OPI Tijuana Dance?

God. I can never, ever, -ever- photograph this nail color well. It just refuses to be captured. Rest assured that it's not quite as boring as it seems in these images, although, to be honest, it's a boring color.

History first: this is the first nail polish color I ever bought. My nails had started bending, breaking, and peeling in high school to an extent where I couldn't ever get it to grow--I was always cutting it painfully short. I'd worn clear polish for a whole lot during the time since I'd associated polish with a girliness I'd never felt. :D

Back then I'd been wanting to branch out (safely, of course) and decided to pick out a creme pink polish, and I came away with this from the clearance bin.



First things first: this is not a creme pink. It's a sheer, cool-toned pink frost with holo glassfleck. In the bottle, it's quite magnificent, although it shines primarily green--you can still see the pink/purple/blue flickering away on the surface. On the nail, however, the holo disappears into normal silver glassfleck.

None of these pictures are accurate in color--however, they are accurate in appropriate lighting. It really does look that sheer and transparent in bright light (not including sunlight) and so it tends to give the impression of very clean nails. Lovely and work appropriate. In shade, it turns into a deeper pink, as shown above. That's just about the right color. In the sun, however, the color metamorphoses into something in between--a very pale sort of pink with a whole lot of shine. The sun picture just will. not. capture.

What I'm wearing in the above is four (FOUR!) coats--as you can see, there's still visible nail line. I don't really think you could build up complete opacity, unless you're willing to sit there and paint about six coats all the time. Impressive wear, though: I picked out Tijuana Dance? because I was going to work, where I labor away as a night barista (less glamorous cappuccino making, more throwing out trash, prying icy pastries out of their froze boxes, scrubbing at mold--nope, I don't use gloves; I'm very hard on my hands) and I figured I needed something to help protect my nails, even if the nail polish takes the brunt of the abuse.

I always thought Tijuana was chiptastic, but apparently I need new eyes: I have one chip currently at the base of my middle finger; the other nails are scratched but still intact.

So, yees. I like that polish just marginally better now, problems with camera and twee coloring aside. If anything it's emotionally connected to my FIRST BLACK NAIL POLISH, which I'd actually used up last year.

Heh.