Sephora by OPI Beauty Insider Exclusive: Dark Room

The minute I saw this on Sephora's website, my heart skipped a beat. Dark green. Dark, lush, foresty, creamy green. It had to be mine. I eagerly anticipated the arrival of Dark Room and when UPS delivered the package I ripped it open right there in the doorway!

Sephora by OPI Dark Room. Three coats over Qtica base with Nubar Diamont topcoat. Taken after 12 hours of wear.

Alas, it was not meant to be. That rich, leafy blackened green that I saw on the website didn't exist. Instead, I got this murky blackened teal. Boo.

I really had my hopes up with this polish. I thought it would be... well... green? This is way too blue for me to really call it green. Blue green, maybe. Teal, okay. But this is not forest green, this is not emerald green, and it certainly doesn't look like the promo pics.

Then I thought, well, maybe it will grow on me! So I left it on overnight. By the next morning I couldn't wait to take it off. It has that same almost-black quality that I hated about OPI Light My Sapphire. It's too black to be blue and it's too blue to be black... It's an 'almost' color.

Aside from the color disappointment, the formula left me disappointed as well. First of all, it was kinda sheer. That doesn't bother me, really, but I know it bothers some people so it's worth mentioning. I did three coats to make it even. It's that same base of green speckles that Zoya Envy and OPI Here Today Aragon Tomorrow have, just more watery and less dense. The polish texture gave me trouble- very watery and runny. I wasn't expecting it as the Sephora by OPI polishes are normally very thick. Drying time was average, not terribly long but not super fast either. As for these being the same formula as OPI... they aren't! I don't care what anyone says, these don't resemble the formula of any OPI I've ever used, and if you've read this website for any amount of time, you'll know that's a ridiculously high number.

Bah... maybe next time. Maybe someone else will release the perfect Zulu-esque rich, saturated dark grass green I've been looking for.

But, if you like those 'Almost black but not quite' type of colors, you might love this! This one has that stylish "murky" muddy look that's been really popular the past couple years. It's not a crisp, clean type of color.

This is available both in store and on Sephora.com and it retails for $9. It says it's a Beauty Insider exclusive, so you might have to request it... I'm not sure how it works in store, but online you have to be signed in to add it to your cart.