OPI is bringing it lately. In honour of the 50th anniversary of James Bond, and the November release of the latest Bond flick, Skyfall, OPI has released a 12-shade collection in two parts (I reviewed some of the Seductive shades here, with a few Dangerous shades yet to come). They also released a special edition 18k Gold Top Coat, “The Man with the Golden Gun,” and have now released their very first magnetic lacquers as part of a 3-piece limited edition Skyfall collection. Last but not least, they have also added four new, Skyfall-inspired limited-edition designs to their Pure Lacquer Nail App collection, fittingly called Nice Tux, Positively Shocking, Floating Dragon and Shaken Not Stirred.

Phew!! That is a lot of lacquers in one collection, and I have to say, they have delivered!

Today I bring you the 3 new magnetic polishes, and I was really excited to try these!! Not only is this OPI’s first foray into magnetic polish, it is also my very first experience with magnetics. I immediately fell in love with these colours: gunmetal gray, gold shimmer and rich burgundy. Each comes with its own unique, specially-designed magnetizer to create striped, diamond, or wavy patterns, respectively. What blew me away were the two holographic polishes out of the three!

Morning, Moneypenny is a rich burgundy speckled with holographic particles that shimmer in a rainbow colour on your nails.

This was the very first magnetic polish I tried, and I have to admit, it took me some time to get it right. I redid half my nails at some point!  I first tried to apply this the way I normally apply polish: base coat, one coat on all nails, come back for a 2nd round of polish. I realized that did not work well on every nail as the polish needed to be quite wet to be magnetized. I also have a couple of more curved nails, and I found the magnet did not magnetize these nails evenly – the curved area did not get enough “exposure” to the magnet for a strong design. I tried to get a little bit closer to the magnet, resulting in my touching the magnet with my wet nail, so I had to redo those…. I also found if the polish was too wet or thick, the magnet could pull it up resulting in a bump on the nail.

The best method for me was applying base coat all around, then doing one nail at a time. One coat of polish over the base coat… wait a minute or so for it to dry a little, then add a slightly generous second coat and immediately magnetize. I also held my finger inside the magnetizer (which sits on a surface with the magnet on top) for about 10 seconds rather than the recommended 5 seconds to ensure a clearer design. And allow plenty of dry time before top-coating!! (More on that below.)

Enough talk – here is the final result!

I love the depth that the magnet creates! Oh, you should also know that I used the striped magnet rather than the wavy one (which came with Moneypenny) for this one…  Two notes about this mani: I used my favourite top coat, China Glaze’s Fast Forward, which I have now learned is not nail-art-friendly. It smudged the design even though I allowed a lot of drying time, hence the weak pattern above. Ensure you do not use this top coat with these magnetic polishes. 🙂  Moneypenny also stained my nails slightly orange after wearing it for a few days, but the staining did start to subside after a few polish changes.

You can really see the holographic effect in the flash picture below!

Next up is the other holographic polish, Is That Silva?, a stunning gunmetal gray, and my favourite of the bunch!

It was a breeze to work with this one, perhaps because by now I had some experience with magnetics… 😉

I used the “one-nail-at-a-time” method with this one, and I did not have to redo any nails!

In the above picture, I decided to skip the top coat so that you could see the vivid pattern. You can see I used the striped magnet (that actually comes with Silva) on this again. The slightly grainy appearance on my nails is from what I assume to be the tiny iron pieces in these polishes – they completely smooth over with top coat.

For the picture below, I applied a top coat just on my pinky so that you could see the slightly faded appearance on that nail, as compared to without top coat:

But no smudging!! I used A England’s The Shield top coat. And do you see that amazing holo in the flash picture above?? Love! And the design developed the clearest on Silva, with a beautiful light vs dark gray pattern. I will be wearing this polish again and again, with and without the magnetizing!

And finally, we have Bond…James Bond, a gorgeous, bronzy gold colour.

I found this polish to appear a lot brighter in the bottle than it was on the nail. Once applied, it looked much more bronze, almost antique. This one came with the diamond pattern magnet, which I did not find to give as stark of an effect as the other two:

It is such a gorgeous muted shade.

And I adore the glimmer that you can see in certain light, like in the above flash photo.

All three of these polishes would also look amazing without being magnetized – especially the two holographic ones that stole my heart!

This limited-edition collection is now available everywhere that OPI is sold, including Nail Polish Canada, and comes in a pack with its respective magnet.

For more information, visit OPI.com, follow them on twitter, and become a Facebook fan.

Which one is your fave, and is this a collection you will be purchasing?

~xo

(Products were provided for consideration and review. All opinions are my own.)