I was 11 years old when I had my very first polish lemming. My family was on one of the numerous trans-Atlantic flights we took every year and I was bored and flipping through the duty-free magazine. And there it was - a set of three Revlon Streetwears in a little metal box that snapped shut. I don't totally remember which polishes were in the little box - Gunmetal, Drab, and something else...It doesn't really matter because the one I was after was Gunmetal - a liquidy silver. (Flinty probably has at least three of them at this point!)
I remember telling my mother around that time that my favourite colour was grey. She told me to stop being such a morbid little kid and put down yellow or something less depressing as my favourite. Too bad Mom, it's still my fav! Despite her reservations, my mom bought me that little box of polish (probably just to shut me up and spare the other passengers) and I proceeded to apply it right on the plane! (I'm sure the other passengers loved that too...) Gunmetal was more sheer that you would expect it to me, but the result looked like molten metal on your fingertips (and since I was 11, I'm sure there was molten metal on my cuticles too...)!
Flash forward far too many years - my Gunmetal, like the rest of my preteen to teen polish collection, is gone. I still love polish, and I still love grey. Grey polish you say? I'm all in. When I caught sight of OPI Brand New Skates one day I knew I needed to have it and another lemming was born. When I finally got it (after a long, drawn-out series of being swaplifted, swaps that didn't work out, etc.) I laughed out loud - it reminded me so much of my first love Gunmetal! Like Gunmetal, it is quite sheer and requires many coats. It's not quite silver, but not quite grey - it just makes your nails look like a buffed piece of stone or metal. Unlike Gunmetal, Brand New Skates has a fabulous gold/green microglitter in it that just makes this polish so very special.
OPI Brand New Skates in the shade:
Side view in the sun:
Trying to show you the shimmer:
This polish is notoriously hard to capture on camera - it really is 10x more stunning in reality. It is odd to me, but the shimmer in Brand New Skates seems to be the exact same shimmer that is in another favourite polish of mine - Essie Tennis Corset. It is the same size and has the same green/gold flash. Maybe I'm just crazy.
The formula on this is easy to apply, but very sheer. This is about 3-4 coats. I often put it over another polish (like OPI Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees) but I wanted to show this to you in all its raw glory!
I really love this polish - it reminds me that no matter what happens, where I go, or how much older I get, I've always been myself - and that is a good thing.
What was your first polish? First lemming?? I love hearing people's life stories!
kittytokaren
