Lately I’ve been wearing a lot more red nail polish than usual-something about all of the great holiday collections that are out right now has me wanting to try out dark, rich reds. I’ve always felt like red nail polish was too bright for me, but now that I’ve been trying out some darker red colors I’m feeling more comfortable with it. I’m also really liking it layered with glitter for the holidays. Today I’m going to show you some darker reds that I’ve tried, and some sparkling topcoat options that I’ve used for layering.
My favorite sparkling top coat is Chanel Illusion D’or–it came out in the spring, and it has small gold glitter with some larger gold flakes. It also has little holographic glitter pieces that flash blue, which makes it different from a lot of straight glitter topcoats. I layered one coat of it over two coats of CND Bloodline to get the look below. CND Bloodline is a darker, blue-based red creme, but it’s still within the fairly ‘basic’ red category-it’s not blackened or vampy at all.
When I saw pictures of the Lancome Le Rouge L’Wren nail polish I immediately knew I’d like it–I could tell that it was darker and richer than the reds I had already tried. I was a little late to the game and it was already sold out on the Lancome website when I went looking, so I had to call around and finally snagged the last two bottles from the Nordstrom in Cincinnati. But it was worth it. It doesn’t need any sparkle topcoat at all, since it has red shimmer already and is a beautiful, slightly plummy dark red. I used two coats for the swatch below, and had a hard time getting a picture because of the depth of the color and the shimmer, and the cloudy weather we’ve had recently:
Finally, I have a color that I added to a recent order after looking around for older reds online. This is Color Club Fast Woman, and it is so pretty. It’s a really dark, garnet-red jelly. In indoor lighting it looks dark but not black, and under direct light or outside it has a bright red glow. It gives a more clear red or even slightly brown feeling than blue. I used three coats below, and layered CND Gold Sparkling Effect over it after seeing a swatch on All Lacquered Up using CND Veronica from the Jason Wu Collection. The CND Veronica polish isn’t going to be available until May, but until then I think this Color Club looks kind of close, at least in indoor lighting when it has a darker look.
I think Lancome Le Rouge L’Wren is my current favorite red. What are your favorite darker reds? Does anyone have a suggestion for another dark, rich red that I should try?