Talon-tastic Thursday: It's Graphite, Jim, but not as we know it.

Chanel Graphite is a very nice silver polish that glitters in the sun in a most enchanting fashion, but I'll be honest with you: I'm just not convinced that it's all that unique. 

When photos of it began surfacing in March, I mentioned on Beaut.ie that I thought Andrea Fulerton Mischa would be an eminently passable substitute, and now that I've had a chance to compare them side by side I can confirm that they're extraordinarily similar. 

Yes, Mischa is a bit darker, composed of slightly larger particles, and has some blue and purple leanings - Graphite is a cleaner silver, shot through with gold - but even a very slow horse with a serious interest in duping Chanel polishes wouldn't notice the difference. 

While stablemate Peridot lasted on my nails for several days without any embellishment and was only removed when it had chipped to the point of being unwearable, Graphite stumbled within hours. After just one day of wear, I was properly bored with it, so out came the white nail art pen and on went the absolute hottest fashion print of the season: stars!

Stars were my doodle of preference when I was at school so I'm happy to see them making a comeback. I'm also almost certain that I used to draw them on my bare nails as well as any scrap of paper that came my way, so this was all very sunrise, sunset.

Then Karl the Bear randomly popped into my head, and I decided to try an accent thumb.

Nowhere near perfect (and a touch more smiley than either Karl or his bear) but how cute is that?