Tag Archives: OPI

The Best of 2012

The Best of 2012Another year is coming to a close! Are you ready to see what 2013 brings?

What you probably didn’t know is that in 2012, I faced a lot of stressful issues in my personal life that caused me great emotional pain.

Blogging and interacting with you helped me push through it instead of giving up.

If you’ve been following Swatch And Learn for even a little while, I hope it’s evident that blogging and interacting with readers bring me a lot of happiness. Yes, it is hard work and very challenging to keep up, but I’m not the type of person who’s afraid of pulling up my sleeves to get things done.

Thank you for listening to what I think and for valuing my opinion, post after post and tweet after tweet. That is a big compliment!

Most of all, thank you, dear readers, for being encouraging and kind as well as for cracking the much-needed joke.

You remind me that genuinely good people are still out there. I needed that reminder, and you gave it to me in spades!

So, while in this post I list the best of 2012 in terms of nail polish, nail art, etc., I want you to know that Swatch And Learn readers are really the best of 2012!

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OPI Oy-Another Polish Joke! Swatches & Review

OPI Oy-Another Polish Joke Swatches & ReviewOkay, I’ll admit it – I get a little intimidated by yellow and gold nail polish. And I can never tell if they’ll work with my skin tone until I paint my nails.

OPI Oy-Another Polish Joke! is from the upcoming Euro Centrale Collection for Spring/Summer 2013, which will be hitting stores on February 6.

In the bottle, it looks magical! When I first got it, I admired it in natural light at various angles. It’s definitely different than any of the golds or yellows I have in my stash.

(Random note: Whenever anyone says ‘stash’, I always think of a moustache first. And since most nailphiles don’t use the word in that context and more commonly use it to mean their collection, it usually makes me giggle when I hear sentences with the word ‘stash’. Yeah, I can find humour in anything.)

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Holiday & Winter Nail Art Ideas

Winter & Holiday Nail Art Ideas & TutorialsThis year I haven’t had time to do Christmas nail-art tutorials prior to the big day.

But, since I know that a lot of nailphiles will be busting out the lacquer, I’ve put together this post on Holiday & Winter Nail Art Ideas featuring some looks I’ve done in the past.

In this post, I’ve also linked each manicure to its corresponding nail-art tutorial, which features step-by-step written instructions and photos. All, except for one, have tutorials. Plus within some of the posts are links to reviews of the individual nail polishes.

Hope that you’ll come up with something great for your holiday manicure! (I actually have been juggling a few designs in my head, but I still haven’t decided which to paint. I’ll be sure to share my Christmas manicure sometime after December 25th.)

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OPI A Butterfly Moment Swatches & Review

OPI A Butterfly Moment Swatches & ReviewNow here’s something you don’t see often on here – a polish that’s close to my skin tone!

And…there’s a reason for that. As ridiculous as it sounds, these kind of shades intimidate me. I have no problem wearing loud and crazy manicures, but a soft and demure one like this makes me very self-conscious. (I feel like my nails are flashing you!) 😉

But I love trying new nail polishes because you never know when you’ll land a surprise winner.

This nail polish is OPI A Butterfly Moment from the Mariah Carey by OPI Collection, which will be in stores January 2013. It’s one of the Studio Shades.

P.S. Please excuse the indentations on my pinkie. I think it happened when I accidentally hit my hand on the bathroom door (owww!). I didn’t bother re-painting it because the imperfection didn’t bug me.

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OPI My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours! Swatches & Review

OPI My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours Swatches & ReviewOPI My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours! comes from the Euro Centrale Collection, which will reach stores on February 6, 2013.

Do you like hot and spicy food? I enjoy a little kick, but when food is very spicy, I can no longer taste anything and just focus on the pain! My tolerance for spicy food is pretty poor.

One of my co-workers never ceases to astound us all, though. She loves jalapeño peppers and hot sauce. In fact, in the lunch room, we’re used to seeing her pour hot sauce over her meal like it’s ketchup! (To give you an idea of how spicy it is, just a small drop of it is enough to make my mouth burn.)

And she never seems to feel cold, even when the temperature’s been dropping. We think it’s because of all the sauce she consumes! 😉 It must get the blood circulating…

P.S. How cool is it that today is December 12, 2012? 12…12…12…

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OPI Can’t Find My Czechbook Swatches & Review

OPI Can't Find My Czechbook Swatches & ReviewOPI Can’t Find My Czechbook is the beautiful, clean blue nail polish from the Euro Centrale Collection coming out in February 2013.

Have you ever lost your wallet or had it stolen?

When I was around 9 or 10, I lost my wallet in the mall. (My parents thought somebody stole it, but I remember insisting that it had fallen out of my pocket even though I didn’t actually know which story was true. I just didn’t want to believe that someone would steal from a kid. Even as a child, I had my head in the clouds…)

It was such a bummer because it had $50 in it, which was a combined holiday and birthday gift from my grandparents. It was also the most they had ever given me, plus it was in a wallet I loved way more than the cash itself.

Yes, I cried like a baby. Having $50 was like winning the lottery, especially for a kid who never got weekly allowance from her parents!

(Doing household chores was expected without getting any reward in return. And, this is a great life lesson because we shouldn’t always be motivated to do something good based on a reward. Let’s just do good because it IS good!)

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OPI Get Your Number Swatches & Review

OPI Get Your Number Swatches & ReviewI wore OPI Get Your Number last week, and couldn’t get enough of this manicure!

This is one of the Stage Shades from the Mariah Carey by OPI Collection. It has the new finish that OPI is coining ‘Liquid Sand’. You’ll see it in stores starting January 2013.

Before trying this, I’ve always been interested in matte nail polish, but I was never blown away by any.

That all changed when I wore Get Your Number! It came as quite the shock. Sure, I expected to like it, but to fall head over heels in love with it? Is OPI lacing the lacquers with some sort of drug? 😉

It must be said – Get Your Number is the most memorable and intriguing nail polish I have worn in all of 2012! That is saying a lot because I typically polish my nails a few times each week!

If you haven’t been interested in matte polishes before, I still urge you to give this one a try. It’s extremely different than anything I’ve ever seen or worn.

Please note that I tried my best to capture the interesting features of this polish, but it was such a diva! I didn’t do it justice, but I tried various lighting conditions and changing the focus (since blurring the focus helped me show the holographic glitter in this.)

I’ll also share a photo of how it looks with a shiny top coat, in case you absolutely must wear a top coat. However, I strongly recommend you wear this as is for even just a day. It has such an interesting finish!

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