Back in the long long ago, in the way way before time, there lived a woman by the name of Suzi. Suzi was Queen of a vast kingdom of polish. Her kingdom was great and highly influential amongst her trend hopping, marie claire reading subjects. Suzi’s favourite colour was red, and henceforth, red nails were fashionable to all. Apart from red, red and more varying shades of red, Suzi also favoured pinks, corals, lilacs, buffs, nudes, roses, rusts, mauves and some colour called puce along with all other colours considered “nanna safe” and “work appropriate”. But one day, the all powerful Wizard of Consumer Demand visited Suzi in her Crimson Castle and cast over her a terrible spell!

“Queen Suzi of the OPI! No longer shall you wade in the pool of prudent pigment! You must break free of these scarlet shackles and bask in the rainbow of life! I cast upon you the spell of TEMPORARY RED GREEN COLOUR BLINDNESS!”

Noticing no difference in her vision or her surroundings, Queen Suzi flicked her hair and a smirked. She believed that the Wizard of Consumer Demand’s threats were empty and his spell had failed.

“Silly Wizard of Consumer Demand,” she scoffed, waggling her nails at the wizard. “Why would anyone want anything other than shiny red nails?”

The Wizard nodded knowingly and stroked his beard, revealing his wicked ass Gunmetal tips (The Wizard of Consumer Demand also moonlights as the Wizard of Unintentionally Loud Death Metal That Is So Loud Because You Bumped The Volume Control On The Stereo). He winked and disappeared in a puff of psychedelic rainbow smoke that would make a stoner sitting on his porch implode from the complexity of what it might mean.

But seeing as the WOCD (that’s abbreviation, yo) was gone, Suzi shrugged and returned to her daily task of colour creation immediately. That is after a double soy skinny low caff orange mochachino, of course.

What you are about to see is the product of that day in the colour lab, deep in the bowels of the Crimson Castle…

THIS IS A TOTALLY TRUE STORY*

*This is not a true story

L to R: Electric Eel, Creme De Menthe, Jasper Jade, Rainforest, Real Teal

But seriously, folks (OK, not seriously). Four out of five of these shades (Sorry, Electric Eel) were my OPI holy grail. There are only three Greens missing from my “sell my grandma” to own* OPI List. Golf Course Green (dupe for Rainforest, BUT I DONT CARE I WANT IT), Yosemite (dupe for Real Teal, BUT I DONT CARE I WANT IT), and Tequila Limelight, which I did own, but had to sell when my financial sitch hit the skids earlier this year.

*It’s okay, my Grandmas are dead. I can’t really sell them.

Electric Eel is one of the most highly underrated OPI greens in my opinion. It doesn’t look like much in the bottle, but HOT DIGGITY, when you layer it over black, it jumps out at you and smacks you in the face with awesome. I think I have been searching for a nail polish this colour my whole life! Check out the awesome duochromey-ness. There needs to be a blue version of this!

Creme De Menthe is an absolute class act. This shade is from OPI’s much coveted X Collection (along with Rainforest and Real Teal below) and is a beautiful minty green with a subtle gold shimmer that just makes you sigh. It’s SO beautiful. If you ever see it anywhere, I gotta tell you it’s worth every penny you will pay for it. Whether you find it as a bargain, or splash out big on an auction. So worth it.

Rainforest is the benchmark for OPI HTF’s for most. It’s the first one you learn about as a nail n00b and it’s the easiest to spot once you learn how to “dusty hunt”. It is a vivid, in your face Emerald green that was so out of the norm for OPI back when it was released in 1989 that you gotta wonder if Suzi was on crack. Magical, wonderful, unicorn tear infused crack. I am surprised that we haven’t seen a colour very close to Rainforest pop up in a Christmas collection yet as it is a very festive colour. Rainforest is totally identical to Golf Course Green and Jaded, both also extremely HTF.

Jasper Jade is hit and miss with me. There are days when I look at it and think “You are one of the most beautiful greens I have ever seen”, but there are also times when I think it’s just another blackened green. Nevertheless, it’s still an awesome addition to my collection and a HTF green that I never thought I would get my grubby mitts on. Jasper Jade came from the Rocky Mountain collection in 1996.

And finally, Real Teal. Hot damn. My bottle of Real Teal was found on a dusty hunting extravaganza by the beautiful Emma. I had lusted after it for years and years and it’s one of those colours that never even pops up on eBay. Who knew that Em would find a bottle for both me and herself in Sydney! That kinda thing gives me hope that I will stumble across Yosemite (Real Teal dupe from the Australian Exclusive California collection) one of these days. I’m not giving up!

There seems to be a lot of panic surrounding older OPI’s and whether or not they are “fake”. Here’s my take on it. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Or a seagull that is an international super spy.

L to R: Electric Eel, Creme De Menthe, Jasper Jade, Rainforest, Real Teal

In my experience, fakes are easy to spot – provided you know enough about OPI colours to be able to pick out colours that aren’t right. Generally, those that sell fake OPI’s on eBay and at market stalls will have outrageous hex glitters and neons and stuff that OPI has never touched. They don’t go to the trouble of duping colours and there are usually small differences to the bottle shape or design anyway and they will be “missing” the name label. If they do have labels, it’s likely that they will all be called “Hawaiian Orchid” or something else equally ridiculous for a blue shade that you know isn’t true. Spotting a fake is not hard, it just takes common sense. Don’t worry about the lack of a pro-wide brush – they didn’t always have them. Or plain looking black labels without barcodes. If you peel off the top label on your OPI polishes, the plain labels are the ones underneath. Chances are if you come across a gorgeous looking teal with a skinny brush and a black label that says “Real Teal” it’s not a fake. BUY IT or I will disown you.

This is my fake OPI next to a real one. The differences are easy to spot. The colour is a shade that’s not even close to anything OPI has released, the bottle shape is off, the letter placement wrong… Not hard to pick at all. Some people say that you can also spot a fake OPI from the brush, but this is not true. You can see from this pic that the brush is a legitimate OPI Pro Wide. I even wiped it off to check for the lettering on the stem.

Spotting a fake really just comes down to knowing your product and experience. So rest easy ladies. If you’ve found an OPI that looks like treasure, I’d bet my butt that it is treasure. Kudos to you!