OPI Color Paints Review, Swatches, & Nail Art

Today, I bring you Color Paints from OPI! Last month, I had a lovely time traveling to LA to shoot with OPI for this collection (read about it here) and I’m excited to finally share it with you!

These polishes are semi-translucent, blendable, buildable, highly pigmented, and allow you to create amazing designs! Here’s a comment from OPI (from their Facebook) explaining a bit more about the collection:

ColorPaints are made with a micro-milled pigment that is much finer than that in traditional lacquer. This allows the translucent formulas to better blend than cream or jelly lacquers do. ColorPaints work best when layered, so we recommend trying at least 2 at once.

A lot of people wonder if these are similar to OPI’s previous ‘Sheer Tints’ collection. Color Paints are much bolder and meant to be blended for nail art. As for ‘Sheer Tints’, they are meant to be used as a top coat and not so much specifically for creating art.

The collection includes a chrome/silver base color called ‘Silver Canvas’:

Applying the base color, I got away with one coat, which is what OPI recommends doing. It’s a bit streaky on it’s own, but once the color goes on, BAM! All better! When you apply each polish over the silver, it really illuminates the color, creating a beautiful metallic effect. And, if you’re wondering, you don’t *have* to use this base color, although I do love the metallic. Here are swatches over the silver, and then over a white base. I used one coat for each color.

COLOR PAINTS OVER SILVER CANVAS:

COLOR PAINTS OVER WHITE POLISH:

I had so much fun testing these out! You don’t need any advanced skills, or tools, or heck, even a ton of time to end up with some awesome nails! Here are some designs I did in, literally, 5 minutes or so. Oh and I only used three colors (Magenta Muse, Primarily Yellow, & Turquoise Aesthetic)!