OPI I Carol About You and Essie Set in Stones

Thanks to this damned weather, I am sporting particularly short nails this week. It feels weird and awful and I hate it. However, I do like dark colors on short nails better, so I thought I'd take advantage by doing a simple dark color and glitter manicure. I had a particular Essie purple in mind that I thought I owned--turns out I had bought it way back, but for my sister, not myself--so I ended up with OPI I Carol About You, which is apparently from the 2014 Gwen Stefani holiday collection.
Over top I used one coat of Essie's Set in Stones from the 2011 holiday collection. (Happy Holidays, I guess...)

I Carol About You is a pretty standard deep purple with very very fine shimmer to it. You really have to try hard to see the shimmer in this polish. In fact, when I bought it, I thought it was a basic pretty creme until I examined it more closely. Even when I took it out of my drawer earlier today to use I didn't notice the shimmer until I held it fairly close.


This polish is definitely a two coater. After one coat there are still some decently sized bald spots. Pardon the terrible paint job, turns out it's fairly difficult to paint tiny nub nails!

I've noticed in my pictures that because of my attempt at direct lighting, the shimmer is fairly visible, but honestly, unless you're seriously staring while in pretty direct light, you can't see very much.

I tried super hard to capture the shimmer so you could see what this polish is supposed to be.

Set in Stones is a clear based silver hex glitter. There are small glitter pieces and a couple of different sized hexagonal shaped glitters as well. This polish has some pretty fantastic coverage at just one coat.

I tend to buy glitter because it's awesome looking in the bottle more-so than because I enjoy wearing it, but I must say, I love this glitter. It's simple and clean and just gives my manicure a little extra something.

This picture is in less direct light. This is a much closer representation of how my manicure looks. Even in this picture, I just love it!

OPI's I Carol About You is a pretty color. It covers well in two coats, which is what I typically look for, however I'm not particularly overwhelmed by it. I had difficulty applying...the brush size seemed slightly awkward to me (?), though it's possible all of my troubles were from having much less nail to paint than usual. When not in direct light I am crazy about this color, but when I inspect closer and see the shimmer, I'm pretty meh.  If you must own all the purples, this is a decent one to have, though not a must-buy.

OPI polishes are (about) $9/0.5 mL bottle at most retailers... I spend ~$6-$7 at Beauty Plus Salon.

SIDE NOTE: SEE IF YOU HAVE ONE OF THESE STORES NEAR YOU. This is where I buy ALL of my polish from--they are WAY cheaper than any other store you'll go to, and their websites always have a 20% off 3 or more items coupon, which I use every. single. time.

Essie's Set in Stones is super mega fabulous. It is a very clean and beautiful glitter with fantastic coverage. I feel like this color over absolutely anything would be incredible. In my opinion, this is a must have.

Essie polishes are $8/.46 oz bottle from any drugstore such as CVS or Walgreens. AGAIN, I get these for $5 at Beauty Plus.