Christian Louboutin Beauté just announced its foray into the beauty business with today’s launch of Rouge Louboutin, a heavily pigmented red nail lacquer that pays tribute to Louboutin’s venerated red bottoms. Louboutin’s leap from shoes, and other luxury leather goods, into beauty isn’t that much of a stretch: most luxury fashion brands have an accompanying beauty line, so it only makes business sense for Louboutin to capitalize off its association with luxury by entering that market.

Unlike other aspirational brands, however, Louboutin is the first among its peers to launch into beauty with nail polish. That’s not surprising since Louboutin’s acclaimed red sole came about after the designer snatched a bottle of red nail varnish from an assistant and painted the soles of a pair of his designs (he was distressed by the lack of color in the prototype). And so, red bottoms were born; and now, you can wear that color on your nails (and soon, probably, your lips).

Each bottle of Louboutin’s well designed nail polish is being sold for $50, beginning today in select stores within the United States. Additional color options (in Nude, Noir and Pop) will become available August 31—well after Rouge Louboutin makes its debut, at which time, stores outside of the United States will begin selling the line.

If you’d like to justify purchase of a bottle of Christian Louboutin nail polish, you can argue that each bottle is handmade, with edges smoothed by a hand-held flame; each bottle also comes in its own handmade container; also, each bottle is topped with the most architectural of spikes—to rival any Louboutin heel; and it takes 22 weeks to make each bottle (at one point Louboutin even approached Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer to design the bottle).  Think of all the artisans your purchase will support—it’d be like buying a piece of art! If that argument is unconvincing, at least now you have additional insight into the great lengths Louboutin takes in bringing a product to market—even if it’s just nail polish. It’s little wonder that this footwear designer has made such strides in fashion, he boldly goes the extra mile.