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Dani Stahl’s column in Nylon magazine, Factory Girl, requires her to travel around the world visiting clothing and product factories. It’s always a fun read, and it’s nice to learn about the processes behind a lot of popular brands. This month, she visited the OPI nail polish factory in Los Angeles, and I never realized how little I knew about one of beauty’s best brands.
- There 160 active OPI shades at any given time. Colors are retired every year (like crayons!) so that new ones can be unveiled.
- OPI stands for Odontorium Products Inc. In case “odontorium” wasn’t on your vocabulary list last week, that means the company made dental equipment.
- Some of the same materials used in dentistry doubled as materials for acrylic nails. OPI realized there was a different market for their products and created a mix of liquid, powder, and primer that eventually became the OPI Traditional Acrylic System.
- The company makes 55 million bottles of nail polish a year.
- One of their most popular shades of all time is called Glitzerland. It’s a sparkly bronze color.
Okay, I went to get a mani/pedi a little before Xmas and I wanted one of those glittery nail polishes, but my salon didn’t have any of them (I called ahead). I was a little upset and had planned to drive about 20 minutes past the salon to buy one of them at Ulta and then go back for my appointment. However, work ran late and I didn’t have time to go buy the polish I was really hoping for, so I went to get my nails did anyway. I found Glitzerland! What a great color! It looks so clean and goes really well with my pale winter skin. I absolutely love it.
That sucks that they retire colors every year. Do they have a permanent collection? This is why I never buy limited edition anything. What if you fall in love with a color and then, poof, it’s gone?