spring 2025 – GINGERLY POLISHED

Yes, we’re DEEP into summer, we’re already seeing Fall collections, but I’m talking about spring, okay!! Sometimes you have off years! I should be smart and blame it on my upcoming wedding and honeymoon, like “yes that’s clearly why I’m too busy to keep up with consistent posting”. Never mind that we’ve had everything booked out for said wedding for almost 2 years, and I’m feeling comfortable with any last tasks coming up, no, THAT’S clearly still taking up ALL of my time, yes, yes that’s it.

Sorry, we have to pause again and let me have my existential moment where I think about how I started this blog the summer before my senior year of college, and now here I am at 30 years old, 2 weeks out from being married. I’ve enjoyed taking you along for every part of my life journey.

ENOUGH EXISTENTIALISM. Let’s talk about polish, that’s what you want. And yes, even with summer and fall collections sitting on my memory card and breathing down my neck, the title is not fooling you, I’m going to finish posting about spring first. I’ve posted about every seasonal OPI collection since 2017 and I won’t be breaking the order now, it’s about the principal. I have all these shades swatched up, so it’s better late than never.

So here we go, we’re pretending like I posted this months ago when I first swatched up these shades. I say to you “Today, we’re looking at the other half of OPI’s Spring release, called ‘OPI’m Dreaming’. As I’ve mentioned in posts about the collections of 2024, OPI seems to be in this trend of releasing both a regular nail lacquer line as well as a matching Infinite Shine collection for reach season. That Infinite Shine release spans from 9-12 polishes, so combined with the regular lacquer shades, we’ve been regularly getting 21-24 polishes per quarter. They just like to keep me busy. Today’s post is about the Infinite Shine polishes, but if you want the regular lacquer swatches, you can read my thoughts here: Regular Lacquer collection

OPI has described this half as 12 soft shimmery pastels, and I find that pretty accurate overall, you know, good work OPI on describing your own product. There are a few brighter pops of color throughout, but overall these colors will run lighter in pigment.

OPI thinks of their Infinite Shine line as the “next step up” from the regular lacquer formula, as indicated by its higher price. But it’s still just regular lacquer – not gel – and comes in the bottles with the silver metallic caps. OPI says it’s a longer lasting nail polish formula that “delivers up to 11 days of gel-like wear”. Again, not gel, no need to cure with a lamp. (For reference, any actual gel polish will be within an opaque bottle as it cures through UV light. Sunlight would mess with the formula. Anything within a clear bottle is absolutely not a gel formula). With my constant rate of swatching, I’m never keeping one shade on long enough so I can never speak to any sort of longevity claims from any polish brand.

But I will say, I often don’t notice really any huge difference in application between the lacquer and the Infinite Shine shades. Maaayyybe the Infinite Shine applies shinier, but I really think it’ll depend on the specific shade and finish. I would be applying a top coat for a full manicure anyways, so again that’s not swaying me. I always review both sets of shades now because they do feature different colors and finishes. It’s always about showing you what each color looks like and how it applies on my own nails and from there you can decide with your own preferences and budget. The whole ‘I tried it so you don’t have to’ idea.

We’re a few months and collections out from release, but you can still find these specific shades on the Beyond Polish website, along with plenty of other brands. If you do go ahead and purchase from Beyond Polish you can use code GingerlyPolished for 10% off individual items. It is affiliated so I would earn a tiny little commission – so I understand if you’re not comfortable using it. I fully support Beyond Polish and purchase from them myself, and I just want to get you some discounts! You can also find these shades on Polish Pick – another site I shop from constantly, I’ll only ever advertise places I’ve used and fully trust.

Now, let’s get on into these swatches!

Well hello there buddy (does anyone else watch Old Time Hawkey on Tiktok, no I’m not getting distracted in the first sentence). Yes, we have had another little pause here in posting, but I’m back and feeling better than ever. See, what has kept my brain absolutely occupied for the past few weeks was an absolute MASSIVE destash of my nail polish collection. The first TRUE big destash of my entire collection in my 9 years of blogging. That’s correct, instead of making it easy on myself and continually moving polish in and out, I instead waited until it was taking over every facet of the bedroom and then paused every other ongoing project in my life and tackled this. Yes, it’s obviously a great strategy.

But I did it! And I managed to destash half of my collection (it’s a very large number that I’m embarrassed to say but it’s a LOT). So okay yes, there are still boxes in front of my closet, but they’re now filled with polishes just waiting to go to a new home. If you’re at all interested (and are in the US, I’m so sorry international friends, shipping is just too hard and risky) definitely check out my destash page at @GingerlyPolishDestash, or my big ass Google doc to see all of the polishes I have available. I was practically frothing at this opportunity to create another spreadsheet.

But with it, my desk is starting to become visible and usable again, instead of every square inch being covered, with me sliding polishes around to create the tiniest little space to swatch. It’s now only filled with untried polishes, and the goal of eventually cleaning it off and having a fully open surface again has me extra motivated to swatch. (That and me getting way too into bullet journal videos and now organizing my every movement into 3 different notebooks. I’m already taking far too long to start so I won’t get too into it, but inside of those notebooks I’ve set myself up on a strict content calendar, and I hope soon you can see the results).

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So enough yapping (jokes on you, I’ll never stop yapping at the beginning of my posts), and let’s get on it, starting with a new OPI review. If you’ve at all been a consistent reader, you’ve heard me say that it’s never a new polish season until I swatch up an OPI collection. And this sweet little OPI spring collection has just been waiting for its moment to shine, and is just perfect for a “new beginning”.

Let’s look at OPI SPRING. I know the season itself is well underway, but we’re catching up here!! We have to swatch spring before we can even think about summer! So yes, this is the OPI ‘OPI’m Dreaming’ collection for Spring 2025. For this seasonal release, we’re once again getting both regular lacquer and Infinite Shine shades – a trend OPI has been on since fall of last year. We have 12 regular lacquer shades and then 12 Infinite Shine shades – so 24 shades to kick off spring (OPI is here to make me WORK in each new collection). In this current post we’ll be looking at the regular lacquer shades, and later on you’ll get the matching Infinite Shine post.

OPI describes these shades as “a collection of buildable shimmery sheer pastels that’ll nail your wildest dreamzZz from head to toe”. Z’s aside, I found that to be a very accurate summary. We truly do have 12 sheer pastels full of dense shimmer. But don’t let “sheer pastels” make you click off just yet because these formulas did pleasantly surprise me. Unless you’re looking for bold, full colors, then yes you can scamper off. This is a specific look and vibe that we have going on with all of these shades, and if you love that look, you’ll be in heaven here.

I always love picking up my OPI shades from either PolishPick or BeyondPolish, both of which I’ve shopped from for years. (If shopping from Beyond Polish you can use code GingerlyPolished for 10% off individual items. It’s an affiliate code, so I would earn a little kickback with each sales – never any pressure to use it! I just want to pass along some savings).

So whew, we’re finally getting on into the swatching! (and blogging again!)

GINGERLY POLISHED

Tag: spring 2025

OPI Infinite Shine ‘OPI’m Dreaming’ Spring 2025 Collection – Swatches & Review

OPI ‘OPI’m Dreaming’ Spring 2025 Collection – Swatches & Review