OPI Blue Chips

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This past weekend, I was shopping with a girlfriend when we came across a jumbled bin of nail polishes at a TJ Maxx.  The pile had some of Essie's winter collection from last year, a random assortment of Juleps, an OPI Muppets glitter and an oldie from the 2011 Texas collection, and WHAAAA?

indirect sunlight
OPI doesn't put out a whole bunch of holos, and I think most of us nail polish crazies could spot all of them on sight.  Never heard of Blue Chips, but the fantastic color and less than $4 price tag made this a no-brainer buy.

late afternoon sunlight
blurry to show the holo-ness
Blue Chips is a bright, true blue, not leaning purple or grey or green at all. It has a generous dash of holographic microglitters that end up creating a scattered holo look in bright light, and a textured look in low light.  Textured polish isn't really my thing, but this had only a slightly roughened surface, not the snag-your-hair texture that drives me bonkers.  2 coats of topcoat helped smooth things out.  the microglitter-ness did mean that removal took a little more effort than for a shimmer polish, but I was pleasantly surprised when a blue this saturated didn't stain my skin at all, so overall, the formula is a win.

outdoor, shade - check out those wee glitter bumpies
In a lot of light, this had a pearly metallic look. All in all, it's a pretty flashy, bold blue.


So where the heck did this come from?  I'm of course not the only blogger to be thunderstruck by surprise OPI colors, and these awesome ladies have put together a chart of all the mysteries (scroll to the bottom of the post).  Turns out, once a contract expires, OPI can't sell the color any more under the contractually-inspired name, so we end up with a whole bunch of colors from celebrity tie-in collections sold with a different name (my other acquisition in the sale-price 2-pack was Just Shocking, a renamed version of Nicole by OPI Scarlett from a 2012 Selena Gomez collection).  Blue Chips is really the 2012 Ulta exclusive The Flowers are Blue-Ming, which goes on ebay now for $50.  SCORE!!

 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.  It's bright, fun, sparkly, and my first dusty find.  Cool!  Also, sadly, pretty quickly chippy.  

 Where to buy:  according to people who've found this, go shopping pretty much right now.  These re-named old-stock OPIs are found in places like TJ Maxx and some discount/drug stores in Australia and Canada.  Happy Hunting!

 ~Michelle

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