Mystery, SOLVED....I think.

If you read my previous post about the blue nail polish, you probably sensed my hatred/confusion about the OPI "pro-wide" brush. Confusion because some colors have the obnoxious brush, some didn't. Some were marked with the little plastic wrapper around the handle advertising the "new" brush, some didn't (the unmarked ones STILL had the craptacular brush). Well, that's because those with the wrapper were older and released when the brush was brand new. Now, they've apparently switched over completely to this wide brush, so no plastic advertisments necessary. HOWEVER, I was noticing that a lot of my brand new OPI colors have kind of a "medium" flatter brush. A brush that I liked. More confusion. I did some comparing and have found that some that were released when the "pro-wide" brush was newer (released longer ago) have the huge, obnoxious, flared-out, flat brush. While some of my newer ones have a wider brush that is not bad to work with. I think they did switch all their newer polishes to the wide brush, but it's not as wide as the first...make sense?? I hope so! I'm confusing myself! Basically, I'm saying that I *think* they improved upon an obvious design flaw. ...at least it was horribly flawed to me!

Anyway, I took some pictures to compare what I believe was a design flaw of some of the initial wide brushes.

(l-r) Sweet Heart (Regular brush), Banana Bandana (new GOOD wide brush), Yoga-Ta Get this Blue (CRAPPY, flared out, thick, wide brush)
*p.s. Sweet Heart is a super crappy color and I would not recommend that ANYONE get it...haha It's very sheer and streaky
I first attributed it to maybe being the blue shade's formula, but even when completely dry of nail polish, it flares and is almost thicker at the end. It seems that the newer ones (the yellow) are made of a stiffer brush material and keep their shape, not flaring out and getting thick on the end. I've found this to be the case with several other OPI shades I own as well. Frosts, creams...several formulas I own that are newer have this better brush. Same with the old one. So I don't think it's the formula. It seems that the newer shades' wide brushes have been perfected. Thank goodness! I love their colors! I didn't want to have the fear of blindly purchasing another bad one. Maybe this is wrong, but now, I like to open the nail polish and peek at the brush. If it's HUGE at the tip and looks like it's filling with too much polish and "flaring" out, then put that sucker back! At least that's what I'm going to do...

Another look...

It's honestly tough to tell how much it flares in these pics. I guess it's a subtle difference, but it's enough to make a mess of my nails and to me, is a huge difference when I look at the actual results they give.
I'm not saying that this is FOR SURE what happened (that OPI improved a crappy design), but that seems to be the case from all of my 30-something shades I own of OPI... I just had to do my own little experiment! :)