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| Chanel 559/Frenzy |
Chanel's latest nail polishes include 559/Frenzy, described as a "lilac grey" is a lilac-tinged creamy beige-y grey-y putty taupe-y nude-y colour. Like all Chanel nail polishes, it's expensive. It's got subtle undertones. If you're to believe The Blogosphere As Biased Towards Chanel, it's trend-setting*. It doesn't work on, or for, everyone, but I love it. It's beautiful.
And frankly, it's irritating.
Much as I love Chanel nail polishes (and I do love them, and I do own quite a few of the more unusual shades), the lack of last-ability Vexes me. The requirement for multiple layers in order to obtain some kind of decent opacity (usually an absolute minimum of three) Bugs me. The fact that it chips and dings easily and flakes and peels away from the edges far too easily Seriously Winds Me Up. Because, as I mentioned before, Chanel nail polishes ain't cheap (around the €23 mark). But look, anyone who has used Chanel polishes before knows about their formulation.
So - onwards. I still bought Frenzy. Brought it home, and rooted around my nail polish storage drawers to see if I had anything similar (mental note: perhaps I should have done this before I bought it). And found this:
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| Bear with me... they're similar enough :-) L -> R: Chanel Frenzy, Gosh Groovy Grey |
A LE Gosh nail polish in Groovy Grey from Spring 2011. A mushroom-putty-grey-cream-beige shade. It doesn't have the (really-subtle-but-there-if-you-want-to-look-very-hard-and-be-really-fussy) (I am) lilac undertones that Chanel Frenzy has, but it is opaque in two coats and more or less the same shade.
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| One coat of each L -> R: Gosh Groovy Grey, Chanel Frenzy |
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| Two coats of Gosh, three of Chanel L -> R: Gosh Groovy Grey, Chanel Frenzy |
So - I can use this as a base to the Chanel. One coat, followed by two thin coats of Frenzy. Which will prolong the life of my Chanel, both in the bottle and on my nails. It means I will use less of the Chanel, and it means it will take marginally less time to apply, and it means it will ding and dent a whole lot less on my nails, and it means that I have the opacity I want, and it means I will still get the lovely subtle lilac effect of the Chanel. So far, I'm on Day 4 with ne'er a ding :-) Success.
The Gosh offering is sadly LE, so it's not a great dupe, per se, but from everything I've read, I believe that MUA Shade #19, Essie Jazz, Essie Sand Tropez, rbl Jane, Zoya Farah, MAC Inert... are all at least nodding acquaintances to Frenzy, if you want something similar.
* Which brings me to my point... there are a few similar-ish offerings out there already, so this one is hardly The Next Great Thing. Not in the way Particulière or Peridot were, in my opinion, anyhow.