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Saturday, May 1, 2010

OPI Absolutely Alice -- Alice in Wonderland 2010 Collection

I managed to swipe this bottle of Absolutely Alice before the ridiculous Alice in Wonderland Collection craze at my local Beauty Brands for just $8. I haven't been able to find it in any beauty supply store since-- but hey, it could just be Kansas.

I have to say, I'm a pretty big fan of Absolutely Alice. I know it's famous for being a glitter, but it really looks a lot like blue and gold glitter over a black base as opposed to just glitter, glitter, glitter. It's actually a pretty fantastic effect, and keeps the polish from looking too girly.
And, it only takes 2 coats to make this baby opaque!

That said, the polish has some flaws. Lots of people have been complaining about terrible wear-time and incessant chipping. After much research and testing, I'm inclined to believe that the chipping is due to two factors:
>> 1) It's true. It's a glitter so the edges of your nails get rough with glitter when the polish tries. If you can try to minimize the rough edges, it will seriously help your wear.
>> 2) The quick-dry topcoats seem to be causing a problem as well. I love my Seche just as much as the next girl, but before you apply it, you should apply a coat of non-quickdry top coat to sort of help seal the glitters without stressing them. I've been using OPI Top Coat with Seche and my wear has been fine.

However, wear is actually not on my list of complaints for my polish. My major complaint lies with application. The glitters make the polish too thick, and consequently AA seems like it's halfway to drying as soon as it hits the nail. The brush ends up looking like a gooey mop of glitter and makes application of thin coats nearly impossible.

That said, it's a beautiful polish. It definitely looks best in natural daylight, but the glitter is deep and vibrant inside, too. The blue is not a too-blue-blue, and looks far deeper than I anticipated; it looks almost like a royal blue (and looks particularly fantastic against the gold glitter). Anyway, I'm posting 5 swatches in this post, but just click the link and you can see the extra photos, too!

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