Do You Have This Colour in Stock-holm? OPI Nordic Collection

Hello ladies!  Tonight I have the second polish that I picked out from OPI's Fall 2014 "Nordic" collection...the wittily titled "Do You Have This Colour in Stock-Holm" (DYHTCIS).  Like it's collection mate "How Great is Your Dane", DYHTCIS is a saturated crème polish and a wonderful shade for Fall:

Do You Have this Colour in Stockholm - by OPI - artificial light

However, that's the end of the praise that I'm willing to give this shade.  At least in my bottle, I found the formula of this to be really crappy.  The first coat went on horribly streaky, the second managed to be lumpy, and the third (on the nails that needed it) was a haphazard splodge job to try to even the damn thing out.  As you can see from the translucent tips on my ring/pinkie even this wasn't enough to get the coverage right everywhere.  I don't actually think I've ever had an OPI with a formula this difficult.  It also smelled quite strongly.  Whatever they have put in this to make it hold this much pigment I'd guess is the cause of the smell and application issues.



Do You Have this Colour in Stockholm - by OPI - artificial light

Onto the colour...the tricky tricky colour.  In the bottle (see below) and in all the online swatches I've seen, this shade clearly looks like a violet crème.  On my nails (see above) this reads much more like a blue.  I'd describe it as a royal blue, with a shot of violet.  The picture above is taken in my halogen kitchen lighting and shoes this blue/violet quite well although under the bright light this looks brighter than it does most of the time.  The picture at the very top of this post is perhaps the most accurate reflection of this shade IRL, even then I'd say it looks darker to me when it's not posed under a lamp!  So to summarise, this colour was not what I was expecting, and is fairly blah compared to the swatches I'd seen.

I am a huge OPI fan, as my stash list shows it's by far the most represented brand in my collection.  I love the witty names, and (usually) the quality.  But my big gripe with OPI is how much they 'recycle' their colours.  If you collect OPI over the course of a few years as I have, then you start to see the same shades coming around again with different names and subtlely different finishes.  So, since it's the first thing I want to know when I look for new OPI, I pulled out the shades I owned that I thought most closely matched this one: "Tomorrow Never Dies" from the Bond themed Holiday 2012 collection, and "Eurso Euro" from the Spring 2013 Euro Central collection:

Comparison (L-R) - Tomorrow Never Dies, Do You Have this Colour in Stock-holm and Eurso Euro

As these bottle shots show, there's no dupes here: 'Tomorrow' is metallic finish and on the blue side of blurple, 'Euro' is a definite navy crème without a hint of purple, and by comparison 'DYHTCIS' looks really purple.  Since I put this polish on it has reminded me so strongly of 'Euro' to wear that I was convinced these would be dupes, to convince myself I took a photo of my 'DYHTCIS' mani holding the 'Euro' bottle:

Comparison: "DYHTCIS' on the nails, Eurso Euro in the bottle

Yup, I'm finally convinced, 'DYHTCIS' is a purple.  But it's like when you go out to buy a pair of black trousers, and you can't tell if you picked up black or navy until you hold them against something black for comparison.  And for my money, that just ain't purple enough.

In fact this whole episode has really just reminded me of what a great shade Eurso Euro is, so I'm going to blog that one next.

In conclusion, I don't feel I can recommend 'DYHTCIS'.  Even if you are looking for a fall shade that's more navy than it is purple, the formula was just so nasty.  It even made me wonder whether I had gotten a fake (even though I used a reputable internet supplier, who I'm not going to name for this reason), but having checked all the markers on the bottle it does seem to be the genuine article.

So for me, by far the best of the Nordic pair was "How Great is Your Dane?"