blanket print nails

02/02/2012

Color: I Lily Love You (OPI)
Retail Price: $8.50 (USD)

This shade is from OPI’s summer 2011 Nice Stems! collection. I didn’t properly catch the nail polish bug until the end of summer 2011, so I had just missed out on buying this while it was actually in stores. However, when I visited my parents over the holidays, I spotted a lone bottle of I Lily Love You on the OPI rack at Ulta! :O It was fate! I felt like I had won the lottery when I just stumbled across this. That said, if you like this color, maybe you will luck out and find it in stores as well.

In any case, I Lily Love You has a sheer, super bright pink base and is packed with random bits of iridescent flakies and glitter floating throughout. I tried to pick out individual shapes—squares, circles, hexagons, large and small glitter, etc.—but there are simply too many to really count them all.

The best thing about this glitter is it’s great to wear alone or to layer over another solid color. Since the base is so sheer, it really doesn’t discolor a solid base manicure when you layer I Lily Love You over it (especially if your solid base manicure is a darker color). The iridescent flakies are such a fun way to wake up a mani midway through the week. However, like I said, the base is really sheer, so if you want to build this up…make sure you have some time on your hands! In the photo above, I’m wearing six coats of nail polish! I’ll be honest with you: TOTALLY WORTH IT. Since the pink base is so sheer, despite having six layers of nail polish on my nails, it doesn’t feel heavy or thick at all.

Overall, the formula for this shade is great—easy to work with and forgiving of mistakes. The flakies spread evenly, so you never feel like you’re just pushing pieces of glitter around on your nails.

As far as dupes go, nothing completely matches it, but Chloe (Zoya) comes closest (in case you’re looking to purchase something that’s easy to find in stores right now). As similar as they look, though, I still find they’re way too different to actually be dupes. While Chloe has a sheer pink base as well, the pink is much lighter (Chloe is a part of a spring collection, after all, whereas I Lily Love You is from a summer collection). Also, the flakies differ quite a bit: Chloe seems to flash red, orange, and gold, whereas the flakies in I Lily Love You flash pearly colors.

Flakies are pretty big this year (at the very least, this season), so I’m sure our favorite nail polish companies will be dropping some major creativity on new shades and collections yet to come, but as of now, I Lily Love You is my favorite flakie! The sheer (pun not intended!) versatility, alone, makes this wonderful during any time of year, and thus, totally practical to add to your stash as soon as possible!

Posted 3 months ago
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