Chanel – Strong

This is another Chanel that looks so much more rich and shimmery in the bottle than it does on my nails. I hate when you see this polish in the bottle that is just something you want so badly and then when you put it on, you don’t see what you hoped to see.

In the shade it just looks like metallic glossy black…

In the sun you can see some raspberry purple, but just barely. Look at the bottle though!

Ah, what a tease. Chanel, you’re a big tease! I know a lot of people love this one though, so maybe its just me.

Do you like it?

MAC – Seriously Hip

This one was swapped to me, so you’re probably tired of seeing greens, but I had to try it as soon as I got it!

This is another olive metallic vampy green like China Glaze Wagon Trail and Chanel Or De Russie. Since I had established that the Or De Russie was a lot more lustrous than the Wagon Trail, I just compared this one to my Or De Russie.

You can see that they are both rich and pigmented, more than Wagon Trail, but the Or De Russie is a little more of a brownish earthier tone than the Seriously Hip.

I’m going to swap the MAC and keep the Chanel!

Chanel – Or De Russie

I finally got this one in the mail! I was actually a little disappointed.. I thought it was going to be more brown, I think.

It actually is an olive green that is just like China Glaze Wagon Trail, but with a richer shimmer.

Here it is:

 

I put Wagon Trail on my thumb, so I could compare them. The color really is exactly the same, but I prefer the luster that the Chanel has.

I’m probably not going to keep the Chanel, since this one was so super expensive. If its not my favorite color that I’d wear all the time, like Cosmic Violine, I might as well stick with the cheaper version.

I also have MAC Seriously Hip which is also really similar! Maybe I’ll compare those three in another swatch.

Chanel – Cosmic Violine

I wanted this one soooo badly for so long, and everytime I’d try to swap it, I wouldn’t have something someone wanted… until someone really nice wanted Riva! It was hard to give the Riva up, but since I have my Hard Candy Sky, I figured it was worth finally getting my Cosmic Violine for! I hope she loves Riva, because I REALLY love Cosmic Violine!

So many times I’ve wanted something, and when it gets here, it isn’t as amazingly awesome as I thought… but THIS one did not disappoint one bit!

It is the perfect dark burgundy, reddish, brownish toned jelly color (kinda like the Dolce & Gabbana Soft was, like Dr Pepper!), but this has a lot of bright pink/red glitter inside that really shines a lot in the sun!

I feel like I got horrible swatches that don’t show this polish off enough, but here we go…

Lamp light…

Natural light
(It was raining a lot so I didn’t get full sun.)

Like it?
I hope you don’t like it as much as I do because its really hard to find!! haha!

Color Club – Masquerading

This color is pretty similar to Chanel’s Black Pearl, just more blue!

Here I compared it to Black Pearl with Black Pearl on index and ring fingers, and Masquerading on middle and pinky fingers…

Not the same at all, but very similar in that they are both metallic charcoals with a blue tint. Masquerading just looks more blue. (And costs a lot less!)

Chanel – Riva

Okay, I wanted to give you guys the full report on this one, since we all know the color is so pretty but we keep hearing the formula isn’t very easy to apply.

After finding Hard Candy – Sky a few weeks ago and falling so in love with it, I HAD to try Riva because I heard it was a dupe for Riva.

I didn’t find the application that troublesome really, it just takes a few coats.

Not really wearable after the 2nd coat. Most of my polishes are good to go after 2 coats, so I guess it isn’t that good to know it takes more, but I was happy after a 3rd coat that I made sure to lay on thick.

Since 3 coats made it kind of soft, I used Seche Vite… I can’t say enough how much you can trust that stuff to leave a hard plastic shell on your polish and not let you get dents, dings, lines, etc.

Here is my final Riva swatch:

I hate how the inside lighting makes my hands look so red and yellow, ick. I’ll have to figure out a better way to snap swatches for my blog!

Anyway, here was my outside sunlight shot of it:

Now, I have to give this Riva report a sad ending. 😦
Before removing it, I wanted to paint Hard Candy – Sky on one nail and see what I thought. (Sorry, my skin looks awful in this one! Blogs are so honest. haha!)

I like Sky better! And now I love it so much more, after comparing it. Hard Candy – Sky is a little bit lighter and looks more like a milky light blue glass that shows off the shimmer inside a little bit better. The Riva was so soft too that the Seche Vite realllly caused shrinkage and pulled it back.

You’d have to try for yourself I guess!

Chanel – Paradoxal and Black Pearl

I know you’ve probably seen tons of swatches for these… but here are some more! 😀

I had to see for myself. A lot of people were saying Paradoxal was like a taupe until the light caught the purple shimmer, and I can stand to wear purple if it is like a brownish plummy/eggplant type purple!

I think I found that it looks purple in any light though. I can kind of see how people would get the taupe idea, but it is still just too purple for me! Although, it is one of the coolest effects in a polish that I’ve seen.

When I was kind of out of direct light, with light just above me, the bottle really showed tons of shimmer:

When I got back in direct light, it caught the shimmer at certain angles still, but it looked a lot more murky, which I thought looked pretty cool because it was the more taupe-ish of the tones it has.

When Black Pearl got here, and I put it on, I was actually sad that it wasn’t more blue. It applies like silk, I LOVE the formula… but it is more of a denim-ish blue tone and I was hoping for a brighter blue tone I guess. I know, duh, it really does look just like a black pearl though!

I put it up for swap, but here are the swatches I got of it inside and outside:

Chanel – Particuliere

Can you tell I made a purchase from the online Chanel store? 🙂

I actually just wanted to buy Riva but the shipping was so high, it said I could get free shipping if I bought 4 of them, so I did.. knowing I’d get that back by either selling them on Ebay or swapping them for something else I wanted. I’m so weird like that.

Anyway, here is Particuliere! I at least got colors I wanted to check out, in case I wanted to keep them!

The others I have swatches coming up for are Black Pearl and Paradoxal. And I can’t wait to wear Riva!

Chanel – Forbidden

Sorry about the lame hand pose, I only had time to swatch two nails! haha!

I was pleasantly surprised by this one! It is like a dark chocolate brown! When I removed it, I thought I saw a reddish tone on the cotton, so it might have a bit of red in it too?

It applies really well too!

Chanel – Tulipe Noire

This was my first Chanel polish, so I was so excited! As I was putting the polish on, I noticed that it wasn’t as shimmery as it is in the bottle. I thought maybe if I added enough coats, it might be… but no such luck!

It is still a very pretty burgundy, but wasn’t unique enough for me, so off to an Ebay bidder it went!

I just bought Chanel Forbidden, so I’ll swatch that when I get it!