.
The other shades in the collection are a variety of reds, purples, and crème and shimmer finishes, but these five really stood out. Unexpected glitters and rich, vampy base shades—great for the winter season.
PRICE AND AVAILABILITY: $8.50 each at OPI retailers like Ulta, Dillard’s, and professional salons.
OPI Designer Series shades, Butter London Holiday 2012
Left to right: OPI DS Indulgence, DS Luxurious; Butter London Jack the Lad, Scuppered, Shambolic
And, last but not least, some polishes that have enough glitter and shimmer to send you into 2013. First up are two new additions to OPI’s Designer Series, or DS, line of polishes, which cost about 50 percent more than regular OPI shades but are supposed to be amazing finishes or formulas. So we have DS Indulgence, a bright tomato red with gold shimmer, and DS Luxurious, a tangerine orange with gold shimmer. The gold shimmer on both is certainly eye-catching, so if you can find the shades marked down somewhere (they were released earlier this fall), I’d grab them.
Similarly glittery and shimmery are the shades in Butter London’s holiday collection. My favorites from the six-piece collection are Jack the Lad, a deep emerald base with gold, blue, and kelly green shimmer to make a foil finish; Scuppered, a copper metallic base with multicolored glitter particles, including pink and light green; and Shambolic, an explosion of purple with an eggplant base and multicolored and variously shaped purple and silver glitter particles. These polishes are, like the OPI DS line, a little pricier, but they’re incredibly unique; putting just one in a stocking would be very appreciated indeed.
PRICE AND AVAILABILITY: $12.50 each for OPI DS shades at OPI retailers like Ulta, Dillard’s, and professional salons; $14 each for Butter London shades at ButterLondon.com.
EDITORIAL NOTE: The products featured in this post were provided to Chesapeake Family’s About Face blog by the manufacturer or their public relations company for review. Chesapeake Family’s About Face blog posts are inspired by personal experience and opinion, and are not paid for or influenced by the manufacturer, PR company, or any other organization unless mentioned.
Photos by Adam Fried.
In middle school, Roxana Hadadi was a cosmetics-scorning tomboy; in high school, a glitter eye shadow- and black nail polish-loving trend kid; in college, obsessively committed to dying her hair unruly colors that upset her mom. Now a bit older and a bit more mature, she’s trying to figure out what hair, body and cosmetics products will work for her, you and your family in About Face, Chesapeake Family’s new beauty blog — and she’ll leave the sparkle makeup and neon highlights in the past. Roxana also writes movie reviews for Chesapeake Family’s Popcorn Parents blog.
