Ahhh Brazil...
To me
Brazil is synonymous with Carnival, Samba and Carmen Miranda...
This Friday
starts the Rio Carnival, last bits of celebration before Lent the 40 days
period which precedes Easter. This grand street party can be quite wild for
some and so must be very different these days than when it started back in
1823.
Photo credit: That The Bones You Have Crushed...
Before
writing this entry I knew nothing about the Rio Carnival and so I read bits
about it here and there on the web. Like everybody else I had seen images of
people dancing next and on top of lavishly decorated floats in what appeared to
be a wild party atmosphere. What I’ve learnt is that it’s all about the Samba
which seems to have originated in Bahia, Brazil, with roots in Rio de Janeiro
and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions.
Samba is most frequently identified as a musical expression of urban Rio de
Janeiro where it was developed between the 19th and 20th
century.
The Rio
Carnival is a big party but it’s also a Samba competition. The carnival parade
is for samba schools to compete against rival samba schools. Each chooses a
theme they try to portray in their performances, floats, costumes, some pretty amazing artistic makeups and of
course, music. There can be as much as 4000 participants/revelers per school.* Now talk about a party!
O.P.I
Spring/Summer 2014 collection, Brazil...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkRZZD11WwE&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLQJUg0LNqNatSIO-M1qlMsj5umZBR5-ET
Twelve new
colors inspired by the largest South American country have hit the shelves
about two weeks ago. I hadn’t planned on getting any but hey, why not?
The Thrill
Of Brazil...
I decided
to go for the beautiful bright red in the collection but ended up being
duped!!!
I purchased
The Thrill Of Brazil thinking it was color from the new collection only
to find out once home that it had been originally released in 2002 as part of the
South American Collection. It now has its place in O.P.I’s regular line up. Even more annoying is that
there was a swatch of it on the store's color wheel along with those of the new offerings.
Still, even
if this is not a new shade it does come up as a pretty perfect dupe of Red Hot
Rio which is likely the reason it was on the same display. A co-worker was
wearing the gel version of it this week and our two hands side by side,
truly looked identical. When two colors are that close it really makes me
wonder about some limited edition collections out there and I don’t know if
you’ve ever noticed but O.P.I has pretty extensive selection of reds similar to
this one. I guess it's getting a little hard to develop new ones.
The
formula...
Slightly on the thin
side but if you lick the extra on the the neck of the bottle it goes on easily and I had no
pooling. This one could actually be a one coater but I preferred to go with two
for durability. Drying time was pretty quick so that was nice. I’d say I was
able to use my hands 30 minutes after applying the second coat.
I applied
it on Sunday morning and early in the afternoon did some cooking where I
prepared three dishes for the upcoming week. After about an hour I could see
that I was starting to get some tip wear so this one definitely needs a top
coat just like most O.P.I cream nail polishes I own.
I removed it on Friday nights and by then it didn't look that good. I must admit that I didn't reapply my top coat mid week. Longevity is not as good as some higher end formulas I own but for the price this is a good quality nail polish. Just note that if you have soft nails you may end up with chips on the second day, especially if you don't wear a top coat over it. Staining may also be an issue so a base coat may have its place here if it's something that annoys you. I don't mind much since I'll be going for another medium dark color right after.
I don’t
wear reds that often, in fact up until now I only owned one from Essie (Twin Sweater Set reviewed, here) released last fall and
the reason I decided to get O.P.I’s was because I thought it would be a little
brighter, which it is but since I’m not a red aficionado I could have lived
without it. I find them pretty much interchangeable.
I tried to
take pictures of it I really tried and every time the color came out almost
tomato red which it’s not. It’s much cooler thus more wearable in my opinion
for this time of year. Even the swatches I’ve seen on other blogs all appear
warmer than it is. On the pictures above, natural light on the left is the closest I could get to the actual color. You can get an idea of what I mean on the right with indoor lighting about the tomato effect.
Who knew
red could be so hard to photograph?
Here next to one another Essie Twin Sweater Set does appear much darker but in real life it's not that evident.
So this
took care of The Thrill Of Brazil, the carnival and samba portion but who the
heck was Carmen Miranda?
A popular
Brazilian actress from the 1930s/1950s. She was Hollywood’s generic kind of
stereotypical “Latinness” who was a sort of mixture of Brazilian, Mexican,
Portuguese, Cuban and Argentinean styles. Flamboyant, she would wear over the top
colorful costumes, crazy fruit loaded head pieces and platform shoes high
enough to make Lady Gaga jealous! You can learn more about her, here.
I do
believe she would have loved O.P.I’s Red Hot In Brazil!
If you love red you might want to check out The Thrill Of Brazil or Red Hot In Rio and who knows, they just might inspire you to take samba lessons! :)
How do you feel about red nail polish? Go or no go?
*To learn more about Samba schools and the carnival in general there's this very informative website you can visit, Rio Carnival but be warned, it's slow and a bit of a pain to navigate.
