I believe that I have mentioned on here before that you need to be careful and selective about where you are purchasing your beauty products from. Professional or Salon quality hair care products are the major no-no when it comes to purchasing them at the drugstore. Many of these places are not authorized to sell these items. If you read many of the bottles, the bottles actually say that the product can only be guaranteed when sold in salons or that the item is only to be sold in salons. There is already a ton of information on there about diversion and these issues, but I thought I would share one with you today that might not be as easy to recognize.
Target is not authorized to sell OPI nail polish. I so badly wish I had a picture that I took on my phone years ago of some OPI that I found on day on Target. There was a warning label on it straight up warning you that it might not be real OPI. But on a recent Target trip, I found another blatant example like this. Sitting on an end cap was a display of OPI nail polishes and I spotted a gorgeous, kelly green polish that I did not recognize. I picked it up because I was curious as to which polish it was and when the polish came out. As soon as I flipped the polish over, I knew something fishy was going on.
Despite the fact that I recognized the name of this polish and knew what that actual polish looked like, it was beyond obvious that this was not the real label on the bottom. It was a printed off label that was very badly cut out and did not even totally cover the original label. It was not very hard at all to peel the label up and see what they were covering up. The sketchy label said that this polish was Fresh Frog of Bel-Air. I knew that this polish came out in the Muppet’s collection that came out in 2011. This is one of my favorite collections OPI was ever come out with and I have close to half of the collection. I also knew that this polish was a pure glitter polish and definitely not a cream like the polish in this bottle. After peeling the label up, I discovered a label that said “Forrest My Case.” This is a polish that I am totally unfamiliar with. Despite quite a bit of research, I cannot find out when this polish originally came out but I have seen posts with it from 2012. If you are a nail polish junkie like me and have more information on this polish, please enlighten me!
Despite my curiosity, I definitely did not take this polish home with me. Please beware when you are purchasing these type of beauty items. You never know what you might actually be purchasing. For me, an avid OPI fan, I was able to recognize quite a few warning signs, such as the name and fake label. One tip off when it comes to older OPI labels that is visible when you compare the labels is that the writing on real OPI labels is actually a dark green color and not black. Also notice that places like Target tend to sell older and discontinued polishes. Have you come across any really obvious cases like this?
Corissa's Corner 