Launched recently as part of OPI’s Holiday offerings, the limited edition Mariah Carey Holiday collection is as extensive as they come – 18 new shades in all! The selection includes 6 new Liquid Sand shades, and today I bring you a few of these beauties.
All I Want for Christmas (is OPI) is a slightly deepened cool red, the epitome of Christmas, with a gorgeous formula that applies like a dream! This was so highly concentrated, it could easily have been a one-coater. And the shine! Here are two coats over base coat, with top coat:
You may recall how I love playing with textured Liquid Sand polishes, and decided to top All I Want with a French tip of Baby Please Come Home, a beautiful pale lilac textured polish with almost a foil finish. I don’t know what made me pair a lilac with red, perhaps the cool undertones, but I loved this combination! (Skip the top coat to maintain the textured finish!)
Another favourite of mine from this collection was Underneath the Mistletoe, a deep yet vibrant red jelly, packed with red and silver micro glitter. I absolutely adore a beautiful jelly shade, and Underneath looks like it glows from within. The formula was not great on this one – the jelly dragged and created bald spots, so needs a quick and careful first coat, but it covers beautifully on the second coat. The downside is that this was a top coat-eater – it dries to a bit of a dull finish, and needed two coats of top coats for that squishy jelly finish I love. Totally worth it in my opinion! And removal? Easy! I was prepared for a glittery painstaking removal, but the jelly melted off and took the glitter with it! Here are two coats over base, with two thick coats of top coat:
Another shade that will probably sell out (if it has not already), Warm Me Up, oh-so-reminiscent of OPI’s elusive My Private Jet… a gorgeous metallic, burnished, browney-grey shade that is so hard to describe, and so beautiful to look at. Desribed as a “spiced coffee” by OPI, that’s probably the best way to describe this complex shimmery shade. Application was dreamy: it applied like a cream with amazing coverage, drying to a streak-free high shine. Two coats over base:
I topped Warm Me Up with a French tip of Silent Stars Go By, a pale peach Liquid Sand textured polish with sparkly pieces of glitter. I fell in love with this shade from the bottle shots and cannot wait to wear it on its own! Talk about a sparkly neutral!
I feel like I am calling every polish in this collection “a favourite,” and All Sparkly and Gold is another hit: a sheer base jam-packed with ultrafine gold glitter, this one is like the golden sister to Underneath the Mistletoe. A warm polish that can be worn as a topper like I have over All I Want for Christmas (is OPI) below (if applied very sparingly), or worn full-strength by itself to reach opacity in 2 generous or 3 thin coats. Absolutely Christmas/holiday-appropriate and gorgeous! I applied 2 coats below except middle finger, where I used one thin coat over red, topped with top coat:
And last but not least for today, the ultimate standout for me (I know, I know, I love them all!) that I knew I had to purchase the moment I saw it, Ski Slope Sweetie, a golden sheer off-white with a pearl finish. This complex polish captures such a range of colours, flashing gold to pink to yellow, and looks like a glass fleck, foil finish. Easily worn on its own with 2 or 3 coats, or an amazing polish to layer, I applied one coat over My Vampire is Buff on my ring finger below, and 2 coats on all other nails plus top coat:
I read a couple of mixed reviews about Mariah Carey’s Holiday Collection, which I cannot understand as I find this large collection has something for everyone. Ranging from reds to glitters to neutrals, I feel like I need every single polish. And though at first I was unsure about wearing textured polishes, the Liquid Sands have grown on me and I absolutely love them now. They have evolved since their first offering with Mariah Carey’s debut OPI collection, and have become even more fantastic: less gritty, finer texture with phenomenal colour selections.
I’m off to find My Favourite Ornament, the champagne sister of All Sparkly and Gold… and I suggest you run to get your hands on this limited edition collection, too!
Do you have any favourites yet?
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~xo
(Some product provided for consideration and review. All opinions are my own.)