CHI Secret Fantasy Collection for Summer 2010

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

Another post, another collection, this time CHI's Secret Fantasy Collection for Summer 2010. This one, I bought from sparkling*nails on ebay, and they've been spotted at Ulta as well. I only have six of the eight colors here because it's kind of a weird collection: one re-release from Summer 2009's Tropical Paradise Collection (Sunny Romance of Saint Tropez, a yellow shimmer, which you can see in the original post I just linked), two core colors, Double Fisted Fuchsia, which I do have here, and Salsalita y Margarita, an orangey red creme I don't have, then five new ones. You can tell the re-releases by the names, too - they don't fit in with the collection theme.

Of the six I swatched here, all were two coaters. The applied easily, and the polish was easy to control. The first coat looked thin for most, but the second made them all opaque and even. The pictures were taken in sunlight.

My Secret Fetish is a new one, and is a vivid fuchsia with the same kind of almost flaky glitter as Mistletoe Kisses.

CHI My Secret Fetish from The Secret Fantasy Collection

CHI My Secret Fetish Nail Polish, Two Coats

Passionate Kiss, another new one, is a slightly muted purple with a subtle shimmer. It's a near dupe for Nicole by OPI's Bah Plum-Bug, but the shimmer in Passionate Kiss is more pronounced.

CHI Passionate Kiss from The Secret Fantasy Collection

CHI Passionate Kiss Nail Polish, Two Coats

Midnight Rendezvous, also a new one as far as I know, is a bright primary blue with a great shimmer.

CHI Midnight Rendezvous from The Secret Fantasy Collection

CHI Midnight Rendezvous Nail Polish, Two Coats

Picnic in Central Park is a pale green that I'd call a creme, although there's just the slightest secret shimmer in direct light. It's also is a new one as far as I know, but the name doesn't fit in with the others so I'm not sure. In any case, it's a good color.

CHI Picnic in Central Park from The Secret Fantasy Collection

CHI Picnic in Central Park Nail Polish, Two Coats

The last new shade (assuming I'm right on the ones above) is In Between the Sheets, a muted slightly grey purple creme. It's one of my favorites from the collection.

CHI In Between the Sheets from The Secret Fantasy Collection

CHI In Between the Sheets Nail Polish, Two Coats

The only re-release (or core color, I think) I have is Double Fisted Fuchsia, which is more of a bright pink that a fuchsia and has a strong shimmer and a bit of a flash.

CHI Double Fisted Fuchsia Nail Polish from The Secret Fantasy Collection

CHI Double Fisted Fuchsia Nail Polish, Two Coats

So that's CHI's Secret Fantasy Collection for Summer 2010, and probably the weirdest collection I've seen with mixing in core and re-released colors. I'm happy with the ones I got, and I do like the yellow from last year. Salsalita y Margarita shall remain a mystery to me, as I'm not sold on the idea that it's my kind of color.

Until tomorrow, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

CHI Sultry Nights

Good evening. Dear Reader!

I had an early night tonight, so while watching a little TV, I decided to play with some new decals I picked up this morning (regular adhesive ones, not water decals). They're from the same batch I showed you earlier, and I ordered them from Korea.

I picked out some white ones I wanted to use, and thought they'd be good over a dark blue shimmer. The darkest blue shimmer I had handy was CHI Sultry Nights. I needed three very thin coats, but the drying time on this nail polish is excellent, so I was able to put on the decals in about 15 minutes. Here's Sultry Nights alone.

CHI Sultry Nights Nail Polish, Three Coats

So that was by base, and the decals I added are white, lacy, and have super tiny rhinestones on them. Looking at the decals in the package, I thought they looked lacy. It turns out that they look a little more like doilies than lace.

CHI Sultry Nights Nail Polish, Three Coats, with Decals

I randomly added some other bits from the same sheet in an effort to minimize the doiliness, but I don't think it was too effective. Now it looks like doilies with random other bits around them.

I'll surely take this off tomorrow, but I don't think I've ever shown you CHI Sultry Nights, which is a great one, so I figured I would now. It a discontinued color from a seasonal collection a few years ago, and another example of CHI's great seasonal colors,, despite the core collection consisting of 35 shades of red.

I included the picture with the decals because I thought it might give you a laugh. It makes me laugh. The most tragic part is that these are great decals. They're super thin, have adhesive that allows for do-overs in placement, and I love the itty bitty rhinestones. However, none of that compensates for the fact that it looks like an Irish sitting room circa 1900 on my hands.

That's all for today, Dear Reader. Until next time, love and nail polish to you!

CHI Tropical Paradise Collection for Summer 2009, Part II

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I just finished my swatches of the rest of CHI's Tropical Paradise Collection of Summer 2009 for you, so you get to see the remaining four colors today.

They're all two coats over a base, with the exception of one which is three coats, and the last has a top coat as well.  Let's get straight to the pictures!

Sunny Romance of Saint Tropez is the three-coater, a yellow shimmer, and I still have a bit of VNL.  It looks like this one needs a coat of white under it.

CHI  Sunny Romance of Saint Tropez 

 CHI  Sunny Romance of Saint Tropez 

Under Water at the Great Barrier Coral Reef is a vivid coral creme, and likely has the longest name I've ever see on a polish.

 CHI  Under Water at the Great Barrier Coral Reef 

 CHI  Under Water at the Great Barrier Coral Reef 

Brown Sands on Maui Beaches is a meduim brown with a strong shimmer.

 CHI  Brown Sands on Maui Beaches 

 CHI  Brown Sands on Maui Beaches 

And my favorite of the whole collection, Purple Nights at the Mexican Riviera is a deep purple shimmer that reminds me of velvet.

 CHI  Purple Nights at the Mexican Riviera 

CHI  Purple Nights at the Mexican Riviera  

That's CHI's Tropical Paradise Collection for you!  I got mine from sparkling*nails, but she doesn't seem to have them listed yet.  If you look at Part I, I explained the details of how to get hold of her if you see anything you need.

Until tomorrow, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

CHI Tropical Paradise Collection for Summer 2009, Part I

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I told you I had something fun and otherwise impossible to find online in store for you this weekend!  It's CHI's Summer 2009 Collection: Tropical Paradise.  Today I have the first four of the eight, and tomorrow I'll show you the other four.  I saved my very favorite of the collection for tomorrow, but am giving you my second favorite today (in fact, it's my Nails of the Day). 

I love CHI polishes, particularly their seasonal collections.  The color selection in their core line isn't anything I'd jump up and down about, but their seasonal collections usually have some real standouts.  The hard part?  Finding them!  I've been hunting online for any info about what they'd be putting out, if anything, and came up with nothing.  Even their website still has the Success ACHIeved Collection (which I showed you last Fall) under "New Stuff."  The only down side to the collection itself is the length of the names - if I were to go the usual route and put them on the pictures, I'd have to use four point font!  Instead, I used captions above the pics.

Anyhow, I have come to rely on sparkling*nails on ebay to be my resource to find the impossible to find.  She let me know she had access to the new collection, and I said, "Sign me up!!!"  She hasn't photographed or listed them yet (I've dealt with her outside of ebay since before I started The Nailphile), but she will soon, probably this week.  Here's a link to her CHI nail polishes in order of most recently listed, so when they're available, they'll be at the top of the list.  The other option is to email sparkling*nails and ask her to hold anything you see that you like for you, and she will (and do the transaction through ebay for you).  She's got the best customer service I've ever encountered, hence my loyalty to her.  She also ships for free to the US and Canada for orders of $100 or more, so poke around in her store a bit...

We're almost to the pics, I promise!  I'll just give you the details of the polishes and application first: CHIs are 3-Free (no toluene, formaldehyde, or DBP), and apply just beautifully.  I could tell from the application that they were 3-Free, but did verify that on their site.  I'm accustomed to the application of 3-Free polishes, so they went on really well for me, and were absolutely opaque in two thin coats.  The pictures are in order of my preference from least to greatest, with the first three being the two coats over a base and the last being a full manicure with a top coat as well.  I now present Part I of CHI's Tropical Paradise Collection!

First up is Montego Bay Orange Lush Resort, which is my least favorite simply because I'm not personally wild about orange.  It's actually a nice cheerful shade of orange and a creme.

CHI Montego Bay Orange Lush Resort Nail Polish

CHI Montego Bay Orange Lush Resort Nail Polish Bottle

Next up is Passion on the Mediterranean Cruise, a really nice pinky berry creme.  It's next to last just because the other in this collection are cooler...

CHI Passion on the Mediterranean Cruise Nail Polish

CHI Passion on the Mediterranean Cruise Nail Polish Bottle

Rounding third we have A Fine Glass of Wine in the South of France, which is a slightly fuchsia grape-y creme.

 CHI A Fine Glass of Wine in the South of France Nail Polish

CHI A Fine Glass of Wine in the South of France Nail Polish Bottle

Landing at Number Four, my favorite of today's batch and my NOTD, is Aqua Water on the Isles of Mikonos, a really great aqua shimmer.

 CHI Aqua Water on the Isles of Mikonos Nail Polish

 CHI Aqua Water on the Isles of Mikonos Nail Polish Bottle

That's the first half of CHI's Tropical Paradise Collection for Summer 2009, and the rest are in store for you tomorrow, Dear Reader.  Until then, love and nail polish to you!

Yet Another Precisions Haul, Part I

Good morning, Dear Reader! I've made yet another Precisions haul and they arrived yesterday, so I have pictures of some of them for you. I'll show them to you in alphabetical order, because I can't pick a favorite - each time I decide I have a favorite, I look at another and decide *it's* my favorite. So alphabetical it is! They're all two coats over a base.

Burnt Sienna is one that's a favorite contender - I've been on a brown kick lately, and this is a great brown. Not too brown, just a touch of orange, just right!

Cappuccino Low Fat is another that's appealing to my brown kick, only this one's much lighter with a strong silver shimmer. I like that the shimmer is silver rather than the gold that's usually in brown tones.

Kismet is a lovely pinky-apricot shimmer with a great name.

Raspberry Beret is another contender for my favorite of this bunch. It's a perfect raspberry creme.

Swan's Song is the third that makes me keep waffling on which is my favorite of this bunch. It's a hot, hot, deep pink with a strong silver shimmer.

Those are all the swatches I did yesterday, but there will be more to come. Recently someone asked me why I like Precisions so much, and it's because they apply smoothly, evenly, opaque in two coats, and with great dry time, but they also have excellent colors, often unexpected shades (like my favorite grey, U Rock & I Roll), or unexpected finishes (like microglitter in cremes, as in Twilight Zone). They're also a good value, particularly being 10% larger than other polishes at 0.55 oz. I'm so excited about these because I've so recently discovered the line, and am thrilled to have easy access to them.

Anyhow, after all that swatching, I had to do a full mani, and I chose another item from this haul - the new CHI Holiday polish, CHI You Under the Mistletoe. It's a bright sparkly crimson, which even I didn't have the heart to Konad.

I got all of these from sparkling*nails on ebay (that's a link to the Precisions listings, although she's where I get my CHIs as well). If she's out of stock of anything you've seen on The Nailphile, just email her at sparklingnails@verizon.net, let her know what you want and that you saw it here, and she'll take great care of you. She's been wonderful to my Dear Readers, and is really helpful. As always, I won't benefit in any way if you buy anything from her, other than knowing that you, Dear Reader, are getting fun cool stuff.

That's all for now, Dear Reader. Until we meet again, love and nail polish to you!

Success ACHIved, CHI Fall 2008 Collection

Good morning again, Dear Reader! The sky cleared, and I ran upstairs to get the sun while I could, and it held out for me. So now I can present to you CHI's Fall 2008 Collection, Success ACHIived!

I'll present the pictures in alphabetical order, simply because each of these is so wonderful I can't rank them. They applied beautifully over CHI base coat (which I like a lot), and each picture shows two coats in direct sunlight. They all have either the special CHI sparkle or updated frost that makes all of them fabulous.

First, we have Contract Claws, which is the sexiest of the bunch in my opinion. I love this color!

Second is MocaCHIno on the Go (that's how it's spelled on the label), which is a subdued base color with an amazing shimmer like that of CHI's Mistletoe Kisses.

Now we're up to Office Gossip, a dark red with a very nice shimmer.

Next up at bat we have Open Door Policy, a great slightly pinkish purple with a great shimmer.

Closing in on the the end of the bunch, we have Passionate for My Work, a light purple with the CHI updated frost. CHI's frost polishes do not remind me of 1983, and they absolutely glow.

Finally, we have She's Envious. Why, you ask, would a neutral have such a name? Look closely, Dear Reader, and you'll see that this one has some green in the shimmer!

Do you see why I couldn't pick a favorite? I've been dying to crack into these since they arrived! The only place I know of to get them is from sparkling*nails on ebay (that's a link to the listings of them). Although I've mentioned this seller before (and that I won't profit if you buy from her), one thing I don't think I've mentioned is that ships world wide, and that US and Canada get free shipping on orders over $100 (which is easy to do in her store, speaking from experience...).

So there you have it, Dear Reader - CHI's Success ACHIved Collection. Love and nail polish to you!