Halloween 2020: Spiderwebs with OPI Black to Reality

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 A recent arrival to my stash was sitting on the desk ready to be filed away, but was so obviously perfect for Halloween that instead it got used right away.

indoor, CF lighting

Spiders and spiderwebs are one of my most favorite halloween designs.  Spooky + anything from the animal kingdom = winning, and all that layered over what's clearly the perfect Halloween season color for me just can't be beat.  Lina Spooklicious 01 was still out after providing images for my last mani, and the spiderwebs and spiders on it meant round 2 with this plate was an easy pick.  Webs are in MoYou London Mercury (chrome polishes are such a PITA but so worth it), and the spiders in El Corazon True Red.

indoor, bright CF lighting

The base for this look is 2 smooth coats of  OPI Black to Reality - I am clearly a sucker for exactly this shade of black-red, since it's about identical to China Glaze X, Trust Fund Just Call My Lawyer, and Vapid Ruffian - they're each close enough that it's not worth doing a comparison, the sort where with a microscope you could tell differences in quantity or size of shimmer particles, but at arm's length would be indistinguishable.

indoor, CF lighting

But sweet baby octopus, there's a reason I love reds like this.  With my skin tone, at any nail length, this would look devastatingly vampy chic.  At my slightly-longer-than-usual length, it's sexy AF.

indoor, bright CF lighting

Black to Reality is an inky off-black base filled to the brim with very fine, borderline metallic scarlet red shimmer.  The shimmer stood out beautifully for me in regular lighting - this time of year,very few of my pics can be outdoor in the sunlight - but despite the strength of the shimmer, this wasn't sheer at all and was 3/4 of the way to opaque at just one coat.  I am as per usual showing 2 + topcoat here.

indoor, bright CF lighting

Rating:  a flawless 5 out of 5 stars for Black to Reality.  This color is dead sexy, the formula was approximately perfect, and it wore like iron.  The darker the color, the quicker it shows even minor edgewear, but I had no problems wearing this for most of a week.  Delicious.

Where to buy:  this was part of the 2018 holiday collection, and didn't go to core, so this may not be hidden on any shelves one usually finds OPI products.  I had no problems picking up a bottle for about $5 on ebay recently, so there's still plenty of this to be found.

~Michelle

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