Christian Louboutin Rouge Louboutin
2 coats
When Sephora had their VIB sale a few weeks ago, I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and buy one of the high-priced items I'd been eyeing..... a bottle of Christian Louboutin nail polish. Regularily priced at $50, the 20% sale brought it down to $40, and I used Ebates to get an additional 7% off (regular cash back of 4%, plus 3% more for using my Ebates Visa). I figured $37.20 wasn't nearly as bad as $50. :-)
It's definitely the most spendy bottle in my collection. My other pricey bottles include a bottle of Dior Adventure ($25) that I bought with a giftcard I received in a Glossybox I purchased, and 2 Chanels that I purchased for about that same price (Paradoxal and Taboo.)
But back to my Louboutin.........
Although the actual glass portion containing the polish is protected by the box shown in this picture, I'm sad to say that the sharp tip wasn't protected at all in the large box it was shipped in with the rest of my order, and a piece of the tip had snapped off. I did contact Sephora and they have shipped me another (the broken bottle will be returned when the new one arrives), but I haven't received it yet to see if the tip was more protected for the second shipment. Let's hope so!
Close-up shot of the box covering the polish portion of the bottle
I'm going to be honest and tell you I was stumped when it came to opening the box and getting to the polish. I could not figure out how the box came apart! It fits together so well, it's pretty tight. You have to pull pretty hard on the top portion of the box to get it to come off. Thankfully, some videos on YouTube came to my rescue and my polish was released from the boxy prison.
And now that I know how it comes off, I can get it off easily.
The bottle itself is pretty cool. The 7 inch cap is modeled after the heel on the Ballerina ULTIMA shoe, the highest heel Christian Louboutin ever designed. The bottle is molded from cut glass and has an ombre color effect that goes from red to black down the bottle.
I found the wand easy to hold. I know that Julep recently released their PliƩ wand, and they remind me of each other, although it looks like the PliƩ wand is bendable. At any rate, this fit nicely in my hand and gave me really good control. I got great application from the brush, although I didn't notice anything in particular that was different about the brush. Supposedly, the brush has a triangle-bristle construction to aid in smooth application.
The formula was fabulous. I started with a coat of my normal base, NailTek Intensive Therapy II. I got pretty darn good coverage with just one coat of Rouge Louboutin, but I decided to do two coats because I really wanted to test the wear. I used my typical top coat- NYC Grand Central Station, although it felt a little funny using a $1.99 product on top of a luxury product! It's my HG and never fails me so I used it as usual.
So far I'm pretty impressed. I'm on day 3 and I have barely visible tip wear on just a few nails. Not impressed enough to buy additional bottles, but impressed enough to say that I would suggest a bottle of this as a luxury gift for someone who loves makeup and nail polish as much as I do. I don't know that a muggle would appreciate it, but since I will probably never own a pair of Louboutin shoes, I can be satisfied with this little bottle of fabulous polish.