
I try to make the meetings when I can, but it’s hard. There’s always so much to do and so little time…
What meetings, you ask?
Oh, the meetings of the Chanel Couleurs Culte de Chanel (“Cult of Chanel Colors,” merci to those years of high school French) — not to be confused with the Cult of Chanel Quads, Cult of Chanel Fragrances, or Cult of Chanel Quilted Bags, to which I also belong.
I’ve often wondered aloud to my plus-size, Chanel-loving tabby cat/freeloading boarder, “Why don’t they [Chanel] just consolidate all of the many mini Chanel cults into a single mega one?” But he just stares back at me, purrs and blinks his big, dumb eyes.
God, I love that cat…

The agendas for Chanel Cult meetings are closely guarded, and I can’t reveal the topics we discuss or the secret handshake, but I am at liberty to say that we spend hours asking ourselves, “What would Karl do?”
(We also pet long-haired, fluffy white cats that resemble Choupette.)
Sometimes, we’ll put our hair up in ponytails and pull on pairs of black fingerless gloves. Then we’ll form a circle, hold hands and sway back and forth to Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order.
Of course, ongoing membership requires the wearing of Chanel nail polish. 🙂
These days, many of our members have been wearing one of the five new Chanel Couleurs Culte de Chanel shades ($27 each). The creative types among us will often mix and match shades, which there’s a policy against (but we’ll usually look the other way).
Chanel Couleurs Culte de Chanel is a precise, concise collection of five iconic Chanel nail shades that I feel accurately convey Coco’s aesthetic, but I can’t help but wonder — where the hell is Vamp??
Wait — Rouge Noir? Vamp? Are you guys twins?
Four of the five are permanent collection products, while the remaining one, Rouge Noir, is limited edition.
One coat seems to be enough for each of the darker colors — Pirate, Rouge Noir, Particuliere and Black Satin — as well as Beige, the lightest lacquer in the group, which looks cute to me, albeit very sheer, applied with one coat, or fully opaque with three.
Okay, enough talk. Hold onto your pearls, and let’s take a look…

Rouge Noir: A creamy blackened red the color of sangria or, um, dried blood (I think I watched one too many episodes of Law & Order: SVU last weekend).

Pirate: Don’t forget to wear this eye-catching, super classic cherry red on September 19 (Talk Like a Pirate Day), or the next time you sail the seven seas (whichever comes first).
I love this color, and I bet Captain Jack Sparrow would, too, as the red should contrast with his black liner nicely.

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For some reason, it was a good year for butterflies. There were way more of them than usual, and my auntie, who had a fondness for what my family refers to as “Filipino old wives’ tales,” (here’s one: “Don’t fall asleep with wet hair, or you’ll wake up blind.”) said that the butterflies were the spirits of dearly departed relatives coming to say hello.










