Bourjois La Laque Nail Enamels

With the Spring 2015 Bourjois launches came a new nail varnish – as a slight sidenote, isn’t it interesting how many polish designs Bourjois varnishes have had? We’re quite used to the pots with the long, tapered handles, but of course we have the other variants, such as the shorter, curvier bottles and the ones with the squared off handles.  The La Laques are the newest incarnation, with the bottle design having some great pros and less great cons.

Firstly let’s look at the gorgeous shade range, of which there are 12 covering a good spectrum from wedding white to deep brown, with some brights and pastels in between.  I’ve got five of the shades, in same order as the pictures: Lycheers – my favourite of the bunch which is described as a pale plum pink which I’d say is about right (check it out on my nails here) although don’t let the ‘pale’ mention lead you to believe it’s a pale shade in general as it’s still quite deep; Cherry D’amour – a deep berry shade; Only Bluuuue – a bright, royal blue; Fuchsiao Bella – a lovely, bright fuchsia and finally Are You Reddy – a standard tomato red.

If I had to, I’d guess that Only Bluuuue would be the most popular, with Lycheers coming up a close second. Another sidenote…whenever there are extended letters in a word such as all the ‘u’s in that Bluuuue, I always wonder how much discussion goes into deciding how many additional letters there should be; right now I’m imagining a very serious argument between some hot-headed executive types with one yelling “It needs to be 4 ‘u’s! Nobody will start singing “Only You” in their head if we just go with 3!”

So many people have commented on Lycheers and asked what it is, so it’s definitely a shade that I think a lot of people will respond to as it’s quite summery without being too generically bright or pastel.  To be honest, out of the five shades I have, I’d be happy to wear all of them on my fingers or toes.

Finally, the packaging.  The bottle has a curved edge which lines up to a right angle corner, meaning you can slot four shades together to make a circle.  Not only is this quite practical and quirky, it also looks really good.  However, when it comes to painting it makes things a little harder than I’d expect, especially if you’re cack-handed like me and not good with anything too fiddly.  It’s probably just a case of adjusting, but it could definitely be easier.  That’s the only downside to the new La Laques as the polish itself is great – pigmented, fluid and long-wearing and I hope to see more shades launch soon.  The Bourjois La Laques arrive next month (May 2015) for £6.49 a go.

*PR Samples