I've been waiting for what feels like forever to get my hands on an OPI matte. I know, I know - I could just order one online, but that takes all the fun out of searching through racks in store. So the other day when I was doing my usual inspection of my local supermarket's polish supply and I found this Russian Navy - Matte buried behind some other colors, I had a minor freakout. Not only have I been looking for this color forever, but low and behold it's also a matte. So excited!!! And despite my recent need for all things spring, the weather has been so nasty here lately, so the dark blue totally worked for all my rainy-day looks. Now, as excited as I was to get this color on my nails, I've got to say I'm not very happy with my look overall. I may have just built up too much hype for the polish since I searched for it for so long, but there were just little things throughout my whole process that didn't work very well. I'll explain more as we go on.
American Classic's Yellow Stopper
Since this is a really dark color, I decided to use my American Classic's yellow stopper polish to keep my nails from yellowing. I'm pretty sure this was my first mistake in my dislike of the Russian Navy Matte. Normally, if you use too thick of a layer of the yellow stopper, it causes whatever color you put on top of it to chip off very easily in one whole piece. There have been a couple times where I've just been doing something simple, like getting things out of my purse, and one second I'll have color on my nail and the next second it'll be totally gone. It's annoying, but for someone who can't stop using polish that yellows and can't stand looking like a chain smoker, you learn to outweigh the pros for the cons. I really do love this product though - it works like a charm wasn't too expensive (I think it was $5 at Sally's). The best solution I've found is to just barely paint it on the nails so some of the color can bond to your nail and not just the yellow stopper. The problem with this is it ends up being a little streaky-looking under your color. It's usually not a problem with regular polish - just an extra-thick first or second layer to even things out. What I didn't realize, however, is that this isn't exactly possible with how mattes dry.
Russian Navy - Matte
Like I said before, I've been looking for this color forever. I've never been a huge fan of stark black polish, and with dark colors being so trendy for the past few years, navy has been my go-to substitute. Every review I've read said this color has been fantastic as well. In the bottle, the color looks a lot more purple-y to me than it actually comes out. Maybe it's because I got the matte. Anyway, I could tell I was going to have a problem with it after I did the first coat on a couple nails and saw how the matte dried to show every little streak from the yellow stopper underneath it. I have a couple suede polishes and thought they would be about the same. Wrong! I thought that if I put a thick enough layer on top it would cover it up, but nothing I did made it look smooth enough for my tastes. This picture has about three thick layers and I still don't like it. (excuse how bad my nails look overall - I kind of just gave up on making it look good)
Adding a top coat helped slightly, but once you do that it sort of just ruins the matte effect.
Sigh. I really wanted this polish to work out. I'm sure I'll dig this color out next fall to use without the yellow stopper and hopefully things will turn out better. As far as my first experience with the matte finishes, I think I'd rather stick with the suedes - a little richer of a similar effect. For now, I'll go back to my bright spring colors and trying to find a regular creme Russian Navy!
Let me know what your experiences have been like with the matte finishes and your favorite way to combat yellow nails!
