Vintage CHANEL – ‘Ciel De Nuit/Night Sky’ (swatches & review)

By now, everyone knows that CHANEL made dark, vampy lacquers über-fashionable – who can forget Uma Thurman sporting ‘Vamp’ in the 1994 cult hit “Pulp Fiction”? Following this success of such a deep shade, in 1997 CHANEL went in another direction by launching ‘Ciel de Nuit/Night Sky’ – a midnight navy lacquer, filled with scintillating silver and blue ultra-fine micro glitter; it was like the cosmos all of a sudden became contained within a bottle of nail varnish … and I knew it had to be mine! The following swatches are all with Deborah Lippmann’s 2-Second Nail Primer, Rehydrating Base Coat and Addicted to Speed Top Coat, as well as two coats of lacquer.

As you can see, the name is featured on the back of the bottle, unlike the modern incarnations which bear the shade’s name on the front label. The lacquer itself gives perfect opacity by the second coat, flowing with a medium thick viscosity, but that may also be due to the fact that it is a 15-year old bottle of varnish. Completely self-levelling with an amazingly glossy shine at the end, I was surprised to feel how smooth the finish felt, even with the amounts of glitter it holds. Another huge plus, was the fact that there absolutely zero staining left behind.

This image of the “Pleiades Cluster”, or “Seven Sisters” as it is sometimes known by, is one of the brightest open clusters to exist near our solar system, as well as one of the few clusters that can be seen with the naked eye. Filled with bright blue and silvery-white points of light, it bears a striking resemblance to my featured lacquer, wouldn’t you agree?

I love how full sunlight not only adds an inky depth to the deep blue background hue, but serves to bring out the cerulean and silvery glints of the fine glitter.

This angle gives a closer view of the “mini nebulae” swirling at the surface.

With indirect/natural light, this lacquer now most accurately resembles its name: a pure night sky, strewn with countless stars.

Shaded light deepens the base colour to a more blackened blue, and quiets ‘Night Sky’s’ inner fire – but never puts it out completely.

A final view taken with flash really serves to highlight every shimmering facet reflected from with the depths of this shade.

Final thoughts: When I first heard of this unique shade, I didn’t hesitate: I immediately ordered it, sight unseen, from Saks in New York. Little did I know at the time what legendary cult status it would reach, or how many duplicates it would eventually spawn; all I understood, was that I had never come across anything like this before. Application of this formula was a welcome surprise, especially when you consider this bottle’s age and the fact that I haven’t used it all that much these past few years, and even though the marketplace has since been flooded with an assortment of glittery lacquers, there’s still something so incredibly sophisticated and different with CHANEL’s ‘Night Sky’ … the name itself conjures up so many scenarios. My only regret is in not picking up a backup bottle, but at least I have this one to play with!