New OPI Designer Series Shades for 2011 Swatches and Review

OPI has just released 2011's two new Designer Series additions; OPI Designer Series Bold and OPI Designer Series Temptation. Gone are the days when new Designer Series shades meant brand new holographic polishes to covet... These two new shades are pure glitter without a hint of holo.


OPI Designer Series Bold. This is a light red tinted base with medium sized light red and silver glitter. This polish looks very pink in some lights, and this is definitely a pink toned red. Not quite a coral, not really a pure red, either. The slightly tinted base looks really good mixed with the glitter as it adds depth without drowning the sparkle. The downside to this is that it's basically a duplicate of China Glaze Mrs. Claus from Holiday 2010.


OPI Designer Series Temptation. This is a total glitterbomb. There's so much glitter in here. Lots of different shapes and colors. Large purple and blue, tiny purple and blue microglitter, small sliver glitter, sometimes I think I spot some tiny pink glitter, too. The base is slightly colored purple, as if it wasn't purple enough already. The color is gorgeous and the glitter is very sparkly. It's similar in color to a few other shades, though no exact matches. Some examples of the purple/blue glitter combination are Jessica Funkytown, Sinful Colors Frenzy, Illamasqua Boo, and LA Girl Rockstar Overdose.


The formula on these was disappointing. OPI has released a lot of great glitters in the past few years, so I really hold them to a higher standard. Bold had a good formula despite being sheer. Temptation was thick as glue and extremely rough. I did three coats of each and both needed the third. If I had applied Temptation more carefully I could have gotten away with only two. Drying time is longer than average for OPI. Temptation dries extremely rough and gritty and when I wore it, it needed three coats of topcoat.

While I do like these colors, I am let down by them. They are very pretty (you know how much I love glitter), but they're not Designer Series worthy. Designer Series used to mean something special- namely, it used to mean you were getting an amazing holographic polish. In recent years, they've abandoned that whole "Diamond Dust" holographic special color thing and just started releasing normal colors, calling them Designer Series and then charging more for them. I don't know why they even bother calling it Designer Series anymore if there's nothing to set the Designer Series polishes apart from regular OPI shades.

That being said, when taken at face value, they're great colors. They're beautiful and very fun, sparkly, interesting colors. I wish that Temptation had a better formula because the day I wore it, I got two unsolicited compliments. It really is a stunning shade. I may try thinning my bottle to improve application, but I don't think that will help the scratchy rough edges and the tendency to dry like sandpaper.


(These were sent to me for review.)