Since Fashion’s Night Out is just around the corner (on September 8th), the internet is already buzzing with pictures of Chanel’s new trio of polishes for the event. (Hint: just like Dior’s fall polishes, they’re blue.) It got me thinking about the trio of polishes Chanel released for last year’s Fashion’s Night Out event, the Khakis, so I pulled them out to revisit them before the new polishes come out.
The Fashion’s Night Out polishes are always a big deal – Jade was the first, and then last year Chanel released the Les Khakis de Chanel polishes. The Chanel website was so overloaded last year with people trying to snap up the Khakis on the day of the event that it crashed! I’m just hoping that they have things in better shape this year, since my only hope to find these is online.
All three of the Khakis are beautiful cremes that go on opaque and perfect in two coats. They’re murky but fairly neutral, enough to be relatively work-friendly.
Khaki Rose is a warm, light brown with a slight pink undertone. Despite the name, this is not a pink polish. I don’t have any other light browns that are this delicate and pretty looking. It doesn’t lean orange or too red. It’s such a nice, classic color, and I really like it with my skintone.
In the shade, it has a slightly greyish tone.
Finally, I wore it with two coats of Essie’s Kisses and Bises on top for the last day of this manicure. It looks darker with the contrast of the rosy shimmer from Kisses and Bises.
Next is Khaki Brun. I hadn’t worn this in a while and surprised myself by liking it even better than I remembered! It’s a darker brown that has strong green tones. It seems like a perfect color for late summer into early autumn; it’s a little bit heavy and somehow still pretty for such a murky and dirty color.
In the shade it has a slight dark green look that kind of reminded me of Essie’s Power Clutch for this fall, with its green undertones. Power Clutch is really a dark grey, but there’s something about it that’s a bit green, like Khaki Brun.
I tried it with a coat of Sally Hansen’s Pumpkin Spice and was so happy! The color turned slightly darker and more brown, and the orange glitters add a delicate texture and sparkle. I love how you can still see the distinctive greenish tone and heavy brown from Khaki Brun, but it’s glammed up a little bit. I hate to cover a beautiful Chanel polish with another polish unless the sum of the two is interesting and reveals something new about the Chanel, and doesn’t just cover it entirely. And I think this combination worked out!
The last of the Khakis is the one that seemed to get the most interest last fall-Khaki Vert is a medium pea green with a lot of yellow in its base. When I look at it now, it reminds me of all of the lightish, murky greens that came out this spring and summer, and doesn’t seem quite so unique. It’s still really pretty and I like that it’s so muted and applies so well.
In the shade, Khaki Vert does have a darker tone and even a little bit of blue in it, which is very different from the other, more recent lighter greens like OPI’s Stranger Tides and Essie’s Da Bush (ick, name). Khaki Vert is like the cooler older sister of those polishes.
Then I hauled out a bottle of OPI’s Electric Eel that is one of my original, oldest nailpolishes – bought from a Duane Reade in Manhattan in something like 2005 or 2006. It’s a black label OPI that has bright green shimmer in a slightly grey base, with a hint of rosy duochrome. I remember wearing this on my toes for months at a time. This combination also made me really happy! Electric Eel’s bright shimmer picks up on the green in Khaki Vert where the light hits, but the grey of the base plays so well with the slightly greyed green base of Khaki Vert. You can even see some of the pink reflections of the duochrome at the edges of my nails. Electric Eel by itself is much sheerer and isn’t deep enough to really display its duochrome flash, so this combination looks like Electric Eel the way it was supposed to be. So pretty!
It’s kind of fun to go back and look at these Les Khakis de Chanel polishes now – I think you can sort of see an influence of these polishes in some of the polishes that have come out over this past year. The Khakis were up on the Chanel website for a few days only, right around Fashion’s Night Out last year, so if you didn’t pick them up then you’re left with eBay. Surprisingly, OPI’s Electric Eel seems to be fairly easy to find online still, at various etailers.
looks fantastic, i like this collection betta than the blues!!! it looks fabulous on you! the pumpkin spice, that’s the best shot of it i’ve seen. woohoo!
Thanks for the comment! I’m really liking the Khakis, too, even after a year has gone by. Pumpkin Spice is great because it’s so easy to find!
Hello, where can I buy Chanel nail polish Khaki Vert, Brun, Rose for reasonable price. Thank you for info 🙂
Hi! Unfortunately these colors were limited edition and they can only be found on eBay now-and the prices are pretty unreasonable.