I think
@ashievic and I must have been nail swatching at the same time LOL. So, I spaced when I ordered these and missed the detail that the base polish was supposed to have some special effect. So I only ordered the 3 colors. But since then I read the full explanation on the Armani website: http://www.armanibeauty.com/make-up/collections/fuchsia-maharajah/fuchsia-maharajah-nail-lacquer-nail-polish.aspx
So, in a nutshell they say,
"This new Fuchsia Maharajah nail ritual is composed of an iridescent base coat for a dazzling optical effect and one of the three Nail Lacquer colours applied as a top coat."
I totally missed the idea that this was a whole "nail ritual". LOL So I'm ordering the base and will see how it goes applying them as they were intended. But for now I just played around with the colors on their own. As ashievic has pointed out, they are sheer as you can see in the bottle. But you can achieve better opacity by layering. I found shade 511 to give the best coverage of the three. In the swatch below, I used 3 coats (a couple rather thick). They have what almost seems like a water-like finish to them. So I agree with ashievic again that these seem reminiscent of the forthcoming YSL Pop Water nail polishes. But personally I found these to have enough pigment that I wasn't turned off by the sheerness. I just love the colors so much and they have a beautiful glossy finish. It's sort of a refreshing change to me from cream polishes.