Nail Trends: Reverse French in Purple

We’ve officially hit holiday season, which means we can start having even more fun with our nails .  Today we’re looking at a mix of the hottest trends of the season: matte, reverse French, glitter, the color purple

Matte Reverse French in Orly Purple Velvet

Matte nail polishes made a showing at NY Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week last spring (for fall) and again last month for Spring 2010. If you haven’t put your hand into the anti-shine movement, at the very least you need to know the trend is extending into next season. Common complaints for matte include low durability, flat colors and difficult applications.  Orly solves those problems with:

• A good formulation.  They also offer a matte bonder to help adhesion.
• Appealing colors. The collection is small, but the purple and blue are quite pretty. The black does fall into the flat, but works.  I think companies need to stop equating “matte” to mean “black”.  Matte works so much better with fresh colors.
• Again, this goes back to good formulation.  The Orly polish goes on fairly smoothly and has a slow dry down.  True to matte though, it is a bit unforgiving, so you need a steady hand and apply evenly.  If you are having a very tough time, you can apply a matte top coat.  I only had Essie’s Matte About You which does help with any ridging that may occur.  There is no top coat in the nail pictured.

Orly supplied Purple Velvet and I was smitten the moment I tried it.  The look is very true to the bottle color.  I put this look together showing a Reverse French manicure with Purple Velvet.  Ways you can alter the look:

• The moon can be left blank or another solid color used for work. If you have a little more freedom, you can fill the moon area with a glitter polish as I have done.  I used a mixture of Sally Hansen Xtreme wear #11 Strobe Light and #24 Shooting Star.  These are very dense glitter polishes and fill in the space well.
• It is hard to tell in the photo, but I also lightly pulled the glitter polish brush across the tip, which creates a faux French, a bit of a finish.  Skip if you don’t need bling.
• If you want to switch things up, add a glossy top coat. It deepens the color and creates a near hologram with the glitter.

Matte Reverse French in OPI Merry Midnight

Oh. Mah. Goodness. Merry Midnight is part of OPI’s holiday collection, and it is a stunner. This deep purple base is filled with bitty flecks of blue, and thick flecks of red. Applying, it is a crap shoot how much sparkle you get on each nail, but the red just makes this pop. I would have been happy if they had added even more. This look is the same reverse French, with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear #11 Strobe Light. Worn with a very shiny top coat it just sparkles. Worn with a matte top coat produces a very interesting look – it magnifies the flecks.  Note: Merry Midnight can take up to five coats to achieve true opaqueness.  But it is worth it.

Will you be wearing the mattes and/or sparkles this season? How do you feel about the reverse French?