CND Collection - CND Royal Crime

This is an interesting polish, before a shaking the bottle golden shimmer was floating all around in the dark red base, I thought this will be a dramatic dark red with shimmering gold. Wrong and surprised, after a good shake the polish became uniform metallic with a rusty bronze tinge, however, on the nails a dark very shiny garnet red.

Konad this week

My usual weekly testing has been put on hold until after the Holiday. We are leaving on Friday for two weeks at the beach, can't wait! We, my little girl and I, have been very busy the last few days to prepare enough posts while we are gone. My daughter who is turning 12 in three week's time, is responsible for all the konad production on this site. She decides what color, what pattern, the pictures of konad are her fingers, if only she remembered what she used!  I shall refer to her in the posts as E. There are a few konads, sheers, and CNDs and a new six part series Part I starting on Monday. Hope you will like it! I will probably be completely out of the loop and will be unable to reply to your comments! Enjoy the rest of summer and happy reading!

Nora

Yellow on sparkly white, Lippmann Collection Amazing Grace a french white, a little too stark and semi matte, softened by CND Arctic Storm. Arctic Storm is a sheer white with pearl shimmer. E used theM70 plate. Sasse of Sasse's nad stamping Stampede did a konad with the same pattern but with different colors last week, click here to check out her post. Sasse is a Konad expert she has an amazing site with all things konad related.




Products used; from left to right:

Essie First Base base coat, Lippmann Collection Amazing Grace, CND Arctic Storm, Konad plate M70, Konad special polish yellow, CND Super Shiny top coat

Custom Teal

I caught the bug that is frankening, I give full credit to Dr Frankenpolish who has opened my eyes to the possibilities of mixing your own nail polish color. Click here to visit her amazing website.

Recently I was flapping through German Vogue, and a Dolce & Gabbana shoe in a dark blue -teal color caught my eye. This shoe served as the inspiration for this mix. This is an easy mix made with MAC teal pigment in clear nail polish, which by itself gives you a beautiful teal color. To achieve a darker and more blue shade, added a few drops of both Essence Fatal and Chanel Blue Satin, both are very pigmented only a few drops each.





Products used; from left to right:

MAC pigment teal, Essence Fatal, Chanel Blue Satin, before the mix Astor Clear

Just for fun

Gold on gold, reminds me of Bisazza gold mosaic. BeYu is Douglas Perfumerie own brand and LaRic is an Austrian brand. Surprisingly the LaRic glitter is completely smooth. The First Layer BeYu is a foil finish, just one layer. I have done a lot swatching this past weekend, to prepare some scheduled posts while we are on Holiday, and used Alessandro ridge filling base coat throughout, unbelievably fast drying.




Products used; from left to right:

Alessandro ridge filling base coat, BeYu # 344 (1 coat), LaRic gold glitter (2 coats), no name and no number either on this one!

CND Lighten Up - CND collection

CND Lighten up a pale powder pink creme, this is a semi-opaque polish, covers really well but needed 3 coats to cover the nail line. This one is a neutral pink not too warm and not too cool just right!

Top Coat test

Recently I have been testing a couple of Chanel colors with the same Chanel base coat but a different top coat each week to see which top coat performs the best. By best I mean, which top coat would extend the wear of Chanel nail polish, famous for the colors but notorious for chipping. The top coat test is coming to an end, only one more to go, the results so far:

1 CND Air Dry - 5 days
2 Seche Vite - 4 days
2 INM Northern Lights - 4 days
3 Orly in a Snap - 3 days
3 Chanel - 3 days
4 Opi RapiDry - 1 day 

Chanel Sahara Beige with INM Out the Door ✭✭✭✭

The perfect nude still eludes me, Sahara Beige looks the perfect nude in the bottle, sadly not on my nails. No matter how many coats the color looks a light tan color, it is just slightly too warm. A cream with a hint of silver micro glitter. Application is easy the consistency is wonderful, I have yet to come across a Chanel nail polish that is streaky! This week's top coat test is INM Out the Door Northern Lights. This top coat is the fastest drying from all the previously tested top coats. Ranks the same as Seche Vite in that it lasted 4 days. Both have different qualities: Seche Vite is by far the glossiest top coat due to the thickness, but it is slightly soft after ten minutes. INM is thinner, not as glossy but within 10 minutes the polish is solid. With INM you have the option to either shake the bottle up and have the tiniest holographic glitter enhance your polish or leave it unstirred. I left it unstirred but a few made it onto the nails, the brightest spots are the INM glitter.




Chipping on day 4




Products used; from left to right:

Chanel Protective Base Coat, Chanel Sahara Beige (2 coats), INM Out the Door Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat

Konad this week

Layered red made with an Opi fuchsia and CND nail polish in sheer red. Multi color stamping with Konad special polish yellow and green. Opi you're a Pisa work fuchsia creme. CND Hot Chilis slightly sheer shimmery scarlet red.




Products used; from left to right:

Lancome base coat, Opi You're a Pisa Work (1 coat), CND Hot Chilis (1 coat), Invisible konad plate (try to take a better image next time), Konad Special Polish green, Konad Special Polish yellow, CND Super Shiny Fast Drying Top Coat

CND Nail Polish Collection

Hot Pop Pink just a fun color for the summer. It is a bright cool pink creme. Slightly sheer needed 3 coats. Unlike the Chanel, this has no problems staying on the nails at all, I loved this color so much that kept it for four days, the photo below was taken on day 3.

Just for fun

Stripe practice with Chanel Django and Vendetta. Maybe "Nail Art" is the entirely wrong category for this, should call it the "why not" or "Oh!  interesting" category instead.  Django is a light beige pearlescent color. Vendetta is a seriously dark purple, so dark in fact, that despite my efforts it looks black in all the pictures.




Products used; from left to right:

Mavala Ridge filling Base Coat, Chanel Django (2 coats), Chanel Vendetta 1 coat only and it still does not look purple, Orly In a Snap Fast Drying Top Coat.

Konad this week

Green layers, Nfu-Oh looks fabulous over a similar green this time Illamasqua. This combination is so sparkly that the metallic Konad deco hardly shows at all. Illamasqua Elope we had a few ago as well, it is such a fabulously pigmented green that we just keep coming back for more. RMK Aluminum Beige, this is a true metallic with amazing consistency, the silver base is mixed with bronze. I have been very impressed with this brand, all the colors tried so far, are, without exception, excellent.




Products used; from left to right:

Lancome Base Coat, Illamasqua Elope (1 coat), Nfu-Oh (2 coats), Konad plate m2, RMK Aluminum Beige, CND Air Dry fast Drying Top Coat

Essie Spaghetti Strap

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Essie is famous for the largest selection of colors in the sheer pink, sheer beige and nude category. The color differences in these groups are very slight I call them either sheer pink or sheer beige. Spaghetti Strap is a little surprising in a good way, it is a sheer pink jelly color with a thick but very easy to use formula. I applied only 2 coats and ridges and stains were covered. I am wearing Mavala ridge filler, an invisible base coat that does the job very well but not really necessary with spaghetti strap.



Products used; from left to right;

Mavala Ridge filling base coat, Essie Spaghetti Strap (2 coats), Orly in a Snap fast drying top Coat

Chanel Red Dream with Poshe top coat ✭✭✭

Red wine dream, deep burgundy it really is the color of red wine. This is a perfect option between Rouge Noir or the dangerously red Dragon. Speckled throughout with gold shimmer a very pretty dark red. As with most dark Chanel colors it is very pigmented, opaque in 2 coats. This is an older color according to the number, I picked this one up at Heathrow Airport, currently it is listed on the Chanel website in Italy, Spain and Japan.

Received Poshe top coat last week just in time to include in my top coat test, unfortunately it does not measure up. There are a couple of issues with this top coat; visible on all pictures, the shrinkage around the cuticle area, it pulled the polish off quite significantly. The top was O.K because I wrapped under the free edge. Chipping on day 3 and compared to the previously tested top coats, large area chipping. Finally, I have not seen so many scratches on any of the top coats before, except RBL top coat.







Chipping on day3



Products used; from left to right:

Chanel Protective Base Coat, Chanel Red Dream (2 coats), Poshe super fast drying top coat

CND Nail Polish Collection

CND Replenish

Very subtle seafoam green, a little sheer with pearlescent shimmer. An interesting alternative to white, from a distance it looks pale mint. Three coats

Just for fun

Hot sparkly pink with incredible depth, this one really does sparkle from within! Straight up Mac Pigment plus top coat, this is very easy to make and it is stable. I also added some dark purple micro glitter but it is not necessary, the MAC pigment is fabulous by itself! Couldn't take a really good picture, this is just an out of this world pure magenta color!




Products used; from left to right:

MAC Very Pink Pigment (2 tsp), youandeyecosmetics #431 Aubergine glitter (1/2 tsp) Maybelline forever strong base coat


 

konad this week

This week's konad is another layered color effect, CND's Hot Pop yellow a bright neon creme, made more interesting with  bpretty shimmering sheer yellow. You can hardly see this color it is so sheer but CND by itself does not shimmer. Konad m43 plate is one of the cute little Japanese/Korean things.

Products used; from left to right;

Essie first base base coat, CND Hot Pop Yellow (1 coat), bpretty #10 yellow (1 coat), Konad plate m43, Konad special polish black, Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

Top Coat test so far

Two more top coats left to test: Barielle Manicure extender with which I had managed a 6 day wear with Chanel before and INM Out the Door Northern Lights. The top coats tested so far rank as follows:

1 CND Air dry 5 days

2 Seche Vite 4 days

3 Orly in a snap 3 days

4 Chanel top coat 3 days

5 Opi Rapi Dry 1 day

Chanel Golden Sand with CND Air Dry ✭✭✭✭✭

On with the top coat test, up this week is Chanel Golden Sand with CND Air Dry. I wasn't too crazy about this color just seeing it in the bottle, but all changed after I polished my nails. Metallic golden shine, the color is not true gold and not quite bronze either. In indirect sunlight it looks rose gold with a definite pink tinge, indoors it is beige. But wait until you see this in the sun, it is blindingly reflective. Chanel chose the perfect name for this color, it is the color of sand and golden. It is amazing, I absolutely love this color. Application was easy, brushstrokes were a little visible, but better than Kaleidoscope for example, where the brushstrokes are  more pronounced. This combination lasted for 5 days, the best so far.  



Chipping on day 5



Products used; from left to right:

Chanel Protective Base Coat, Chanel Golden Sand (2 coats), CND Air Dry Fast Drying Top Coat

Chanel Fall collection

Chanel's new colors for fall

CND Nail Polish Collection

Just when CND discontinued most of their colors, I decided I like them very much. I am not going to pretend to be rational, the truth is that I grabbed every single last one of them. This is not something I am proud of, but as I explained to my husband it is just bad timing!  

 In the last 5 years I passed the CND shop hundreds of times because it happens to be next door to a property we own . I did notice it, but had no idea what CND was, until two months ago. The first time I only selected colors that really appealed to me, then I found out that most of the colors are discontinued and that is when pure greed replaced all sensibility. 

The good news is that they already launched the new color collection which is a safer,  chemically improved formula (see All Lacquared UP).

The first of many more to come is: Toxic Perfection. It is similar to Chanel Miami Peach - a shimmering coral with gold micro flakes- except more vivid, just perfect for summer. A little sheer needed 3 coats.

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Nordstrom

Nars fall collections, among them this purple beauty: