Les Khakis de Chanel

I waited a whole 24 hours after the khaki collection went up on the Chanel website before I ordered them; such restraint! Here they are: Khaki Brun, Khaki Vert, and Khaki Rose.



Do you see how the label on my Khaki Brun has a bubble? Tsk, tsk. For $25 I would think those sort of flaws could be avoided. And yes, these cost $25 each; I'm not sure why the upcharge since the Soho limited editions that came out around the same time cost the usual for Chanel $23, and these khakis don't seem to have any special pigments, but maybe there's fancy mud in them or something.

Khaki Vert is getting the most buzz of these three, so let's start with that one. It's a medium-toned warm olive green creme that covered beautifully in two coats.





Of course I had to go looking for similar colors in my stash to do a comparison. I pulled RBL Diddy Mow (which we've previously established is interchangeable with Essie Sew Psyched) and an ancient Sally Hansen Hard as Nails, Edgy Creme, that I picked up at the Dollar Tree last year (or maybe it was earlier this year, a while ago, anyway).





Top to bottom: Edgy Creme, Khaki Vert, Diddy Mow.

Edgy Creme is quite close to Khaki Vert as far as color goes. As far as formula, it's no contest: Chanel wins, being much creamier and more densely pigmented. The Sally Hansen needed four coats and would have benefited from a top coat to level it out. Diddy Mow is much cooler in tone than Khaki Vert (and does have that very subtle shimmer which this Chanel does not).

Next up, Khaki Brun, which is another two coat creme. It's a warm brown with a lot of green in it.





I thought for sure I'd be able to find a dupe or near dupe for this among the many old Sally Hansens and Maybellines in my collection, but I discovered that none were quite right; they were too light or too dark or too cool or too orange or way, way too frosty. Since there is so much green in Khaki Brun, I pulled RBL No More War for comparison purposes, and the closest of the oldies, Sally Hansen New Lengths in Metro Creme.





Top to bottom: No More War, Khaki Brun, Metro Creme.

Adding a little grey to No More War might get it close to Khaki Brun, though using an $18 polish to franken with is more than I'm up for at this point. Metro Creme would need to be darkened considerably; it did apply better than Edgy Creme, though, needing only three coats and self-leveling nicely.

Finally, let's look at Khaki Rose, another two coat creme. I think this is called "Rose" because "Brun" was already taken, as there's nothing really rosy about this that I can see. It's a warm milky chocolate color.





I had a hard time finding comparable colors for this one, too. In the oldies category, Maybelline Salon Finish Mocha Blast came closest, and among more recent purchases, Revlon Chocolate Truffle was the best I could come up with, and it's hardly close.





Top to bottom: Mocha Blast, Khaki Rose, Chocolate Truffle.

Mocha Blast is a bit too dark and a bit too cool toned to be a dupe (and I'm not sure how readily available it is anyway), while Chocolate Truffle is way too too dark.

I'm not sure if my inability to find dupes for these colors is due to their uniqueness or due to my preference for cooler shades causing my stash to be dominated by those hues instead of ones that would match up with these new Chanels. I'll have to keep an eye out on my drugstore rounds and see what I can see.