Dior’s Holiday 2011 Collection is available now – the Vernis d’Or Collection is made up of four gold-themed polishes, all with a pretty gold shimmer.  I’ll have swatches of all four, and I started with Exquis, a deep taupe color.

Dior is my favorite polish brand right now.  Their polishes have a consistently great formula and are impressively long-wearing on me–I’ve worn several different Dior polishes for seven days straight during the last few busy weeks, with no chips.  I also have settled in to the wide but tapered brush and find that it makes application easy and requires less strokes, so there’s less chance for bubbles or dragging.  So I scooped up the holiday collection when it came out; there are two reds, a gold and Exquis, a taupe with a slight grey undertone.

Exquis has a lovely formula and went on nicely.  I only needed two coats for opacity.  In the bottle Exquis has a gilded, bright shimmer but it’s a bit muted on the nail.  I like that the shimmer is subtle but noticeable, and it has a slight grey or smoky hint.  This didn’t seem like a true holiday color to me, but it’s a cozy, wintery color that isn’t too dark.

In the shade the grey tones are more apparent – I like how the edges of the nail shade off to a soft, more greyish shadow.

It reminded me a lot of China Glaze’s Ingrid, from Fall 2010, so I pulled it out to compare.  In the picture below, Dior New World Purple is on my index finger, China Glaze Ingrid is on my middle finger, and Dior Exquis is on my ring and pinky.  I included New World Purple in the comparison just out of curiosity, since both New World Purple and Exquis are brownish Diors and I thought the shimmer might be similar.  The shimmer in New World Purple is a little heavier and more sparkly, though, and New World Purple is a lot redder and more purple next to the taupes.  It’s kind of funny because when I wear NWP by itself it always seems so brown to me.

China Glaze Ingrid and Exquis are REALLY similar – they’re almost dupes.  If anything, Ingrid is slightly more brown than Exquis, maybe lacking a tiny bit of the grey tone.  But really, I think it would be difficult for most people to tell these apart.  Ingrid has the same soft golden shimmer that is subtle on the nail.  It might be a little less sparkly in direct light, but in most lighting, the shimmer in these two comes off the same.  Ingrid should still be around from various etailers if you’re looking for an Exquis substitute.

I have to confess, though, that part of the fun of the Dior polishes for me is the pretty shiny cap, the precisely tapered brush, and the little designer whiff they give off.  So Exquis still has that over Ingrid.

The d’Or polishes are available at Nordstroms now.