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.)