Chanel Frisson — Swatches & Review

I was in NYC when the Roses Ultimes de Chanel collection launched. It consists of four nail polishes and six Glossimers. I went to the SoHo Chanel to check them out, and of the polishes I was only really drawn to the delicate, girly light pink #543 Frisson. It's semi-sheer, milky and contains little golden and multicolored flecks of sparkle. Frisson might seem a little boring to us nail fanatics now accustomed to wild colors, but I've fallen totally in love with it. This is even the first time I've thought I might want to purchase a backup bottle of polish!

Contrary to what some reviewers experienced, I found this shade to be an absolute dream to apply. For me, this is extremely easy to just swipe on. This manicure is with two coats. I had no trouble with streaking or any other texture issues. Yes, this color is a little sheer and you will still see the whites of your nails underneath after only two coats. However, this doesn't bother me at all for some reason. I think it looks lovely.

Bottle shot in direct sunlight:

Here you can see the gold sparkles:

I also picked up "Jalousie", the vibrant fuchsia Glossimer from this collection. Soon I'll have a review up!

Chanel May — Swatch & Review

Wow, all of February escaped without a single blog post! I wish I'd posted more, but my new circumstances have prevented me. I'll tell you all about it at the end of this post!

So I've noticed that I don't really have all that many pinks in my stash, which is part of why I decided to get Chanel Le Vernis in May #535. This is of course one of the trio of nail polishes from the Harmonie de Printemps Spring 2012 makeup collection. Another reason I decided to get May is because I love the whole collection and I wanted to have the complete set. Although this pink is not too out of the ordinary, I don't have anything to compare it to since I have relatively few pinks.

May is a very neutral shade. Sometimes it seems to lean warm, and other times it seems more on the cool end of the spectrum. I think it's a shade that would suit most skin tones. I used two coats for this swatch. The formula is smooth and easy to apply, with a slightly squishy quality although I wouldn't call it a jelly. Even if May is a fairly ordinary pink, I'm quite pleased to own it as it's a well made polish.

I took a picture with all three polish colors from the Spring collection. I just love how April, May and June all look together.

Ok I promised to explain my long absence, so I shall! About a month ago I started working full time in a nail salon. Yes, I'm in fact a licensed nail tech! I've had my license for a little over a year, but this is my first job in that capacity, so I didn't think it was worth mentioning until I really "earned" the title by working as a nail tech. Painting your own nails, friends' nails, or even the nails of the other ladies in my nail tech class is entirely different from giving full manicures and pedicures to paying customers in the busy salon. It's a tough job which makes me very tired at the end of the day, but I also love it and I'm very lucky that I have genuinely wonderful coworkers.

Since I always get home after the sun has already gone down, I haven't been able to make any swatches. So, it's time for me to get some of those super bright daylight lamps and a light box so I can take some photos in the evening. I'm slowly getting used to the busy work day, and building up stamina so I'm not quite so enormously exhausted when I get home. I hope I'll be able to get back to posting at least once or twice a week! =)

Vintage Maybelline for Pink Wednesday!

Happy Pink Wednesday, everyone! This week's pink is an old Maybelline Express Finish polish from sometime around 2002 or 2003. It's called Tutu Tango, and from what I vaguely remember it was part of a seasonal display. This is a baby pink with lots of gold shimmer, so it becomes a very peachy pink. This is certainly the type of color a tutu might come in.

I applied two thin coats and a third thicker coat. This is an old formula polish, so it was smooth and dried quickly. The brush is really nice; it's flat but not mop-like, very similar to the L'Oréal brush.

Zoya Kennedy — Feel Collection Winter 2011

(UPDATE: Here's my review of the entire collection, with all the swatches together.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have just a couple minutes before I have to run off to visit family for the day's fun! Here's Zoya Kennedy from the Feel collection. It's a dusty pastel rose, and is vying with Kendal for the spot as my favorite shade from this collection.

Application was like the rest, slightly tricky but smooth considering it's a pastel. Two coats and no topcoat in this picture.

Zoya Kendal — Feel Collection Winter 2011

(UPDATE: Here's my review of the entire collection, with all the swatches together.)

Do you think Zoya Kendal might be pink enough to qualify for Pink Wednesday? I can't decide if this pastel creme leans more lavender than pink. Next to Megan, it's definitely a shade pinker.

This is probably my favorite color from the collection. I thought the application was a tiny bit easier than the first four. Once again, it only needs two coats and the final result is smooth and shiny with no streaks or unevenness.

How To Do A Simple Glitter Gradient Manicure — No Sponges Necessary!

Lately I've really gotten into browsing Pinterest. It's a cool way to discover beautiful, interesting things. There are plenty of fellow nail fanatics on there, and I'm having fun finding them and following their pin boards. This manicure was inspired by all the glittery manicures people have been pinning up on Pinterest.

This is a manicure that looks fancy but is super easy to do:

 — Paint the base color. (After your base coat, of course!)
Use any color you like. I painted my nails with four coats of OPI I'll Take The Cake. It's a sheer pink with very fine multicolor shimmer. Four coats seems like a lot, but this polish goes on so smoothly it was no trouble.

— Let it dry.
It doesn't need to be completely dry, just let it dry for a few minutes. You want the base color to stay in place without wrinkling when you add the glitter.

— Add the glitter.
Use any color glitter polish you like. I used Wet n Wild The Gold & The Beautiful. It's glitter in a clear base, which made it perfect for this technique.
- dab a small to medium drop of glitter at the base of the nail.
- wipe the rest of the polish off the brush and back into the bottle.
- lightly drag the drop of glitter outward in small, short strokes.
- fade the glitter by making short strokes starting partway up your nail. This will drag some glitter particles to the middle of your nail, but will not catch too many by taking glitter from the densest part at the base of the nail.

— Finish the manicure.
All you need now is a quick drying topcoat and some cuticle oil!

Here's what I'll Take The Cake looks like on its own, for good measure:

I hope my instructions made sense. Tell me if anything needs clarifying! What color combinations would you try? I want to try taupe with silver glitter, but I have to buy some silver glitter polish first!

Orly Butterflies for Pink Wednesday

Happy Pink Wednesday, everyone! This week I have the classic pink jelly Orly Butterflies. It's not quite a neon, but it's very bright and it does have a certain almost neon glow in the sunlight. The second picture best represents what it looks like under most lighting circumstances.

This polish is a cinch to apply. You need three coats for opacity, but I had no trouble with cuticle drag or evenness. It has a squishy translucence. I still had a slightly visible nail line after three coats, but that's what makes it a juicy jelly.

Essie Splash of Grenadine for Pink Wednesday

Hello everyone! If you just found my blog through Vampy Varnish, welcome! I hope you'll stop by again soon. =)

For Pink Wednesday here's Essie Splash of Grenadine. It's a pink creme with a dash of lavender to it, so it leans very cool.

The formula is a teeny bit tricky, but not too bad. It does require three coats for even coverage. I didn't experience any trouble with cuticle drag. This is a very girly pink in my opinion, although most pinks are I suppose!

Pink Wednesday: Zoya Gilda

It's still Wednesday, right? I still have time to get in on this week's Pink Wednesday!

This is Zoya Gilda, from the gorgeous Sparkle collection. It's an awesome bright pink, full of glass fleck sparkles. After three coats there's still a little visible nail line, but the color and the sparkle easily distract from it.

Isn't that sparkle just beautiful?

Revlon Facets of Fuchsia

Just a quick post! Here's Revlon Facets of Fuchsia. I used three coats and it was easy to apply. This polish looks about the same whether photographed in the sun or the shade. It looks a little bumpy here as I don't have a topcoat on. This is a girly pink glitter, but since it's in a black jelly base it has a bit of a glam rock feel.

I thought I'd have time for a longer post today, but I'm getting ready for a camping trip and of course preparations took longer than I imagined! I'll be away for Saturday and Sunday, but I should be back Monday night. I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend! Happy Thanksgiving to the Canadians! =)

Pink Wednesday — OPI Aphrodite's Pink Nightie

Here's another classic OPI shade for Pink Wednesday: Aphrodite's Pink Nightie. It's a cool toned pink shimmer. It's leaning toward the frosty end, and it can be a little tricky to apply with the brush strokes. They're not too bad, though. They look more obvious in pictures than they do in real life. I believe this swatch was three thin coats, though I could've gotten away with just two.

Finally, I just want to say thank you to everyone for reading, following and commenting! In the past month I have been discovering so many great nail blogs and meeting so many lovely people. The community of nail bloggers has been so welcoming. I'm having a lot of fun on our little corner of the internet! =)

French Manicure with Revlon Starry Pink

Revlon Starry Pink is a milky, cool toned pink with silver glitter. The formula is packed with small round and medium sized hex glitter. Three to four coats gives you an opaque look, but I thought this would be a fun polish to use for a French manicure. I painted two coats of Starry Pink over one coat of Misa Heaven White on the tips.

And here's a plain swatch using three coats:

The formula is easy to use, and I didn't have any trouble with streaking. I found this polish along with Revlon Facets of Fuchsia in a seasonal display at CVS.

Pink Wednesday : OPI Shanghai Shimmer

My very first Pink Wednesday, in fact! And this polish is the very first bottle of OPI that I ever owned. It was given to me by a good friend in High School. We were on the fencing team together, and one day I spotted this beautiful color on her nails. Next time she was ordering some nail polish, she remembered how much I liked it and got an extra bottle for me! So nice! I wore it to senior prom.

This bottle is from before OPI went "Big 3 Free" and has the old black label. As you might expect, it applies easily and smoothly. It has a subtle greenish iridescence. This swatch is with three coats. As far as I know, this color is part of the permanent line and is still available (although now in the new formula.)

Chanel Rose Confidentiel

I received Chanel Rose Confidentiel as a thoughtful birthday gift from a friend this year. I believe this color was originally released in Fall 2010 along with Rouge Fatal and Rose Insolent, and is still available on the Chanel website. This polish has a very nice formula and is quite shiny on its own. It's easy to apply and only requires two coats.

I've heard that OPI Kreme de la Kremlin is a close match, but unfortunately I don't have both of them to compare. A very demure color, to be sure. It's potentially "boring" in comparison to other colors, but I think it looks nice and elegant. Sometimes this is just the sort of understated color I want.

OPI I'll Take The Cake over So Many Clowns... So Little Time

Here it is, my long overdue second post!

This is a layering combination. I started with two coats of OPI So Many Clowns... So Little Time and topped it off with one coat of OPI I'll Take The Cake. "So Many Clowns" came out with last spring's bridal/soft shades collection (I think it was called Femme de Cirque) and "I'll Take The Cake" is part of the permanent line. (It's also the bottle I'm holding in the picture.)

"So Many Clowns" is a very pale off-white/pink creme and was pretty easy to apply; not too streaky. By itself it makes a nice, clean manicure. "Cake" is less off-white and more pink, with subtle, very slightly iridescent microshimmer. It also applies very easily, but is also a little more sheer than "Clowns".

Though I tend to favor outrageous, bright, or unusual colors, I enjoy this sort of demure look from time to time.