OPI Love is a Racket

I'm guilty. Of what, you might ask? Guilty of buying all of the Serena Williams duos that have been released. Yup, I bought them all. When I saw the promotional pictures for the US Open Grand Slam set, I was not impressed and secretly pleased that I wasn't interested. My wallet rejoiced. I bought a couple Chanels. Then... pictures started leaking and that panic set it. Crap. I needed these.

So the other day, out of boredom, I said to myself "Self, let's just go take a look-see at the mall." There are a couple Sally Beauty Supplys in Winnipeg, which is cool because I had a bunch at home in NY and I get most of my supplies there. In Winnipeg, however, there are also Chatters Beauty Supply stores as well. They carry China Glaze and OPI mainly, but at Canadian retail, nothing is ever cheap there. (I miss my NY beauty supply that had coupons!!). There are a couple smaller salons that sell OPI cheaper as well. Anyway, the duos here have run me anywhere from $17-22 depending on where you buy them. So I went to this particular mall, which has a good salon and a Chatters in it. I walked into Chatters and found the duo, on "sale" for $18.86 (originally $19.90). I frowned, but wanted it and didn't feel like driving around town to save a buck. So I bought it, and this weekend everything happened to be 20% off, so I ended up only paying $15+tax for it, which was a refreshing surprise. So far, I've learned that nothing in Canada is cheap, so I'm really relishing the bargains when I find them.

Sorry, this is getting verbose. This duo comes with Love is a Racket and Pros & Bronze. They're so pretty in person. Love is a Racket (which OPI calls a red), is really pretty corally (or pink, as my husband proclaimed). It's incredibly glowy, and the shimmer in it is very intense large glass flecks (and there are a lot of them, the polish is quite dense. When you apply it, it looks *amazing*. But the one caveat for me was that when it dried... it was somehow not as spectacular and ate topcoat and was kinda dull. I ended up having to slap a coat of Barielle Manicure Extender on top in the morning because it just had a strange finish. So pretty though, and impossible to capture digitally--you just cannot see the detail of the shimmer.

This is 3 coats, but you could probably get away with two:

You can actually see the size/shape of the shimmer in the bottle better than on the nail. It has a great formula, too. A nice summer color, I think I'll wear it as a pedicure next. Anyway--what do you all think of this one? Pros & Bronze is up next. Did you buy any (or if you're a nut like me--all) of the Serena duos?