OPI Nail Polish History & Collections

OPI Nail Polish logo

OPI is a professional nail polish brand that is popular across the globe for a variety of nail care and design products. The abbreviation OPI stands for Odontorium Products, Inc. Originally it was a dental supplier based in Los Angeles, CA. The company was purchased in 1981 by George Schaeffer, who refocused its direction to nail polish industry and abbreviated the name to OPI.

Schaeffer still remains the president of the company. A major part of OPI business is Suzi Weiss-Fischmann. She is the current Executive Vice President and Artistic Director. Her name is well known to many OPI nail polish funs because of the popular OPI polishes, such as “Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees”, “I’m Suzy & Im a Chocoholic”, “Suzi & the Lifeguard” etc.

OPI polishes are famous for their ProWide brush, designed for quicker and easier application, and for their “green” formula. OPI is Big 3 Free, which means that it doesn’t contain DBP (dibutyl phthalate), toluene, or formaldehyde.

All OPI nail polishes have great catchy names. “Barefoot in Barcelona” from OPI Spain collection, “What’s With the Cattitude?” designed for OPI’s Shrek Forever After collection, “Eiffel for this Colour” from France collection, “La Paz-itively Hot” created for South American collection of 2002, and so many more wonderful colors and names!

“Nails are the hottest new art form”

Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, Executive V.P. and Artistic Director of OPI

Every year OPI launches 4 seasonal collections: Spring, Summer, Fall and Holiday. Two of them are themed to a geographic location, e.g. Swiss or France collections. Fall and Holiday collections usually consist of 12 shades each, Spring and Summer are varied.

Additional OPI nail polish collections are spaced periodically throughout the year: annual SoftShades and Designer Series, as well as novel nail polish sets. OPI also does tie-in collections, such as OPI’s Pirates Of The Caribbean 2011 collection. Tie-in collections are usually smaller (4 or 6 colors) than the main seasonal or annual collections, e.g. Alice in Wonderland collection of Spring 2010 includes only 4 polishes.

OPI also has 2 more nail polish brands: Nicole by OPI (designed for younger consumers) and Sephora by OPI (exclusively in Sephora). The brand Pawlish by OPI (“color for nails for those with tails”) was designed for animals, but it was discontinued several years ago.