Swatch Sunday: OPI Black Label Grape Wall of China

So since I’m having massive camera troubles I thought I’d revisit a series I started a few months ago and promptly ignored.  (When has THAT ever happened before???)  Today I have OPI’s Grape Wall of China for you.  This polish comes from the 2001 World Collection, so it’s one of the older ones I have.

This is three coats.  It’s a nice, sort of dusty lavender purple color.  I would’ve thought it’d be a darker purple, considering the name, but I quite like this.

After the first time I put it on, I thought it looked similar to other polishes, so did a comparison.  It’s not all that similar, surprisingly.  The pinky is OPI Planks a Lot, ring is GWOC, and middle is…I honestly can’t remember.  Maybe OPI Sparrow Me The Drama?  Yeah, that’s likely it, since that Pirates collection was full of dusty pastels.

Bottle Shot.

Bottom of the bottle shot.

Overall, this is a nice color, but I likely wouldn’t have bought it if it hadn’t been for my obsession with black labels.

I might have a double post today – I went to see Crimson Peak last week and it really deserves a review!

Swatch Sunday: Black Label OPI, Hungary for my Honey

Hi everyone!  See, I at least got this done this weekend. 🙂

I mentioned before that I collect black label OPIs.  These are OPI polishes that pre-date 2006 and are full of all those bad chemicals.  OPI made the switch sometime in 2006 and their formulas became 3-Free and they changed to green labels.  For 2015 I believe they’ve actually gone back to black labels, but with slightly different look.

So the older polishes are typically harder to come by, and you can find some of them going for pretty far above retail on sites like eBay.  Sometimes you get lucky, though, and can find them by “dusty hunting” (combing through nail salons for old polishes).  I’ve found most of mine by going through OPIs sold at non-nail polish type places.  My rule is, I find a black label, and I buy it, even if I don’t necessarily care for the color, as it’s more about the collecting for me.

Today I have Hungary for my Honey, which is from the 2002 European Collection:

It’s a golden orange shimmer.  This is three coats.  One of the things I love about the old formulas is that they, almost without fail, apply perfectly.  Another shot:

In sunlight:

The word “burnished” comes to mind with this color.  It’s one I bought simply because it was a black label, but I like the color a lot more than I expected to.  Bottle shot:

Bottom of the bottle:

Also on a posting note: I’m still working on the Measure for Measure review.  I realized earlier this week that I was nuts to think I could do one of these per week.  It’s just way too much work.  So I’ll still work on them, but obviously the posting pace will be a bit slower.

Happy weekend!