Now that all of my Halloween manicures are finished, I can finally start showing some of my holiday polishes! I still am backed up with a couple other swatches though, so my nail shape might be different from picture to picture.  I took this picture about 2 weeks ago and was itching to post it sooner but I had that Halloween nail art challenge and wanted to try to finish that before I featured this one! And go figure, I didn’t even completely finish that Halloween challenge … who does an entire challenge and then can’t find the time to post the last manicure!? This girl right here.  Anyways, the second that I saw swatches of this polish on OPI’s facebook page I knew I had to have it, even if the price tag hurt my wallet.

OPI “Man With The Golden Gun” 18k Gold Top Coat is basically gold leaf suspended in a clear base.  It is absolutely gorgeous!! I was a little scared that it would turn out to be really similar to Essie “As Gold as it Gets”, which you can see here!  It doesn’t look anything like As Gold as it Gets, which is much more finely milled.  This polish is so much more prominent and really looks luxurious! The formula on this wasn’t anything to really report about.  I used 1 thick coat over OPI “Mrs. O’Leary’s BBQ” and this is the result.  I love how it looks over this deep reddish brown, and now have so many ideas for laying combos floating around in my head!

Dry time is normal and it dries very smooth.  The only thing I did notice is that if you mess with the polish or do too many strokes, the gold pieces start to break apart. You can kind of see the evidence of that on my ring finger.  I couldn’t get the pieces where I wanted them to sit so I kept running the brush over my finger.  It made all the big pieces fall apart and give it a much finer effect.  That can be good or bad depending on how you want your manicure to look.  For me, that makes me a little nervous.  I love the look but I’m now a little scared that if I shake the bottle too much or if I don’t get the placement right on the first few strokes that I’ll get mini-gold flakes on my nails.  Other than that little hiccup, I’m in love! definitely money well spent in my eyes because this is stunning and I got so many compliments while wearing this for a few days (and its my most liked picture on instagram!)

What do you guys think? Do any of you have this or the others (Essie, Sephora by OPI, Jessica, etc)? What layering combos would you suggest?