It seems that some companies have realized that nail polish is now the new lipstick. When the economy dips, women look for bargain luxuries. Used to be lipsticks. Now it’s nail polishes (could be due to people like me who stopped wearing lipstick a decade ago in favor of glosses). Great for us gals that like nail polishes as more and more cosmetic brands seem to have started offering them (or to be more accurate, re-introducing them), including Guerlain. And talk about splashing back into the market.

The two colors that Guerlain has started with are vibrant and rich, as their names would imply. But let’s get to that in a minute. I was actually a bit surprised at the packaging of the Guerlain bottles. They are rather… boring. Nothing that would indicate a high end luxury product. And the only indication it’s a Guerlain product is their signature “G” on the top of the bottle – no where else does the brand name show up. For such a distinguished cosmetics line, it was a bit chintzy looking.

Now, if the packaging leaves a bit to be desired, the polish itself doesn’t. Talk about some high impact colors. I don’t usually wear orange, it just doesn’t go with my skin tone. But I have to admit, Paradisio seems to work. It’s bright without being a blinding neon and it maintains a certain decorum that works well in any setting. Riviera is a highly reflective blurple that flashes pink and purple shimmer. It has enough of a purple base to be mainstream and enough blue to make it edgy.

Although Paradisio looked streaky on the first coat, the second coat was more than enough to even it out. Same with Riviera. The one thing I did notice on both of these is the self-leveling was a bit sluggish. But if you keep the coats thin, this shouldn’t cause too many issues. Both are shown at two coats.