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Holiday 2019: OPI Hello Kitty Collection (Review & Swatches)
New up from OPI! Their latest collection is for holidays 2019: Hello Kitty! Back for a second round due to popular demand, OPI has teamed up with HK to produce a second collection. But don’t worry – they’ve brought back their most searched for shade ever: Let’s Be Friends!
The whole range is available in their Nail Lacquer formula (my favourite), as well as Infinite Shine and GelColor.
With this collection, Hello Kitty is celebrating their 45th anniversary (I had NO idea that Hello Kitty had been around that long!). I’d say the bulk of the collection skews very pink, glittery and red, with a slight focus on some deeper cooler tones.
While the front half of the collection was quite pink/red, the back half of it focuses more on deeper purple and blues tones as well as a bunch of metallics to round it out.
And of course, what’s a holiday collection without some glitter??
OPI Hello Kitty Holiday 2019 Collection – Swatches
Let’s Be Friends! is the only shade I layered three times in this post (all others are layered twice). It looked quite patchy on the first and second coats, but by the time I got to the third it evened out really nicely. I can see why this shade is so popular. I’m not even someone who gravitates towards very pale, milky pinks, but this shade looks absolutely beautiful on my nails!
Glitter to My Heart is a fun silver and white speckled glitter polish. It reminds me of a snowglobe, and would look lovely layered on top of a white polish.
A Hush of Blush is a pearlescent pale pink shade. Even with two coats on there’s still a hint of translucency to the polish.
Let’s Celebrate! has a lightly tinted pink base (although it’s really quite sheer) with specks of red and pink glitter scattered throughout.
All About the Bows was *really* interesting. This shade had a bit of a jelly finish and ended up looking a lot more pink than I was expecting. Really loved this shade!
A Kiss on the Chic was also quite jelly-ish in application. A solid red shade.
Pile on the Sprinkles has a pale lavender base with pale pink and dark blurple glitter specs.
Hello Pretty – another jelly-like base. I was so surprised that most of what I thought were cream finishes in this collection ended up being a bit more translucent. Lovely dark blue – more teal than navy.
Let Love Sparkle is a pale silver that had a lot of translucency. Layer third 3 or 4 times to get opaque coverage.
My Favorite Gal Pal is a deep purple-blue. I swear OPI said this was a blue, but I see a lot more purple than I do blue in this colour.
Many Celebrations to Go! is a translucent pale gold. I like this one because there’s less yellow in the product, so it takes on more of a champagne twist.
Another translucent/sheer one (they layer just fine by the way – I just recommend doing more than two coats if you want full coverage). Isn’t She Iconic! is a gunmetal silver.
Glitter All the Way is a chunky yellow gold glitter with some yellow in the base.
Born to Sparkle has a clear base with large flecks of rose gold glitter.
Dream in Glitter has a pale red base with medium to small sized red glitter flecks.
Final Thoughts
It may come as a surprise, but I’m not a Hello Kitty fan. While I’m obsessed with cats, there’s just something about the branding of Hello Kitty that never drew me in, so this wasn’t a collection I was necessarily drawn to as a whole. However, if you’re someone that does love Hello Kitty, I think you’ll especially love this collection because the branding does seem to be bang on. Not only do they have the bottles capped with the Hello Kitty face, but I can also see a lot of the aesthetic of Hello Kitty wrapped up into the shades they’ve chosen.
For me, I have to take Hello Kitty out of the equation to evaluate the collection since it holds no weight for me. Overall, I prefer the chunkier glitters as they’re fun to layer on top of cream polishes (and cream polishes are hands down my favourite kind of finish for a polish). I’m less inclined to play with the glitters that have a coloured base just because I’m less drawn to the overall colours of them.
The standouts in this collection were definitely:
- Let’s Be Friends!: This one surprised the heck out of me – I had no idea I needed/wanted a milky pink my collection, but I LOVE the way this looks on my nails.
- All About The Bows: The magenta edge to this polish is freaking glorious. I thought it was going to be a regular ole red, but the pink flash in it really makes this a special polish to me.
- Glitter to my Heart: I love the snow globe like quality of this one. I cannot wait to layer it on top of a white polish for snow themed nails!
- Born to Sparkle: These large rose gold chunks are beautiful!
The OPI Hello Kitty collection can be purchased at nailpolishcanada.com or on ulta.com.
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.
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Holiday 2019: Live Clean Hand Washes in Fresh Snow and Frosted Apple!
I’ve reached that stage in my life where I am dead, freaking excited for hand washes. I don’t know how or when this happened, but it has, and I’m here for it.
One of my favourite launches in the last few years has been Live Clean and their holiday hand soaps. Over the years we’ve seen them launch their Holly Berry and Vanilla Peppermint hand soaps. Then they added Gingerbread Latte to the lineup last year. This year? We get two brand new scents in their foaming hand wash formula! (But don’t worry, the scents from previous years are also available this year as well!)
And hands down these are my new favourite scents that they make.
- Fresh Snow: It smells exactly like what it says it is. This is the scent of fresh, crisp snow on a bright, clear winter day. It smells of frost in the air and ice on your breath. It smells like I’m skating on a frozen lake or I’m at the top of a ski hill all by myself. There’s a lot of feeling wrapped up into this scent for me – I absolutely adore it.
- Frosted Apple: I was initially worried that this would smell slightly too saccharine. I like apple scents, but when they get too heavy, or frosty, I almost always dislike them outright. Thankfully, I get less “frosted” and more “apples with cinnamon” with this scented. It also smells quite a bit like the Bath and Body Works Leaves candle, but with a little bit more apple injected into the base. This is definitely more of a gourmand taste in comparison to the crispness of Fresh Snow.
So as you can likely deduce… I’m a huge fan of these. I think they’re a wonderful addition to Live Clean‘s range of hand soaps. But now? I want them in body wash format. These would make WONDERFUL body washes, and would easily outrank all of my other body washes by the brand in terms of scent profiles.
Okay, so where can you get these, you may ask. I know finding holiday hand soaps can be a bit of a challenge, so I’ve rounded up all of the places I’ve been able to find them online.
- well.ca is selling all three holiday hand soaps for just under $5 each
- walmart.ca is selling all three holiday hand soaps for just under $4 each
- terra20.com is selling all three for just under $5 each
Hopefully you’ll be able to find them in stores (try Loblaws, Sobeys and Pharmasave as well!), but if you can’t wait, try ordering from the places above. Happy (holiday hand soap) hunting!
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.