OPI Mustang 50th Anniversary Collection

There was never any doubt that I was going to buy the OPI Mustang collection when I saw it—I've lived in SE Michigan with its abundance of auto company headquarters and plants and suppliers pretty much my whole adult life, and Mr. Karen and I had a Mustang for years that I enjoyed zooming around in whenever it was my turn to drive it. Thus when I spotted the display at Ulta, I snapped up all six colors: The Sky's My Limit, Queen of the Road, 50 Years of Style, Angel with a Leadfoot, Girls Love Ponies, and Race Red. The overwrap on the handles is printed with the iconic pony logo, which I thought was a very nice detail.

I started my swatching journey with the black shimmer, Queen of the Road, and the hot pink creme, Girls Love Ponies. I did two coats of Queen of the Road on most of my digits, and three of Girls Love Power on my accent nail (it would have been two coats, but I dinged it before it was dry). I completed the look with racing strips of Queen of the Road on the accent nail, adding topcoat to finish things off.

In my lightbox and regular room light, the shimmer in Queen of the Road was pretty subtle. It came out a little more in direct light (below); I didn't have a chance to see it in the sun.

I paired up Race Red, the orange red cremes and Angel with a Leadfoot, the white creme next. My accent nail is three coats of Angel with a funky French tip of Race Red, and the rest of my nails are two coats of Race Red with white striping tape for that racy look. I also added topcoat to seal the tape down.

That left two colors, both shimmers: the turquoise The Sky's My Limit and the gold 50 Years of Style. I used two coats of each, no topcoat. The Sky's My Limit is a flecked shimmer with hints of gold in it, while 50 Years of Style is a more traditional finish, complete with some brushstrokes. 50 Years of Style would most likely benefit from sponging, like I did with Your Web or Mine from the OPI The Amazing Spider-Man collection back in the day, but it's wearable without going to that extent as long as you're careful when applying it so your brushstrokes all line up nicely.

I did a couple of quick comparisons with these. First, I was curious how the black would compare to the one from the recent Gwen Stefani collection, 4 In the Morning. I knew they weren't dupes, since 4 In the Morning was a satin finish, but I didn't let that stop me. I'm sure you can tell which is which below; Queen of the Road is the shiny one. Since the shimmer in these doesn't show in indirect light and I had no sun, you can't see how the shimmer in 4 In the Morning is more microglittery than that in Queen of the Road, which has some sparklies but also has some hints of frostiness.

I was really, really interested to see how The Sky's the Limit compared to Zoya Charla, the turquoise shimmer that launched what felt like a hundred dupes. In the bottle, I could see some strong similarities.

On the nail, they were more different than I expected; Charla is a lot greener, plus its shimmer has bigger particles. Top to bottom: Zoya, OPI, Zoya, OPI.

Whenever OPI does one of these tie-in collections, I always think about what colors I would have chosen if I'd been in charge, like when I wanted red, white, yellow, and black instead of all the pinks in Vintage Minnie Mouse. For this Mustang collection, I mostly agree with the choices. while it's not a popular car color, gold is a natural for celebrating 50 years, so I can see that. Red, white, and black are popular car colors, so those make sense, too. The turquoise is a stretch; it's a pretty polish, but I can't think of any Mustang I've ever seen that matches. I would have much rather they have done a multichrome to mimic the Mystichrome paint that Ford offered on the 2004 SVT. Sure, only about a 1000 of those were made, but man, they're gorgeous. (See some images here in this Google search.) But if I can't have a multichrome, I'm okay with this turquoise. It's the pink I really have a problem with. The pink is not a pretty shimmer like the turquoise; the pink is a plain old creme. If there had to be a pink to ensure that customers who only want to wear traditionally girly colors have something to buy, it should have been a shade that actually appeared on Mustangs. And yes, there were production Mustangs that came in pink; it hasn't happened since the early 70s, but this is an anniversary collection, a perfect reason to look back. None of those pinks were anywhere near as saturated and bright as the polish here. Of course I would have been delighted if the collection had included a match for the Canary Yellow of the Mustang I drove, but I can understand why that didn't make the cut; yellow nails are a hard sell. Any colors you would have liked to see in this collection?