O.P.I. Nail Polish in Black Cherry Chutney

Hi Dolls!

I'm FINALLY showing you one of my favorite nail polishes today. I had waffled on buying this one for awhile, but when my aunt took me to get a manicure and I chose this one, I fell in love with the shade over the week I had it on my toes. O.P.I. nail polishes are a mid-range salon brand, known for their punny shade names, 3-free formulas, and chip resistance. Frankly, I don't know that these stay on my nails much longer than the "nicer" drug store brands (Sally Hansen's salon formula or Revlon, for example) and comparable salon brands like Essie, but I do get about 3 or 4 days with minimal tip wear, followed by a few days of random chips here and there before it starts to devolve. I should note that I've had this polish for more than a year now, and I haven't had to use any sort of thinner with it; the consistency is still as nice as the day I bought it. F.Y.I., nail polishes don't really go bad, but some of the ingredients will evaporate and make them thicker. To revive them, you can add nail polish thinner (readily available at beauty supply stores), which is basically these evaporated ingredients. A drop or two will usually do the trick. Do not use nail polish remover! I keep reading about this tip, but nail polish remover is designed to break down nail polish... Yes, it will make it thinner, but because it's destroying some of the ingredients, not restoring them. It might be a quick fix, but if you want to be able to use the entire bottle, just wait until you can pick up a nail polish thinner. They're not too pricey, and a little goes a long way.

I am such a sucker for dark purples and reds, and Black Cherry Chutney certainly fits the bill; it can almost look black in indoor light, but it has insane shimmer that lends it shine and depth. In bright light, it's a dark warm purple with wine colored shimmer. O.P.I. polishes will run you about $8.99 for .5 ounces, and are available at many salon/ beauty supply stores and Ulta. Black Cherry Chutney is part of the permanent collection, so it should be fairly easy to find anywhere that carries the line. I found that two coats of this was fine to get a nice, opaque color on my nails with no streakiness at all. I have no complaints about the brush that these polishes come with, though they don't do much to make application *easier* than average. The bottle itself is attractive and easy to grasp; I like that the brush handle is textured so that you can unscrew it easily, and it's a comfortable shape to hold.

I'm going to warn you; I was doing my nails in the near-dark (as my boyfriend diligently changed all the burnt out light bulbs in the only light fixture in the room I was painting my nails), so I made a mess on my cuticles. At any rate, you can still see what a beautiful color this is, and imagine how sexy and sophisticated a neater manicure would be in this polish.

Here are some shots of the bottle! You can get a good feel for the shimmer from some of these pictures. Encouragingly, this shimmer does translate onto the nail!

Black Cherry Chutney, by O.P.I. Crazy flash!

O.P.I., black cherry chutney

The label on the bottom of the bottle. I have not peeled there. 

Black Cherry Chutney; the back of the bottle

And here is my manicure, worthy of an uncoordinated three-year-old. The colors in the pictures are fairly true to life, depending on what kind of indoor light you're in. For reference, I'm wearing this over a L'Oreal base coat and with Seche Vite top coat.

Look at that shimmer!

With flash; you can really see the depth of Black Cherry Chutney in this picture!

Without flash; here you can see how it verges on a complex black. 

Rating: 8 out of 10

This is a great polish; it goes on nicely and wears well. I also love the color; it's unique without being "weird", and is a nice take on the almost-black purple that has been popular for a few years now. Whether or not this color is "in", I love what dark wines and berries do for my skin tone, so I'm sure this will be a staple for many years to come (as it has been for the last year+)! I can unreservedly give this product an 8/10; if it had above-average wear time for me, I'd give it a 9, and I know for some people O.P.I. is their holy grail nail polish formula; if it is for you, you may be even more over the moon with this color than I am!