Beauty: Muska's Mandatory Must-Haves
Muska is the Melbourne Correspondent for Goldrush Magazine and he has a background in Science and Design. He is also a specialist in cutting edge makeup application for runway and special effects having worked as a senior consultant at MAC Cosmetics. As our Melbourne correspondent, Muska’s beauty and style tips are must-reads. In this issue, Muska muses on the history of O.P.I. and how the legendary nail brand has shot to fame to become the industry leader. He also covers must-try cosmetics and how to get the best out of each product.
The Legend of OPI
Strong in colour and quick to dry, OPI Nail Lacquer is the one to beat. You can select a shade from a terracotta warrior army of over two-hundred options in every colour you could ever possibly need in one lifetime, in cream or frost finishes. The precision brush will leave you with Hollywood nails every time and the varnish has staying power. OPI is the cosmetic genius of the company’s founding CEO/President George Schaeffer, who migrated from Eastern Europe to the U.S. after World War II. Schaeffer created OPI as a family company back in 1981 and the holy grail of nails known as OPI has remained a family-owned enterprise to this day.
Funnily enough, Schaeffer and his sister-in-law Suzi Weiss-Fischmann had initially purchased a small dental-supply company (as one DOES, really) which provided various goods for dentists. What the Schaeffers tuned in to was the fact that many nail-technicians were also popping in to the dental-supply store (originally known by the name,“Odontorium Products Inc.”) to purchase acrylic porcelains (normally used by dentists to create false teeth) for creating acrylic nails for ladies in amour of a long-taloned mani. Schaeffer and Weiss-Fischmann wisely developed this golden
opportunity into the
nail-empire known today as “OPI.” Importantly, no OPI products are ever tested on animals and the brand is clearly a charity-heavyweight (with the Schaeffer Family Foundation offering, for example, a cool USD $350, 000 to the Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina.) The OPI company also gets props for the names bestowed upon its new nail-colour selections. We at Goldrush are fans of “OPI Ink,” “Dating a Royal,” “Yodel me on my Cell,” “My Address is Hollywood,” and “I Brake for Manicures" plus, (below), "Fly."
Exploding the myth that colour-names need be boring, OPI taps directly into the minds of its exponentially expanding fan-base and wields the nail shades and their names as formidable marketing tools. The result? A rainmaker of a company which was snapped up by cosmetics giant Coty in 2010 for an undisclosed figure. Having become something of a phenomenon in terms of sales means that OPI brand can obviously afford to set up insanely strong campaigns. A newer option allows OPI fans to input their (simulated) skin-tones and nail-lengths online alongside new shade-samples, so as to check whether or not “Diva of Geneva” is indeed TOO purple for your complexion as compared with, say, “Flashbulb Fuchsia.” Happy browsing! Muska. (Copyright: GoldrushMagazine)