L’Oreal Spring 2015 Nail Polish Collection – Haute Florals
L’Oreal Spring 2015 – Haute Florals review
Before you start snoring over the idea of “spring florals,” wait a minute and check out L’Oreal’s take on the perennial spring trend. There are no boring pastels or trite carnation pinks in the L’Oreal Haute Florals collection. I spotted a display, featuring nail art by L’Oreal Global Nail Designer, Tom Bachik, at my local Bed, Bath and Beyond a month ago and scooped up a few bottles, knowing it will sell out. It’s rolling out to retailers nationwide now, so don’t wait to snag your favorites.
Formula & Application
L’Oreal Paris Colour Riche Nail is 5-Free (Formaldehyde, Toluene, DBP, Formaldehyde Resin, Camphor). It comes in a weighty, rectangular glass bottle topped with a plastic cap with a brushed metal finish. The flat brush is medium in width and length with a curved tip and flexible bristles.
All of the opaque colors in this collection are essentially cremes. You may see some shimmer in the bottle but they apply and dry like cremes. They have a squishy, watery feel that is reminiscent of L’Oreal-owned brand, Essie. A couple of the lighter shades (Hint of Lavender, Wispy Clouds) and the coral (Sweet Nectar) weren’t quite as pigmented as the rest, so I needed three coats. Otherwise, it’s a two-coat application.
L’Oreal Haute Florals Swatches
L’Oreal Hint of Lavender is a pink-y pale purple creme. It falls into that toe-the-line category of, “Is it pink or purple?” And, I would say it depends on who is wearing it. Next to my pale skin, it looks more pink.
L’Oreal Hint of Lavender
OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, L’Oreal Hint of Lavender, Chanel Sweet Lilac, Essie Bond with Whomever comparison
L’Oreal Rose Symphony is a deep, muted rose creme. It looks like a creamy lipstick on my nails. One that I definitely want to wear. I need to hunt down a matching shade. Nothing in my collection quite matches it. Everything else is too vivid or too light.
L’Oreal Rose Symphony
OPI Hoodoo Voodoo?!, L’Oreal Rose Symphony, Essie Jumpin Junkanoo, Deborah Lippmann Angel Eyes comparison
L’Oreal Spring Showers is a saturated periwinkle blue creme. It’s a very close cousin of China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle. A little lighter but close enough that you don’t need both. However, maybe it’s because my bottle is old, but the ChG was very thin, nowhere near as pigmented as Spring Showers.
L’Oreal Spring Showers
China Glaze Electric Beat, L’Oreal Spring Showers, China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle, Essie Lapis of Luxury comparison
L’Oreal Sweet Nectar is a bold coral creme. It has a very fine pale pink shimmer in the bottle, but on the nail, it pretty much disappears. If you were to mix Zoya Elodie and Wendy, you would get Sweet Nectar, but neither is a match.
L’Oreal Sweet Nectar
Zoya Wendy, L’Oreal Sweet Nectar, Zoya Elodie, Chanel Tutti Frutti comparison
L’Oreal Violette is a radiant orchid creme. Yep, that’s right, the 2014 Pantone Color of the Year. Now that it’s in the lexicon, may as well use it. As you can see, it comes very close to Lancome Violette (another L’Oreal brand), so here’s a more affordable version.
L’Oreal Violette
L’Oreal Lacquer-ized, L’Oreal Violette. Lancome Violette, Sephora + Pantone Radiant Orchid comparison
L’Oreal Wispy Clouds is an energized baby blue creme. It’s not pastel, but too light to be a traditional bright. The comparison shows what I mean. In the bottle, I expected it to be similar to CoverGirl Skylight or L’Oreal Royally Yours, but it dries more intense.
L’Oreal Wispy Clouds
CoverGirl Skylight, L’Oreal Wispy Clouds, L’Oreal Royally Yours comparison
L’Oreal Garden Bouquet is the clear-based glitter topper of this collection. It contains pale lime green bar glitter, multi-sized pale pink hexagonal pieces and large pink flowers.
The problem… there isn’t enough glitter in the base. So, very little glitter hits the nail, even doing my dab, dip, glide technique. It’s all top coat. And the flower glitters? You need to dig for them and place with a toothpick. The look below is the result of two coats, TWO, and a fishing expedition for the one floral piece. The only upside is that it dries glossy so you don’t need to add a top coat.
L’Oreal Garden Bouquet over Violette
L’Oreal Haute Florals nail polish swatches
Bottom Line: It’s funny, when I saw this collection in store, I bought Spring Showers, Wispy Clouds, Hint of Lavender and Garden Bouquet because of the display nail art. However, once I wore all the colors, Sweet Nectar ended up being my top pick (no floral pun intended). I don’t care that it takes three coats, it’s hot! And while all of the polishes are beautiful and glossy, Rose Symphony is truly unique. Another favorite. The only fail here is Garden Bouquet for all the reasons I stated above.
The L’Oreal Spring 2015 nail polish collection, Haute Florals, is available now, for a limited time, in drugstores and mass retailers. L’Oreal Colour Riche Nail retails for $5.99/ea. For more info, visit LOrealParisUSA.com.
Are you all into these spring florals? Which ones do you plant to hunt down? Are you willing to dig out and place glitter?
Disclosure: I purchased some of the polishes featured in this review. The rest are product samples provided by reps for L’Oreal Paris. Affiliate links may appear in this post. When you purchase through an affiliate link, you help support this site. For more info view my Disclosure Policy.
Lisa N.
Ms Meatballhead
Birdie
Spa pediccure chairs
I really like the way you’re showing swatches of similar nail colors. It’s very helpful. Thanks so much!
We have two floral top coats in the UK (Top Coat flower boheme they are called…) one with pink accents and the other with orange. Whilst I still needed to fish for the flower glitter, I think the UK L’Oreal style bottles that are narrower work better on this occasion. They do have a tendency to stick and despite having two mixing balls and me rolling the bottle before application.
I don’t think we have the rest of the collection, as annoying L’Oreal in the UK just add new colours into the existing stands (I’ve only seen the L’Oreal Reds as the exception) and you’d never know there was a collection there.
Anyway, I do like the look of Sweet Nectar, its a shade right up my street!
To match Rose Symphony try Burt’s Bees lip crayon in Hawaian Smolder!
Some very fresh Spring colors in here.
I love that you have swatch comparisons underneath the polish photo! I picked this collection up a bit ago at Bed, Bath & Beyond, but have yet to use it. All the colors look so pretty.
I am not a pink-wearing girl, but I want Rose Symphony! And thanks for saving me the price of Garden Bouquet.
I’m with you, Jammies!
Very nice pictures! I think I like Wispy Clouds and Sweet Nectar the best.
Thanks Terri! Great choices.
Am enjoying the new comparison swatches you are doing.
Thanks Julie!
Flowers are decidedly in fashion this spring… I’m glad I bought OPI Petal Soft – the payload is great. I use a toothpick to place the flowers where I want, but there is no need to go fishing for them.
I’m going to be testing that one soon. Glad to hear it’s a good one.
Lovely swatches as always – and thank you especially for taking the time to compare similar colors of polish! Spring Showers is so pretty – I’m really digging periwinkle this spring, so I may have to hunt it down. And I want to love Garden Bouquet, but because it’s so sparse when applied I won’t be picking it up.
You’re so welcome. I’ve always been a fan of periwinkle but I love seeing so many of them this spring.
Per usual, your swatches are always the best. I’ve been reading you for years, and was sad when you were on hiatus for a while, but your posts over the past several months have been absolutely great – so I’m glad you came back with such stellar pics and info (not that they weren’t great before). I’m loving your inclusion of so much drugstore polish lately. Thanks for taking the time and effort to make polish shopping/loving easier for all of us.
Man, I in shock over two things here… One, I actually had a different experience and opinion than you with Garden Bouquet, and two, I actually found something prior to you reviewing it! That never happens! Usually I see something here that I’ve never seen at the stores, and then can rarely find it and am left wanting. As for Garden Bouquet, I ended up with pretty great coverage and didn’t have to fish for a single flower. My sister in law borrowed it after I got it, and she fished for the flowers because she wanted lots on her nails. That makes me sad that it didn’t work out for you! I shall keep my eyes out for your review of OPI’s Petal Soft though!
That looks like a great collection. I love Nectar best. It always frustrates me that we do not get these L’Oreal polishes here in Germany. Instead, we only have their overpriced Color Riche nail polish range…
They are all so lovely. I bought Spring Showers and love it!!! Thanks for all of these swatches Michelle
i found garden bouquet to be a waste, too. the flowers were super hard to get out of the bottle. i was so excited to do my toes with it and was just disappointed. it’s a great idea, but didn’t really work in reality.
How disappointing Sweet Nectar is you can see how gorgeous it looks in the bottle but on your nails it’s almost like a totally different color….damn thought I had finally found the perfect coralish pink color that I have been searching for…the search is still on I guess…LOL I am also loving the comparison posts it’s a huge help in my opinion!!! Thanks so much
I love these colors but can’t seem to find them for sale anywhere! Not even on the L’Oreal Paris website. Where did you get yours?
Hi Suzy! L’Oreal doesn’t sell their seasonal collections on their website. I bought some of the polishes at Bed, Bath & Beyond, the rest were sent to me by the brand.
Hi Suzy! I found them at my local Fred Meyer originally, and when I was at a RiteAid this last weekend, I saw that they still had them too, but they weren’t in a popup display, there were with the regular polishes. If you aren’t in the Pacific NW, your version of Fred Meyer might be Kroger… Hope this helps a little!
I just purchased Spring Showers and Sweet Nectar and I love them! I was so tempted to buy Wispy Clouds but I feel like I have too many blues in my collection, but this post makes it more tempting to go buy it! Ahh!
Sorry to enable! Actually sorry not sorry