OPI Katy Perry Collection – Part 1 (swatches & review)

The two lacquers from OPI’s Katy Perry Collection I have for you today, are ‘Not Like The Movies’ – a multi-chromatic silvery hue, and ‘Teenage Dream’ – a pale pink, jam-packed with glitter. Both polishes could not be any more different from each other, in colour, finish or texture and combined with OPI’s Black Shatter on top, give even more look options. While I am a colour purist, I am still undecided on whether or not either of these looks are for me, but I cannot deny how lovely the polishes look or how utterly cool watching Black Shatter do it’s ‘thing’ is!! All swatches are with Sèche Natural base coat and three coats of polish, no top coat.

Not Like The Movies is a camera-shy chameleon polish; as elusive to capture and describe like fairy wings. This is a true iridescent shade, leaning either towards a green tinged silver or a lavender rose, all with tiny sparkling bits of silver micro glitter thrown in. It is fairly sheer and while you never reach full opacity, the thin formula makes it easy to apply, brush strokes are minimally apparent, and the complexity of the hue keeps you from noticing anything but the ever changing colours. Bear in mind that you definitely need a top coat to smooth out the finish, as the fine glitter can feel slightly rough to the touch.

Of course, the polish that immediately came to my mind when I first saw Not Like The Movies was Deborah Lippmann’s ‘Wicked Game’. The two are exceptionally close, both in base tone, iridescence and formula; where the OPI differs is with the addition of the silver micro glitter and I feel like the Lippmann leans more towards the pink/lavender side versus the slightly more greyed out silver of Not Like The Movies. The swatch above shows index & ring fingers: Not Like the Movies, middle & pinkie fingers: Wicked Game, all with base coat and 3 coats of polish, no top coat.

With Black Shatter layered on top, this shade goes from ladylike & almost demure, to punk rock edgy. While a lot of the iridescence becomes lost in the translation, the contrast is still quite apparent and depending on the thickness of your shatter coat, you can still have enough base colour peeking through to liven it up. Black Shatter is layered over same swatches as previous picture: index & ring fingers – Not Like The Movies, middle & pinkie fingers – Wicked Game. Note how much more vibrant the entire effect is with the addition of base coat in the bottom photo.

in sunlight

in natural light

in shade

Teenage Dream has got to be the most ‘girly’ looking polish I have ever worn! The base is a ballerina-tutu pink, loaded with tons of pink micro shimmer and larger hexagonal holographic glitter throughout, flashing every colour of the rainbow with your hand’s movement. I did not expect to like this as much as I do, never having been very ‘pink inclined’, but this shade makes your hands just look so…pretty! The formula is definitely odd though; very thick and seemingly in suspension format which means you cannot spread it thinly, but on the plus side, I found it easy to apply because it’s not runny. It’s also hard to make mistakes with this, as both the colour and the formula are very forgiving. You can see in the swatches above how the intensity of the pink dramatically changes in varying lighting conditions.

For some strange reason, I found that once Black Shatter was layered on top, the glitter in Teenage Dream became even more pronounced, possibly juxtaposed next to the black. Once again, note how by adding a top coat (bottom picture) it brings the entire look alive.

Final thoughts: These might be perceived as delicate shades on their own, but the iridescence of Not Like The Movies and the complex glitter of Teenage Dream give them that certain something extra. I like how Black Shatter changes them up both so completely but I prefer it over the ‘girliness’ of Teenage Dream to rough it up a bit. Since both lacquers have glitter, they benefit from using a top coat, especially if you plan on adding Black Shatter, to seal everything in. Honestly, playing with Black Shatter is just so much fun!