Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Chanel Illusion D'Or & Wet n Wild Blackmail

First of all, I want to thank the lovely people who emailed me saying that they would be happy to donate an hour of their time to help me with my experiment. Your support is really touching. I'm not sure if I will be able to do that yet but I will keep you all updated. (The experiment is definitely not going to take an hour anymore though: it'll be about 15 minutes. I actually spent 15 hours of my weekend putting together the hour-long experiment... which my advisor and I nixed on today. I'm trying not to think all that I could have done in the 15 hours instead.) Thanks so much for being there for me. :)

Anyway... these are some NOTDs from about a week ago: two polishes that are at the very opposite ends of the cost spectrum.

First, I had on Wet n Wild Blackmail (which I keep calling Wildfire for some odd reason) for a couple of days.

Wet n Wild Blackmail

Black creme with bronze and silver microglitter and seems to reflect blue and red too sometimes. I thought this looked pretty cool: it definitely appears black at a distance but has enough twinkle to keep it lively a bit closer up. Cost $1.99 and applied beautifully in three coats. What more can one ask? (Besides to not have tipwear and shrinkage and for the latter, I'm going to blame Diamont.) Well... one can ask it not to STAIN MY NAILS. Argh. Nail Life Gripper was working so well for keeping stain-y polishes from staining my nails but for not for this one. I took it off after about four days and boom, orange nails. But before making that unfortunate discovery, I wore this with Chanel Illusion D'Or over it for a day or two.

Chanel Illusion D'Or over Wet n Wild Blackmail

I know Daydream222 posted this yesterday but she posted it over green. ;) This was the first Chanel I've ever bought for myself; they're just too expensive to indulge in regularly. I had bought a set of three Chanel polishes years ago for Mother's Day for my mom and had tried those out, but the experience was so dismal, I just didn't lust after Chanel polishes for the longest time. (That sentiment led me to miss out on Jade but I'm cool because I have Claire's Dream Catcher and Charlotte Russe Jade. Those two completely satisfied my lemmings.) Anyway, when Illusion D'Or came out, I was immediately intrigued and figured it was better to buy now and think later. Well, it's later and I still don't know what to think.

It looks like it's made up of gold mini flakies and microglitter that are as bright as OPI Dazzled By Gold (though this gold is cooler than Dazzled by Gold). When the sun hits it, it just radiates light. And of course, there are the blue-purple opalescent hex (or circular?) glitter that are so thin and fine that they disappear in some lights and reappear in others. It is, if nothing else, a unique polish. When over black, it reflected as a blackened olive shade (unless it's in direct sunlight in which case, it is definitely a blackened gold).

Close-up of Illusion D'Or over Wet n Wild Blackmail


It looks super pretty in the bottle. I'm going to have to try layering it over a light gold to see if I like it like that.

I think my verdict on this for now is: "Very interesting but not very pretty." But maybe I just haven't found the right base color for it.