OPI: I've Got A Herring Problem Review

I got this one while stalking about Ulta, enjoying one of their sales. I thought it was a matte gray-blue while in the store. Once home, I noticed it was a nicely sparkly little thing, with some tiny glassy bits adding a little bling to what might otherwise be a drab color.

I wasn't sure if it would stain or not, so I put a base coat on to go with it. Usually I try to test out a color sans base or top coat. I already know how well my base/top coat combo works (five or so days with no issues besides a bit of tip wear.) I want to know how well the polish wears on it's own! But in that I'm still growing out an unfortunate experience with a red polish, I'm being careful about this sort of thing now.

Three fairly thin coats got me true to bottle color. It's not entirely opaque, I can still see the nail line if the light hits my hand right, but the color looks the same as it does in the bottle, so I stopped at three.

Coats one and two were both a little patchy, but by coat three everything had evened out nicely.

Here it is right after I did the manicure:

Seriously, right after. I haven't even cleaned up the edges, yet.

Twenty four hours:

Little bit of tip wear on my first finger.

Forty-eight:

The dreaded hot shower test killed this one. None of those chips were there until I hopped in  nice, long, steamy shower. So, I got 47.5 hours of just dandy out of this, and my guess is that if I had held off on the shower this would have worn a whole lot longer. 

I'm fairly pleased with this one. A bit more wear time would have been good, but it's a great color, and wore just fine as long as I didn't stress it too badly.


Other Press:

http://www.the-crumpet.com/2012/02/opi-i-have-herring-problem.html

http://www.amandalandish.com/2012/04/opi-i-have-herring-problem.html

http://www.nailzilla.com/2012/02/opi-i-have-herring-problem-holland-2012.html



I used it in this look with L'Oreal's Walk on the Beach.

And a different look I did a bit earlier with OPI's In Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Yeah, I've worn a few letters off my keyboard. It's one of the
rarely mentioned perils of being an author.

Blue on Blue

I Have A Herring Problem

In Her Majesty's Secret Service

Since I'm remarkably lackluster at fine detail painting, most of the manicures you'll see here are variations on the French tip theme. Mostly I like playing colors off of each other, and something about a monochrome/texture variation just makes me happy.

I was in Ulta, eyeballing the OPIs because they were on sale and found two I knew I had to put together.

OPI In Her Majesty's Secret Service and OPI I Have A Herring Problem. In real life they're both a bit more blue than they came out in these pictures. Both look more like grays that had blue added, as opposed to blues that have been toned down with gray.  I Have A Herring Problem is lighter and has a subtle glimmer to it, a sort of glass particle look, rather than a micro glitter. In Her Majesty's Secret Service looks like silver/gunmetal shimmer in a blackened navy base.

Together, I think they're looking pretty snazzy in a subtle sort of way.

Michael Westen on the Beach

I'll admit, my first thought upon buying Loreal's Walk on the Beach was that it would go really well with Pure Ice's Viva Las Vegas. My second thought was a color combination I'd been thinking about for... oh... call it two months now.  I already had the blue, OPI I've Got A Herring Problem, all I needed was the perfect light tan color.

And there it was!Sitting in it's little square bottle, waiting for me...

Behold, Michael Westen on the Beach.

Now, some may claim that I'm obsessed with Burn Notice. They might bring up this or this as proof of that. To which I say, well, call a spade a spade and don't be shy about it. Of course, I'm obsessed with Burn Notice! It's worth being obsessed about.


I really like these two colors together, and just wish that Walk on the Beach wore better. I did a basic tape stripe for the nails and ended up with:

Yeah, that's all sorts of ugly.

And this:

Now bear in mind, I painted Walk of the Beach 16 hours before adding I've Got A Herring Problem, so it's not like Walk should have done anything besides play nice. There was no chance that it was wet.

Anyway, I got three out of five nails done well, and one passably so.

Will I do this look again? Maybe.  Especially if I'm looking for something for a day or two. Like maybe to celebrate Season Seven when it comes on in the Summer. (Or maybe by then I'll have a color combo for Fi...)