
Today I have swatches of Dior’s Saint-Tropez, which was released to celebrate the opening of the Dior boutique there. It’s a beautiful, Mediterranean-turquoise blue creme with that tiny bit of sparse silver shimmer that many Dior polishes have. Many people have wondered how similar it is to Chanel’s Nouvelle Vague, so I have a comparison, too!
A word about the hyphen: my bottle of Saint-Tropez clearly uses a hyphen, on both the bottom label and the box. There’s no hypen in the name on the Dior website, but I’ve decided to go with the hyphen throughout the review based on the actual packaging of the product (and also because that’s the proper way to spell the place name).
Dior’s brush is very wide and tapered, and for this polish it worked extremely well for me; application was wonderful and I only needed two quick coats for opacity. I saw someone complaining about application of this polish, but I have to say that I really liked the application and found it way better than the other two lightish blues I compared against.
The color is really pretty, a deeper turquoise than Nouvelle Vague and both bright yet slightly soft looking. It reminded me of an ’80s turquoise, since it’s saturated and has a lot of green in it. I’m pretty sure I had more than one t-shirt this color when I was in elementary school. And I’m pretty sure I had others that used this color in that squiggly puff-paint-design type thing. It’s a really summery and watery feeling blue.

The shimmer doesn’t come out on the nail, but it’s beautiful.

I compared against Chanel’s Nouvelle Vague and Essie’s Turquoise and Caicos, which both came out last year. Nouvelle Vague is noticeably lighter and more yellow on the nail and lacks the depth of Saint-Tropez, and application is not as good. I only used two coats but should probably have used three. Turquoise and Caicos is lighter than Saint-Tropez and greener than both of the other two. It took three coats for this swatch and is a lot streakier. In the photo below, Saint-Tropez is on my index and middle finger, Nouvelle Vague is on my ring finger, and Turquoise and Caicos is on my pinky.


Saint-Tropez is just dark enough that I tried a coat of Rock Coat over it, and it came out pretty well. It turns the color darker and more green. This combination actually seemed very fall-suitable when I wore it, and I think it will be a nice way to change up the look of a Saint-Tropez manicure without taking it off and having to re-apply. The shimmer in Rock Coat showed up well over Saint-Tropez, more than when I’ve used it over other, darker colors.

Dior’s Saint-Tropez is everything a summer color should be and applied really well, so I think it’s worth picking up if you’re able. I have to admit that I think it has edged out Nouvelle Vague for my favorite summery turquoise-it’s that nice! Unfortunately, it’s a limited edition color that’s available just through Dior’s website and boutiques, and it was only up on the website for something like 12 hours before it was showing as unavailable again. It’s unclear if it will be re-stocked, but some people are reporting that they were able to order it through the Dior boutique in Las Vegas.
Well based on your pics I think I like the Dior Saint-Tropez polish more (without the rock coat).
Thanks for your comment! Saint-Tropez is really pretty, and I agree that it has just a little more oomph to it than the others.
Wow Chanel’s Nouvelle Vague is very similar to Dior Saint-Tropez. I’m not sure which I like more! Chanel’s shade is a bit more subtle, which I like, but both are very pretty.