OPI Mariah Carey Stage Shades

Base: one coat CND Stickey
Color: three coats OPI Get Your Number
Top: none (unless otherwise noted)
Application: good (poor, average, good, excellent)

I love when polishes I've been looking forward to live up to or surpass my expectations! I was excited about the Liquid Sand polishes when OPI announced them and they are as cool as I thought!!! I tried OPI Get Your Number first, a pool blue with small and large iridescent glitter. The texture was not as gritty as I was expecting, and the overall appearance wasn't as matte as I thought it would be either. These don't feel that rough either, if you were concerned about that at all. They are no more rough than any other glitter polish without top coat. Get Your Number is a really pretty shade of blue, and the contrast of matte blue and shiny holo and iridescent glitter is so fascinating!

I was pleasantly surprised by the formula upon the first brushstroke. I thought these would be like trying to apply dry, gritty glitters, but they actually go on very smooth and almost feel gel-like. They dry down to their matte appearance. Application is very easy and smooth! This is three coats and there was a fair bit of VNL remaining, so you may need four coats (or more) for complete opacity. I rated this polish as just "good" rather than excellent because it was a bit more sheer than I had expected.

The next two photos show Get Your Number with two coats of Gelous. Again, I was surprised that it only took two coats to get these to be smooth. Not too shabby! Really not much more than any other glitter mani I do on a regular basis.

Base: one coat CND Stickey
Color: three coats OPI Can't Let Go
Top: none (unless otherwise noted)
Application: good (poor, average, good, excellent)

OPI Can't Let Go is a matte grape purple with both large and small shiny glitter pieces. I love this kind of grape color polish, it is stunning on all kinds of skin colors. Out in the sun, the color of Can't Let Go reminded me of RBL Scrangie, just without the duochrome-y goodness. Can't Let Go seemed a bit more textured than Get Your Number, but still not overly rough to the touch.

Can't Let Go applied smoothly, but it did feel a tad thicker than Get Your Number. This is three coats and it is fully opaque, so opacity is not a problem. I love this one in person. It definitely looks better in person than in pictures. I think pictures make all of the Liquid Sands look lumpy, but they really are not at all. The texture is less chunky in person.

 The next two pictures have one coat of Gelous. I wanted to see what this would look like with only one coat of top coat. I think if you're wearing the Liquid Sands shiny, you will want to go with two coats. This didn't look bad though, it was almost smooth!

Base: one coat CND Stickey
Color: three coats OPI The Impossible
Top: none (unless otherwise noted)
Application: excellent (poor, average, good, excellent)

OPI The Impossible is a gorgeous bright matte fuchsia with small glitter, medium shiny hex glitter, and large holo stars. Unfortunately, I could not seem to get a star out for this swatch. I shook the bottle, I held it upside down for a minute, I swiped the brush against the sides of the bottle... no stars. I will have to scrape the sides with a wooden cuticle stick, but of course, I ran out of those yesterday. The bottle has a TON of stars in it, they just didn't want to come out to play. Despite the lack of stars, I still really LOVE this polish! It is a really cool color, and the Liquid Sand finish is PERFECT with this one. It looks pretty smooth, but decidedly matte, with little bursts of shine from the glitter. The shade picture (below) depicts the finish very accurately, but the sun pictures are better for the color.

This formula was truly excellent. Fully opaque in three coats (nearly two), The Impossible had the same gel-like feeling of Get Your Number, but without the thickness of Can't Let Go.

The next two pictures have two coats of Gelous. I love the way The Impossible looks shiny too! Very pretty!

Base: one coat CND Stickey
Color: three coats OPI Stay the Night
Top: none (unless otherwise noted)
Application: excellent (poor, average, good, excellent)

Now for my FAVORITEEEEEEEE!!!!! Someone on Make-up Alley commented that OPI Stay the Night looks like an alien disease, BUT I am here to tell you that it does not look like any of the billion swatches I have seen online, including my own. What I think is happening with the swatch pictures is that the macro setting makes the camera really focus on the black glitter, and the red glitter is fading away and just looking lumpy. In person, however, the red glitter POPS out at you and just looks gorgeous!! Stay the Night is also not nearly as lumpy or rough as it looks in pictures.

This is three coats of Stay the Night and the formula was fantastic. I was able to get nice and close to the cuticle without having to clean-up. At three coats, the coverage is perfect and there is no VNL. I probably would do two coats if I wasn't photographing this. Now, bear with me, I took the photo below to try to capture how much red glitter is really in this and how it stands out. But it's the blurriest photo in the universe. Like I don't know why I watermarked it since no one in their right mind would steal this photo. But you can see that there is more red glitter than it appears there is in the other photos!

The next two pictures are with two coats of Gelous. OMG SO GORGEOUS!!!! If you can only get one of the Liquid Sands, get Stay the Night. Get it NAO!

Overall, I really like the OPI Liquid Sand polishes! My personal favorites are Stay the Night and The Impossible, but I am happy to own all four. If you missed my review of the Studio Shades, you can check it out here. I think this was a pretty different collection and the shades were almost all fairly unique (except for Anti-Bleak, but even that wasn't the dead-on Casino Royale dupe some thought it would be).

Mariah Carey by OPI nail lacquers contain no DBP, Toluene, or Formaldehyde, and feature OPI’s exclusive ProWide^™ Brush for the ultimate in application. These polishes are available now at Professional Salons, including Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, JCPenney, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, and ULTA, for  $9.00 ($10.95 CAN) suggested retail for each nail lacquer.

For more information, please call 800-341-9999 or visit www.opi.com. Follow OPI on Twitter @OPI_PRODUCTS and become aFacebook fan!

Products sent for review. For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy.