Chanel Quartz Swatch and Review

This is Chanel Quartz. I went crazy and bought all three of the Chanel polishes from the Fall 2011 collection, and wore all of them last summer. This was the most demure out of the three, IMO, but still very pretty. It's like a taupe-pewter color with small iridescent sparkle. My pics didn't effectively capture them, but they are definitely visible in the sunlight. I can't really think of similar colors to it (except the Jessica dupes), but I'm sure they're out there because it isn't particularly unique and neither are the other two Chanels anymore. I normally do not reach for these colors, but I like this one for the brand (I admit I'm a polish snob!) and the tiny sparkles that twinkle in the sun!

The Changing to Autumn - Chanel Peridot

Here's the haiku I wrote for this wonderfully mysterious duochrome:

The changing of leaves

Beautiful change to autumn

Chanel Peridot

I present to you Chanel Peridot (ETA: found camera, took new pics! This beaute is soooo photogenic). This color is a chameleon, gold with green around the edges , then green with gold edges, then lean it closer to the light source and it turns into a wonderful teal duochrome. I must admit I'm not as much of a duochrome lover as I am a holo or flakies lover because I generally wear cremes more often than shimmery/brushstrokey colors, and this falls under the "slightly brushstrokey" category.

I changed my mani on Wednesday because I Graphite dulled a bit and had some tipwear that I just couldn't stand looking at anymore. So I picked the next Chanel baby I ordered and voila! Insta magical duochrome. I saw a bush that resembed it, burnt goldish yellow down the middle and green on the sides, and it instantly reminded me of this color. It's a really beautiful color with flashes of pink sometimes as well, but the wear time is the only thing bugging me! Chanels generally get good wear time for me, especially if it's a color like Mimosa/Morning Rose/Mistral, those colors that take 3-4 coats to become completely opaque. Those lasts for 1 week + for me, no chipping. After a few days Graphite chipped off a little, but not to the point that required me to completely redo my mani.

Now...onto the PIC SPAM!!!!

There are a few little chips in my Peridot mani and some tipwear, but that's pretty good for a duochrome that feels like an Nfu-Oh holo (the original formula, thin and prone to chipping). All in all, it's a pretty darn good duochrome and a pretty cool color. I wish the sun had been out whe I snapped the pics. This is what summer in July looks like in the Bay Area

Oh, the dreariness of it all. It's not right to wear winter clothes in summertime!

Chanel Mesmerizing Me - Chanel Graphite

Ok, I LOVE Chanel. I ordered all three of the Fall 2011 Chanel colors because I'm weak. The makeup theme of minerals is really hitting it big now, with MAC Semi-Precious and Chanel, and I'm not immune! When I first opened Chanel Graphite, I was astounded. Of course I'd seen Polish Police's to die for swatches, and Temptalia's, and then late night shopping on nordstroms.com made me frantic about getting them, and the anticipation built. And then I opened the polish. And then I gasped aloud, because I was not expecting something so special since I had already seen pictures of it.

I held the bottle in different lights. I thought, it looks so much like Chanel Kaleidoscope! But wait! It's not silver, it's gold! Nope, there's green too! Silver and gold and a tinge of green! It's a chameleon polish, with a foily finish, but not really, because the foil particles aren't as refined as Kaleidoscope's. It's "grainy", as if the foil had been condensed into smaller particles that feel like glitter almost but isn't as hard to take off. I've had a few other polishes that have a similar finish, but their names elude me as I'm staring hard into my lovely Chanel manicure. It makes me forget about reality for a moment as I'm blinded by the beauty of it.

Random posts - Chanel Ciel de Nuit, Sephora by OPI Havana Dreams & Deborah Lippmann Today was a Fairytale

Took some pictures of some gorgeous manis I wore recently and just wanted to post them:

I loved this manicure! It was three coats of Sephora by OPI Havana Dreams - which is a supposed dupe of Chanel Riva. I'm way too broke to be getting $27 nail polish, especially when I have a very similar color. After a few days I topped off the manicure with Lippmann Today Was a Fairytale. I loved it! I tried to make it a gradient. It looked like a manicure a mermaid would wear lol. Since TWaF has a very light greyish-blue jelly base, I had to be super careful to not cover all of HD's color. Need to try this with Boom Boom Pow and a probably OPI Time-less is More (inspired by Reese Witherspoon's dress from an awards show a few years ago).

Chanel Ciel de Nuit - yup, the HTF one that I got on ebay for about $50 - I got really lucky! In case you were wonder, the bottle I'm holding is OPI Creme de Menthe (which I have sold sadly, because I just don't give it enough love and it cost me a pretty penny on ebay). The gorgeous little glitter sparkles in the Chanel just don't show through in the picture :( It's a subtle but still noticeably pretty effect indoors.

I never realized how to take good nail polish pictures until I figured out that using the "outdoors" mode with flash on my crappy camera makes taking pictures indoors less of a PITA! That's why the pics are so clear! I probably won't post that often (like I have been doing now), but if I have some awesome manis I will definitely post pics of those!