So, I’ve always had a problem. I’ve never been able to actually finish a full bottle of nail polish. Something always happens before the bottle is emptied with a swipe of the brush:

I get tired of the color,

I lose the bottle,

The bottle dries out or the texture changes and thickens,

I try the formula and just don’t like the color, texture or formula and don’t want to use the rest….

For whatever of many reasons that might exist, there was another one. I like OPI polishes, but full sized bottles are very much counterfeited and sold online as well. Now, I don’t like counterfeit products…especially counterfeit/fake beauty products. My solution to not being able to finish full sized bottles of polish and for avoiding bottles of fake OPI, was that I was going to indulge in mini bottles! They are cheaper so I can indulge in more colors, and I’m more apt to use them up. So, O.P.I. makes one-eighth fluid ounce bottles of many of their most popular lacquers, and often also limited edition 4-packs of their seasonal collections. I, for instance, recently purchase their “Best of the Best,” “Muppets,” “‘Ger-minis,’ and “Touring America,” packs of minis. Love them! They are the perfect price, and I can indulge an ADD-attention span of colors for minimal investment.

Then one day on eBay, I spotted a really good deal. Ten mini bottles for an amazing price, I clicked and bought. A week, one eBay dispute, and refund later, I can now put up a full review on how to identify fake mini O.P.I. nail polishes.

When I looked at the eBay polishes, they didn’t look right. Then I compared them to my real O.P.I. bottles, purchased from ULTA, Marshalls, and other major retailers. I then went online and realized the only how to spot a counterfeit OPI tutorial were about full-sized bottles. This tutorial based on the 30 mini bottles I’ve collected, and is going to fully explain the process for spotting fake minis.

First, a quick comparison: One is a fake, and the other is a mini bottle of Alpine Snow from the “Best of the Best” collection. The two bottles are clearly different when placed side-by-side, but one without the other, and few people would recognize the fake. So here are a few categories of features to notice:

Font thickness Content and formatting of the written text Symbols and formatting of symbols Texture and Prominence of the handle (Underside) bottle texture and OPI color number

Font Thickness & Content and Formatting of Text

Take a look at the bottles of red polish above. The real bottle (Right, labeled ‘R’) is Big Apple Red. Real bottles always have:

“Nagellack” is on a separate line, below the “Vernis à Ongles • Esmalte de Uñas.” Fakes may or may not have “Nagellack” on the second line. If “Negellack” is not on a second line, then it is a fake, but just because it’s on the second line, does not mean it’s real. (see pink ovals in picture).

“3.75mL” before the “1/8 Fl.Oz.” (see green rectangles in picture).

The “L” in “mL” is capitalized.

The “F” and “O” in “Fl. Oz.” are capitalized with periods after each abbreviation.

No “℮” at the end of the volume measures. (the “℮” represents ‘estimate’). The “℮” exists on full-sized bottles, but not the minis. (see blue circles in picture).

And over all, the font thickness is greater on real bottles than on fake bottles.

Symbols and Formatting of Symbols

Take a look at the blue and purple bottles of polish above. The real bottles (labeled ‘Rs’) from left to right are: Unforgretably Blue from the Germinis collection and Into the Night from the Spiderman collection. Real bottles always have:

Symbols that take up about 1/3 of the print space on the back of the bottle. The fakes have much smaller symbols.

The Recycle symbol is larger than the rest of the symbols, and is about 1/4″ in diameter. (see green hexagons in picture)

Symbols in the order of : Recycle, Flammable, Instructions, and Expiration. Fakes might have all four symbols in the correct order, but most either have only three symbols (like on the full-sized bottle), or the symbols are in the wrong order. (see pink rectangle in picture).

The expiration date should be 24 months (“24M”) not “36M” or 36 months. (see pink circles in picture).

Like the printing on the front, the font should be thick and dark, but clean. (see white rectangles in picture).

The printing should start 1/16″ of and inch from the rim. This is higher, closer to the rim than on fake bottles. (see white dotted line in picture).

Texture and Prominence Handle

Look again at the blue and purple bottles in the picture above. Notice how the tops of the handle are different. Real bottles:

Have a very prominent OPI raised up from the top of the handle. From a side profile, the OPI noticable rises up from the head of the handle. Notice how the first and third bottles (from left to right) have what looks like nubbin’s sticking out from the tops of the bottles – those nubbin’s are the raised OPI letters. They should stand out.

The handle has a rougher texture on real bottles. Fake bottles are smoother, though still textured. You would not be able to tell the difference unless you had two bottles side by side.

(Underside) Bottle Texture & OPI Color Number

When you look on the bottom of mini bottles, a few things are different between reals and fakes. Real bottles:

ALWAYS have two lines of stamped-on text. The first line is an OPI color number you can use to look up the color of the lacquer you have. In the case of Alpine Snow, above, the OPI number is “NLL00.” All bottles of Alpine Snow, mini or full, will have this number on it. The second line is a serial number unique to that bottle. I have two minis of Alpine Snow – one from Best of the Best, and the other was called “Mummy Knows Best” from the 2011 Spookettes collection. I knew they were both Alpine Snow because they both had “NLL00” on the bottom. Though the one in the picture has a serial number of 11172, the Spookettes one had 11312. Fake bottles may have one line stamped on the bottom (see red polishes below).

Always have softer, less prominent ridges on the base rim of the bottle. Notice how the fake bottle’s ridges are more frequent, tightly spaced, and stand out more? Real OPIs have smoother, seemingly almost flat, ridges that are spaced with about an 1/16″ gap between ridges. (see ovals in white polish picture, above).

So, here’s you final quiz. Below is the first picture that you saw – the white minis. One is fake and one is real. Can you tell the difference now? Which is which? The answer and explanations are below!. Good luck, and let me know what you’ve seen!

Keep scrolling for the answer…..

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don’t cheat……..

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Okay, here it is! The fake is on the right!

