Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #300 Pistil, #302 Corallo, #500 Cherryblossom, #501 Bougainville, #504 Lilas and #706 Turquoise from Bright Ribbon Collection for Summer 2014, Review & Swatches

I would like to post quickly about nail polishes from Giorgio Armani's Bright Ribbon Collection, which just hit the counters in France and are expected elsewhere very soon. The reason why I would like to post this review as soon as possible is because the promo pictures of this collection are very misleading. So if you would like to order, here are how the colors look like in real, photoshop free life...

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #300 Pistil, #302 Corallo, #500 Cherryblossom, #501 Bougainville, #504 Lilas and #706 Turquoise

#501 Bougainville is a reddish pink with cream finish. All the nail polishes in this collection have a bit of jelly consistency and therefore they are not very opaque with first and sometimes even with the second coat. Bourgainville has the best opacity among the others. With two coats, nail line was invisible. Below swatches are with two coats and a top coat. Durability of this polish was phenomenal.

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #501 Bougainville

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #300 Pistil, #302 Corallo, #500 Cherryblossom, #501 Bougainville

#300 Pistil is an apricot cream with rather sheer consistency. This one needs three coats for full opacity, hence swatches below are with three coats and no top coat. I really like this shade for Spring and Summer but wished that the formula would be more opaque.

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #300 Pistil

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #300 Pistil

#302 Corallo is a mid-toned coral which leans more orange than red. It is not very bright, wearable but still fun, perfect for Summer. Unfortunately this one is rather sheer too, so I needed three coats for opacity, below swatches are also with three coats and no top coat.

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #302 Corallo

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #302 Corallo

 #500 Cherryblossom is a very light pink cream. This one must have been the most sheer of them all. Although for some of the nails I went for a fourth coat to get rid of visible nail line, you can still partly see it. This one is a definite miss for me, since the bottle is anyway tiny with only 6ml of product. After one time usage, you might see the level going down to 2/3, which tells you that you just had the most expensive manicure ever ;-)

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #500 Cherryblossom

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #500 Cherryblossom

Now for Turquoise, I have a few issues. Firstly, it looks nothing like on promo photos, which looked more like a bright green. Secondly to me it leans more teal than turquoise. Third issue is the opacity, again had to go for three coats. This one reminds me of YSL's Vert d'Orient, which was almost a one coater and had a dream consistency. It is also half the price for what you get, so I guess this one is also rather a miss. Below you can see it with three coats and no top coat.

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #706 Turquoise

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #706 Turquoise

The last one is my favorite of the collection, #504 Lilas. The name matches to the Rouge d'Armani Sheers Lipstick in Lilas which I just posted about yesterday. #504 Lilas was also sheer and needed three coats, which is a little booh, but I so much liked the resulting effect of "watery/glossy" quality (does that make sense at all?) and the light hearted color so I can bear with the three coats that needs to be applied. Below swatches are with three coats and no top coat.

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #504 Lilas

Giorgio Armani Nail Lacquer #504 Lilas

Final thoughts: I have mixed feelings about Bright Ribbon Collection of Armani. I was very excited to get my hands on these and ordered them from France since I couldn't wait for them to come here. Then I found out that the press photos are very misleading. I also wonder which nail polish (and lipstick) the model is wearing there, since it doesn't look like any of them. I was so confused that I had to check the numbers of the nail polishes to make sure that I received the right ones. What is the intention of a press photo? To induce curiosity, yes, to get your attention, yes. But what about helping with your order? I think it is sometimes forgotten that not everyone is fortunate enough to check things out in person.

EDIT: I don't know what the blogger which was referred above did to the promo photos, but in this post they seem to be closer in color.

My favorites among these are #504 Lilas and #501 Bougainville. If you like jelly, semi-transparent nail polishes, you may like all of them though.

What do you feel about misleading press photos?