Chanel Le Vernis #767 Fraicheur

I love it when beauty brands pull out something unexpected out of the blue from time to time, something they have been keeping up their sleeves hidden away from our greedy eyes. That was the case with the Chanel Le Vernis #767 Fraicheur. A refreshing mint green nail polish that feels more spring than summer, sneaking up on us shortly after their Summer Mediterranee Collection [reviewed here and here] and the Les Beiges Collection [reviewed here], and just as we are anxiously awaiting the fall collection. As it turned out, Fraicheur is not tied to any collection at all, but a celebration of a new Chance flanker, and the green is intended to be a complement for Chance Eau Fraiche.

Chanel Fraicheur is a mint green with a strong yellow base and a generous sprinkling of a deeper cool-toned metallic green micro-shimmer. As a consequence of this complexity, Fraicheur shows up in photographs alternately as cool-mint and warmish yellow-green depending on the light.

I know by now micro-shimmers in otherwise straight-forward cream polishes should not be much of a surprise, but the ones in Fraicheur are quite apparent both in the bottle and on the nails. Under indoor lighting, the shimmers are not as clearly noticeable, but they are definitely there at the right angles, especially if you look at my little finger.

And here they are in their full glory under direct sunlight! Notice also how much warmer Fraicheur shows up when hit by sunlight.

For all its beauty, Chanel Fraicheur has a slightly thinner consistency, and I needed 3 coats to achieve full opacity. It also tended to thin out in certain patches (or I simply wasn’t doing a very good job the night I was applying it) and I had to go over it again. On the other hand, I suspect it is this sheerness that allowed the shimmers to show through so well. It is nicely self-levelling and did not leave streaks.

I am in love with Chanel Le Vernis Fraicheur as the color is simply so happy, and imho something that we don’t see very often from Chanel. Of course, there are lots of talk about how it is similar to or not quite the same as another previously released unicorn Jade. For a good comparison swatch, please hop on over to my lovely friend Sara’s post here.

How do you feel about mint green for Summer-Fall? And does it feel like Chanel is trying to redeem itself from Paradisio?