Guys, I’m in trouble.
Earlier this month, I picked up two of Chanel’s reformulated Le Vernis Nail Colour—now renamed Le Vernis Longwear Nail Colour—in Gitane, a tomato red, and Roubachka, a vampy purple. I’ve only swatched Gitane so far, but it is love. True, unassailable love.
From Chanel:
The newly-renovated 5-free formula features Bioceramics and Ceramides to improve the quality of nails. In an arresting palette of 15 trend-setting shades, including bestselling cult favorites and daring new colours.
I’m not a Chanel expert, but some of the re-released shades include Rouge Noir, Vamp, Pirate, Shantung, Ballerina, and Particulière. I was kind of hoping for Black Satin and Lotus Rouge, but I guess they can wait. Incidentally, I no longer see the older polishes available at Chanel’s US site, so if there was an older shade you wanted, it might be prudent to pick it up sooner rather than later. My Shoppers Drug Mart, for example, still had loads of them in stock.
I’m not going to declare the entire line a huge success from just one shade, since, let’s be honest, red creams are typically the best-performing shades in any collection. Must be something about the pigments used…
But Gitane? It is hands down the best fiery red cream I have ever used, and I, as a red nail polish fiend, have tried many.
Gitane (510) is, as I said, a vibrant tomato red cream. It’s medium-toned and basically perfection. Intense but not scary, bright but not garish. Chanel almost always gets colors exactly right, and this is no exception.


The name appears to be derived from the French for “gypsy woman”, according to Gitane, a French bicycle company.
The bottle is essentially the same as the old one, except the design on the front is slightly changed. I mentioned in my haul post that the polish shade name and number have moved from the front of the bottle to the back, leaving the front looking quite bare, as though it’s missing something.
The new brush is also different from the old one, which was long, round and on the skinny side. The new design doesn’t follow the current trend of massively wide, flat brushes: instead, it remains long and a little skinny, but it’s oval-shaped:


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