Chanel Nuit Magique

I can't remember when I first heard about Chanel Nuit Magique, this year's (kind of?) Fashion Night Out or rather, "Vogue Fashion Night"—or maybe neither of those things—special edition polishes. In the past I've looked forward to these special editions and this was no exception.

And then the trouble began.

In years past I'd ordered the Fashion Night Out polishes directly from Chanel's website, but then Fashion Night Out was cancelled and no one was sure what would become of the polishes. Would they be released in the US? Would they be a boutique exclusive or available online? No one knew for sure.

Around this time my fiance went to Las Vegas for his brother's bachelor weekend and I asked him if he would please please find his way to the Chanel boutique in the Bellagio and order the polishes for me. I wrote the names of the collection down and sent it off with him.

The sales associate at Chanel did let him place the order but told him they couldn't guarantee if they'd ever get them or not. She said it might be as late as November when they showed up (he was there at the end of August). All of September came and went without hearing anything.

But then! My well-connected nail friend Janice told me the polishes would be available after all! And sure enough my fiance received a text from Chanel in Las Vegas, saying they'd be sending them along.

Hooray!

Chanel Cosmic is very beautiful. It's a dark smoky charcoal, not a true black, with silver and blue microglitter. The effect is kind of stars-in-the-night-sky, with the little bits of glitter winking from within the polish. It's subtle, as Chanel shimmers (though this is truly a glitter, not a shimmer) tend to be, but very interesting and a really nice surprise from Chanel. The formula's good and easy to control. I should note this finishes smooth, not gritty like some glitters.

Chanel Cosmic—Nuit Magique collection

 Chanel Magic is a medium blue creme, and it's very reminiscent of Chanel Blue Rebel, a polish I owned and loved but passed along as part of a complete set with Blue Boy and Coco Blue (also FNO polishes). It's a beautiful, work appropriate (in all but very conservative environments) polish though probably quite easily duped. I'm happy to have it, though, because I somewhat regret having got rid of Blue Rebel and Blue Boy.

Chanel Magic—Nuit Magique collection

I'm not sure where to tell you to get these polishes if you're interested in paying retail ($27) for them. It might be worth a try to call a Chanel boutique to see if they've got any and will ship them to you. They don't seem to be available online, although—curiouser and curiouser—they do turn up on the website if you search for them on Google and click through that way. Going through Chanel.com I could not get to them. So who knows. My guess is that they may have planned to offer them online and then didn't.

Because these are spendy and somewhat of a hassle to get, I know people will want to know if they are worth the trouble/cash. If you're choosy, skip Magic (particularly if you already own Blue Rebel) but Cosmic I must recommend. It's not a glitter bomb by any means but pretty special for Chanel and very beautiful in any case!

Glitter Gal Bronze Sparkle, White Sparkle & Electric Blue Sparkle

Today I have for you three of the 3D sparkle holographic polishes from Australian brand Glitter Gal. I have purchased Glitter Gal polishes previously, but these three colors were provided to me by Leah from her shop. I'm happy to share the swatches and results with you so let's get started.

Bronze Sparkle, White Sparkle, Electric Blue Sparkle

Bronze Sparkle

Bronze Sparkle reminds me of Cleopatra, or jewelry that you would traditionally associate with ancient Egyptian culture. It's a bright bronze base with lots of silver holo sparkle, which reflects red and turquoise and a rainbow of other colors, giving it that jeweled look.

The sparkles just light up, giving the polish a gorgeous depth.

In natural light, the polish looks more subdued. I like this quality - it's probably work appropriate for more settings, but it still has plenty of sparkle and interest - especially in the sun!

White Sparkle

White Sparkle is more than meets the eye - it's a sheer, pearlescent white base with scattered holo sparkles that glint and gleam. The pearly finish flares orange and pink in the light. Here, it's swatched over a single coat of Essie Marshmallow.

I can see this delicate look being appropriate for a wedding or even as a work-appropriate manicure for office environments. It's even more subtle worn alone. The scattered holo sparkles remind me of sunlight on a fresh snowfall.

I saved my favorite for last - Electric Blue Sparkle, which lives up to its name.

Electric Blue Sparkle

The bright blue jellyish base is packed - packed - with holographic sparkles. The result is a manicure that glows from within, because the jelly base makes the glitter look like it is sparkling from underwater.

When I tilt my nails in under a light source, I get a beautiful teal/turquoise glow. It's hard to capture in a photograph, but it's in there! Truly lovely. Definitely not subtle or delicate. Blue polish lovers will love this one.

All three of these polishes were easy to apply; Electric Blue Sparkle was probably the easiest to control because of the jellyish quality. I've always gotten good wear from Glitter Gal polishes and these were no exception (I've worn Electric Blue Sparkle and Bronze Sparkle for full manicures and both lasted 2-3 days before showing tipwear or chips). The sparkle is more dense in Broze and Electric Blue than in White Sparkle, so if you're looking for a glitter bomb, those are the two you'll want to consider. White Sparkle is a more sheer, subtle look.

In case you're not familiar with Glitter Gal polishes, remember that these bottles are smaller (.3 fl oz) than many nail polish bottles that you might be used to (OPI, Essie, Zoya, etc). As an example, here's a bottle of Glitter Gal next to a Revlon bottle.

Having purchased Glitter Gal polishes before, I can say that the quality and color payoff are certainly worth the price. Just know that they are smaller and you won't be surprised when you receive them!

You can get Glitter Gal polishes from Leah at her shop (she also offers Ozotic, a-England and other harder-to-find brands). I have always found her customer service to be fantastic.

The polishes featured in this post were provided to me for consideration from the seller. Aside from product samples, I have not received any compensation for this post. Opinions are strictly my own.

Coming Soon...

More pictures of my Lynnderellas, which arrived today. For the time being, here's a quickie phone pic.

From L-R: Snow Angel, All Hallows' Eve, Gotta Love Brains, Love Potion No. 99, She Lived in a Swamp.

Revlon Starry Pink

I was all prepared to ignore the new Revlon glitters because the last ones were so disappointing to me. You might remember them - they were mixed-size, multicolored glitters in a clear base, sold with matching solid colors:

They look beautiful in the bottle but on the nail they didn't really do it for me. I ended up selling these to someone who probably put them to much better use!

So when I started seeing pictures of the new glitters I didn't think much about it. Particularly because one is a pretty close dupe for Deborah Lippman's Bad Romance, which I have and love. But then I saw pictures of Starry Pink and I kept wanting it...and wanting it...and not finding it. I'm not sure if these are Target exclusives or not, but that's where I found them and I haven't yet heard of anyone in the US finding them elsewhere.

Blue Mosaic, Starry Pink. I didn't get Facets of Fuchsia because it is a little too close to Bad Romance to justify having both. (For me anyway. You can do whatever you want!)

Blue Mosaic is in a clear base which, as I mentioned, usually turns me off. But the glitter is dense enough that you could get it opaque or nearly so in three coats.

This is two coats. Crummy pic but you get the idea.

Starry Pink...Starry Pink is just beautiful. It's large silver hex glitter and small round silver glitter in a milky, semi-sheer pink base.

I used two coats over one coat of Essie Marshmallow.

For whatever reason, these mixed-size glitters really grab me. I like the randomness of the pattern that the different sizes make, I guess. And I do love that this one is in a tinted base. This is a manicure that's subtle without being boring.

Did you buy any of these? Will you?

Missha Purple Glitter

You guys, I can't even...

This polish is so cuckoo bananas.

I just thought it was like...regular size glitter in an extremely pretty color combo. I didn't know it was pieces of glitter big enough to boogie board on.

So the thing about Missha polishes is that they have this horrible brush.

It barely comes out of the neck of the bottle, it's so wide. I had to trim several stray bristles off the brush in my Missha HGR01 (the reputed Chanel Peridot dupe which is not a dupe but might appeal more to certain people based on color preference...post to come, obviously) before using it. But this was another story because of the HUGE glitter pieces.

I glopped it on a nail wheel to see what I was dealing with.

Well.

Because this glitter is in a clear base, I started with two coats of Milani Hi-Res. Although not overwhelmingly holo, I do like this polish a lot. Very pretty and sparkly and spring-like due to the lilac tones.

Then I plastered on two coats of the Insane Purple Glitter From Korea.

In this picture the polish looks better but you can see all my acetone dryness. Sorry.

It's very sparkly and really fun in you're into sequins. It's a little much for me though. It reminds me of the time I glopped on many, many coats of a Street Wear bar glitter for a New Year's Eve party and snagged my nails on everything.

I need to take it off soon though because my Glitter Gal holos are arriving in my mailbox today!

Tony Moly Galaxy Glitters

I joke about his happening often enough, but it's pretty rare that I see a picture of a nail polish and immediately go buy it. But when I saw pictures of the Tony Moly galaxy glitters on MUA, I went directly to eBay and snapped up Neptune, which is (of course) the green one.

This is small green and gold glitter and larger round green glitter in a very pigmented green jelly base. If that sentence sounded like "magical magic magicky magic time" to you, that's because IT IS.

The cap of this polish is a little clumsy to hold, but the brush and formula are great so I had zero application problems. This jelly base is so pigmented and so full of glitter that this is what one coat looks like:

I mean, !!!!!!!!!!

I don't think my photo captures the amazing shiny blingy goodness of this polish, but:

My only tiny nitpick is that this dries pretty heavily textured. I used a coat of Gelous between the polish and a thick coat of SV and I still have some texture. Not enough to detract from the awesomeness, but next time I will probably use an additional coat of Gelous.

I LOVE THIS. I would like to buy more at some point but I've got other stuff percolating right now. This was $9.99 from the eBay seller where I found it, with free shipping from South Korea. I ordered it on June 3 and received it June 11.

Highly, highly recommend!

Gaga, oh la la.

Last fall I ordered Deborah Lippman Bad Romance during Nordstrom's beauty preview sale. Nordstrom canceled the order for some reason and I never bothered to re-order.

Also, I'm not usually one to blanket boycott something just because the personality behind it occasionally acts like a jackass, but Deborah Lippman's "explanation" of Funky Chunky (a disaster of a polish in my opinion) turned me off. It is patently ridiculous to say that a big fat fail of a nail polish is designed to be worn "in a new way." Worn how, on your eyelids? It's nail polish, you only wear it one way. It's insulting for someone to tell me that *I* need to "put away [my] OLD ideas of how polish should look." Just admit that Funky Chunky looks like a melted tire on the nail and be done with it.

/rant

In any event, I saw some pictures of Bad Romance last week and decided to order it again, this time from WhatSheBuys.com. It arrived lightning fast and when I sat down to do my nails on Monday evening, I decided I couldn't wait to give it a try.

The base of the polish is black, but it's not an opaque black so I applied Bad Romance over OPI Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not.

I. Love. It.

I'm admittedly not the biggest fan of glitter polishes and in particular chunky glitters, but the varying sizes of glitter in this polish appeals to me.

Based on Bad Romance, I'm definitely going to get some more Lippman polishes and SOON. Just not the melted tire one.

Get the Chanel outta here!

I won't!

Because I have a deeply ingrained habit of aspirational buying, I have long gazed wistfully at the Chanel nail polish collections being displayed on the MUA nail board. To me, there is really no difference at all between a $1.29 Wet n' Wild red nail polish and a $23 (!!!!) Chanel red nail polish (which is why I don't have any of the latter), but when Chanel makes unique colors I get all weak in the knees and stamp my foot in frustration because I know that paying $23 for nail polish is a silly, spoiled, ridiculous thing to do.

So, I resisted. I resisted the Jade craze and bought the $4 Claire's Boutique dupe instead. I resisted the lovely Particuliere, because I already have any number of similar colors and more inexpensive dupes are readily available. But then Chanel outsmarted me by introducing Nouvelle Vague and the Orient Extreme limited edition collection.

I caved.

Illusion D'Or and Nouvelle Vague ("new wave" in French). I haven't tried Illusion D'Or over anything particularly nice yet (I just threw it on a couple nails to get a sneak peek), but I am in super love with Nouvelle Vague:

Damn you on the reals, Chanel. It's very hard to resist you when you keep making these wonderfully unique colors! Of course, some of this is in the eye of the beholder. Many women on the MUA nail board passed on Nouvelle Vague, being content with China Glaze's For Audrey. Here's a quick glance at that comparison:

For me, they're not the same. They look remarkably similar in the picture, but Nouvelle Vague has that lovely subtle shimmer, and For Audrey has a chalky quality to it that changes the look of the color on the nail. This is not to say I'm not fond of For Audrey; it's one of the first colors I bought when I started looking at swatches on the nail board and on nail blogs. The chalkiness - for lack of a better word - gives For Audrey a stand-out look that always garners a lot of compliments. It's quite unique. And if you're just looking for a light blue nail color that's attention-getting and unusual, For Audrey may fit the bill.

If however you're looking for the sophistication and dreamy quality Nouvelle Vague affords, you have another option. For me, Essie's Sag Harbor comes pretty close, although the colors are quite different. Both Nouvelle Vague and Sag Harbor are light blues with shimmer, but see for yourself how they differ:

While the tones are different, the same muted and dreamy quality is there. Given the variety of skin tones out there, Sag Harbor may even suit you better. So if you have or can purchase either of these cheaper polishes, perhaps you would be content without Nouvelle Vague. (I mean...it's nail polish so hopefully you are "content" without any of them...but...you know what I'm saying.)

Quick Hits

So....I've been kind of bad about taking pictures of my nails lately. I know, I know, bad addict. Bad addict! I think I forgot to photograph Nina Ultra Pro Brandywine, which I picked up on clearance at Sally. I wasn't even there for nail polish! But as always, the siren song was too strong to ignore. The display of China Glaze's Wizard collection was largely decimated (not that I was terribly hot for it to begin with), but they had a full display of the Nina Velvet collection, so I also grabbed Velvet Seas. I really like these Nina polishes -- very affordable and they apply nicely. The color selection doesn't offer an overwhelming amount to write home about, but if Purple-Xing and this Velvet collection are any indication, maybe there are more fun surprises in store.

I also didn't photograph Sally Hansen American Beauty. A Canadian exclusive! Sorry about that one.

So, here is where I was going to show you a picture of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Purple Pizzazz, but all my pictures were super bad. But! This is a really, really cool polish and it's so purple. Like grape popsicle purple. So it's this vibrant purple jelly base with either red or dark pink glitter (sometimes it looks red to me...sometimes more magenta/pink), and it applies very well. For whatever reason, it also stinks to high heaven, but then again so does all nail polish to some degree. This is the only new Xtreme Wear I bought, although Wet Cement, The Real Teal and Pacific Blue all looked interesting to me. I guess I felt they were too dupey or potentially dupey (especially the grey).

Wow...think of how many way more important things happened in the world in the time it took me to write that. Sorry.

Here is Zoya Astra, and I just have to say, holy wow.

So this is light pink and dark pink glitter in a slightly pink jelly base, which, I'm guessing, is part of what allows these UltraGlitters to be opaque in two coats. I knew when this was going on that it would be a terrible pain to remove but, I just have to say, WORTH IT. After wearing this, I've decided I would really like a purple glitter just like it, with dark and light purple glitter in a light purple jelly base. (Perhaps the new Sparkles from Nubar will fit the bill). The effect is just stunning, way more stunning (in my opinion) than one single color of glitter. RECOMMEND.

Aaaaand that brings me to yet another color I didn't photograph: China Glaze Flying Dragon. I hated this polish: gloopy, muddy, gritty, gross. It's beautiful in the bottle and hopeless on the nail. I've heard other people say they have problems with this one, but, ugh. If you've ever eyed it, skip it.

Ugh -- I want to talk about Orly Nail Rescue, and Illamasqua and Rescue Beauty Lounge but that will all have to wait. More soon!

New Year's Eve Nail Party; Business Appropriate Colors

I don't really "go out" on New Year's Eve although I have no objection to "going all out." So for the last couple years my boyfriend and I have stayed in and made grandly caloric dinners (roasted bone marrow...not for the faint of heart, quite literally). But staying in doesn't mean I have to have unpainted fingernails, oh no! So I will be wearing this:

Oh, it's lovely. A bright blue jelly with tons of silver microglitter, this polish dries to a smooth shine. Next time I might consider wearing it over a dark blue or black creme, but this is three coats and it's fine. It's only in front of bright light that you can see the nail line a bit. And for a polish that cost $1.39, the application was thrillingly good.

Okay, so I mentioned I'm starting a new full-time job on Monday and I'm nervous for all the usual reasons. Ultimately I'm sure it will be great but you always have that awkward phase where you're not sure of all the rules. During this time I'll be wearing some of my more subtle nail colors so as to gauge the office's tolerance of more daring colors.

Do you think...

I have enough?

Haha, that's a joke.

During the interview process for this job, I wore three separate sheer/neutral colors and I like to think they brought me luck. So I'm going to stick with that tactic for the time being and then maybe, when everything's going really well, I can wear Suede Shoes to work and no one will bat an eye.