OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede with L'Oreal Confetti

I was excited to hear about L'Oreal Confetti - I love black and white matt glitters, and although I have a few different ones from various indie brands, the idea of just being able to walk into Boots and buy this off the shelf without all the hassle of indie restocks and international shipping is a bit irresistable :)

I chose an unusual base for this, because I've yet to find a colour that doesn't work well with black and white glitter! I love anything with a matte finish, and the OPI Suedes are great; they have a sort of metallic-matte-velvet finish which is quite unique. They were released back in 2009 as a limited edition so dusty-hunting, swaps and ebay are probably the best way to find them now. Lincoln Park After Dark Suede is not just a matte version of Lincoln Park After Dark - it's altogether lighter and more complex. Scrangie describes it as a 'matte eggplant with an outrageous shimmer' and I'd entirely agree with that.

Here's LPAD Suede on it's own to begin with

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede

I love this colour and finish. It reminds me of burnished metal, or hammerite paint. This is three coats, no base or topcoat. It is easy to apply. The finish on the Suedes is quite delicate, you  can't expect long wear and after a day or so they do start to take on a more satiny finish, especially if you apply hand cream regularly.  I took these pictures after about a day of wear; I wanted to enjoy LPAD Suede on it's own for a while before playing around with glitter.

Here is LPAD Suede with L'Oreal Confetti on top. The sun sneaked out for a moment while I was taking these pictures, and I think LPAD Suede is more true to life here; the pictures above lean a bit towards blue-purple. Sorry about that.

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede with L'Oreal Confetti

L'Oreal Confetti is black and white hexagonal glitters of several sizes in a clear, very lightly shimmery base. I used two coats to get this density of glitter, but if you want a sparser effect, it's perfectly even at one coat. The bottle is small (5ml) but it's a nice big flat brush so you can easily sweep the glitter across the whole of your nail without needing to dab. Another good thing is how well the glitter is suspended - if you use indie glitters regularly you'll know all about sinking glitter, glitter sticking to the sides of the bottle and the need to fish the glitters out of the bottle. None of these problems here - application of L'Oreal Confetti is very easy :)

L'Oreal Confetti dried sort of semi-matt with some brush strokes visible. Not a big problem for me, as I always smooth out a glitter mani with top coat anyway. I used one coat of Gelous followed by a thick coat of Seche Vite. When you add a shiny top coat to the OPI Suedes, they take on a new life all of their own, with lots of shimmer and sparkle! The blurry picture below shows this up better:

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede with L'Oreal Confetti

However, I love my matte finishes so I couldn't resist adding a matt top coat (I used Mavala Color-Matt) to the finished mani:

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede with L'Oreal Confetti (mattified)

I believe this just about brings LPAD Suede back to it's original finish, and I think the glitters in L'Oreal Confetti stand out much better without the distraction of the glossy topcoat. The last couple of pictures are at different angles to show the velvety effect of the finished mani.

I bought L'Oreal Confetti from Boots. There were three other top coats in the range, shimmers in gold, silver and blue ~ did anyone try any these yet?