butter LONDON Sunbaker and Champers

Today I have for you two polishes from butter LONDON's Summer collection. Both are bright, shiny foil finishes that caught my eye right away. 

Sunbaker (index through ring fingers) is a metallic tangerine color that applied like a dream. I love that the inspiration behind the color is those people who spend too much time in the sun (usually fake baking) and turn orange!

Champers (pinky accent nail) is a fantastic rose gold color that takes its name from the British slang for champagne. I'm now realizing that this photo doesn't show the rose vey well. I'll have to reswatch and get a better shot. Two coats to opacity with this one as well.

Love these colors! I think they're the perfect tribute to summertime. Did you grab any from this collection?

butter LONDON Dodgy Barnett and Shag - Swatches and Review

It seems that butter LONDON had released a store-exclusive polish every other week shortly after their regular Autumn/Winter collection was released. Several seemed lovely, but I've been trying to reign in my polish spending lately and if there are two things I have trouble backing away from, it's holos and browns. So, to my home came Dodgy Barnett and Shag.

Dodgy Barnett is a very fine silver glitter with scattered holo particles. It's rather thin, but builds up easily. I have two coats on my ring finger and three on the others. Dodgy Barnett is a beautiful, clean-feeling polish. I wish the holo were a bit more pronounced, but I'm still pretty happy with it.

The other polish I ordered from this collection is Shag. Shag is a warm-toned, brown shimmer polish. I was so excited for this one because I love browns, but I was very underwhelmed by this polish on my nails. I don't know if it's because of my skin tone or what, but just don't like the look of it. I'll probably give it another go before I completely give up.

What do you think of butter LONDON's new offerings? Any you just couldn't say no to?

Olympics Nails (P.S. I can't make rings!)

I probably won't be too active on the blog, Twitter, etc. for the next 2 weeks or so as I LOVE to watch the Olympics. Kiddo is vacationing with friends and DH is pretty self-sufficient, so I expect my after-work attention to be split between the Olympics and Paint Box Polish (both the blog and Etsy store).

While watching Men's Swimming Saturday, I decided I wanted to do an Olympic rings mani. I learned that I cannot make free hand rings. Then I tried using straws. Too big and not even enough. So, I decided to bring back the Independence Day dots, but in the colors of the Olympic rings.

My base was OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I dotted with the flat end of a bamboo skewer for the larger dots and a dotting tool for the smaller ones. The yellow dots are Paint Box Polish Hufflepuff, green are butter LONDON British Racing Green, blues are butter LONDON Blagger, red is Zoya Sooki, and black dots Zoya Raven. I am pretty happy with it and have gotten several compliments at work.

I debated using my Paint Box Polishes for all the colors but black because they fit with the Olympic colors, but stock is getting low and I have pigments being shipped, so I decided not to. 

Happy 4th of July Gradient Dots Manicure

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans! I got home from the gym yesterday with a butter LONDON box tucked into my storm door. Gotta love 30% off sales! So there I sit with the beautiful cobalt blue Blagger in my hand on July 3rd, and am hit with a patriotic nail art idea. 

Sarah from Chalkboard Nails posted an awesome gradient dot mani over on her blog. (check out her post here) It is beautiful, dramatic, and above all simple. At least she made it seem simple. Since I am not a gifted nail artist, I decided to give it a go.

I started with 2 coats of the fabulous butter LONDON Blagger, then dotted on large white dots with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls near the tips of my nails with the flat end of a bamboo kabob stick. (Working with what I've got!) Next, I used a small dotting tool to add some white dots near the base of the nail. Lastly, I repeated the dotting process with Zoya Sooki. 

Look at that! Nail art! And I think it looks pretty decent. Happy 4th of July guys!!

St Patty's Day mani - butter London British Racing Green

Way to go, Pam. Looking at the blog today, I realized I talked about my St Patrick's Day mani but hadn't posted it! I saw Jacqui's post on The Scholarly Nail and was inspired by her green & gold mani. Hers was a total glitter bomb, you should definitely check it out. I decided to go for a little more subtlety.

I used butter London British Racing Green as my base color and topped it with a coat of Essie As Gold As It gets. I loved the combo! It has a pot o' gold look to it. I have yet to find anything this top coat looks bad with.

butter LONDON The Black Knight

The Black Knight is the first up in my Christmas Gift Extravaganza. I got so. much. polish. Love it! The Black Knight is one of butter LONDON's Holiday 2011 collection. It is a black jelly that is chock full of pink and blue glitter and a finer gold glitter. The first coat is pretty sheer, but it is nicely opaque with a second coat. The picture below is the second day of wear with 1 coat of Seche Vite. It stayed pretty gritty, but it didn't bother me enough to add a second coat.

Day 2 - 2 coats polish and 1 Seche Vite

I noticed that I began to get awful chips pretty quickly. Some quick internet trolling showed me that I am not the only one! Apparently glitters (not just this one) are prone to chipping. I imagine it's due to the grittiness. The polish on my index finger began to lift after the 4th day, so I decided to throw a coat of Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps over it. This is a very thick polish, so it smoothed the finish nicely when topped with another coat of Seche Vite. All in all, I absolutely love this one and am thrilled Bestie got it for me! :)

2 coats The Black Knight, 1 coat SV, 1 coat HaW, 1 coat SV

Merry Christmas to me!!

Bestie came into town and we are currently at Steak n' Shake exchanging Christmas gifts and this is what I got! How much does she rock? Tons, I tell ya! Tons!

ETA: I had Christmas with DH's side of the family, and got some fab polishes from them too. Abbie got one of the HITS No Olimpio polishes I wanted, so that one will be showing up here soon.

BUTTER London Bluey (again!) and plans for December

Ouch! Dammit, even. My nails were growing out nicely, and with the exception of my pointer and middle fingers on both hands, peeling was getting so much better. Then, my silly car door goes and bites off a chunk of nail. It broke off pretty far down, and it looked really silly with one nubbin, so...

Now I have 10 little nubbins. That is a really great representation on Bluey, BTW. I think my first photo of it was rather washed out. It's lovely, go buy it! :)

As for December, I got 3 of the 5 Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail strips, and plan to make it through the month with them. One appeals to the knitter in me, one reminds me of both Christmas and my fab trip to Scotland with Bestie, and the other is black and silver argyle. How can you say no to that??? I accidentally deleted my pic of them, so I'll snap another and add it here at the end. I think it'll be nice to have fewer polish changes. I'll just have to find stuff to blog about...

Mummy Mani

Nailside posted more awesome pics on Tumblr, and the next thing I know, I'm cutting strips of Scotch tape. :) This is Zoya Raven over butter London Victoriana. It turned out pretty well. There were a couple of places where the tape pulled up the polish, but I think it's because I wasn't careful.

butter LONDON Victoriana

Just for you, Gail! :)

Let me start off by saying that Victoriana was not what I was expecting. Pictures I'd seen online looked like the base was lighter, and more blue-green. Not the case irl. At least not for my bottle, but that's okay. I love it anyway!

Victoriana's base color is almost a Wedgewood blue. Similar to Rescue Beauty Lounge's Catherine H from the Tudors collection. There is also a very obvious, in-your-face silver shimmer. I like the shimmer a lot and find it to be the thing that makes this polish different from other blues.

The formula was great. It is thin, but very pigmented so I was able to get great coverage with 2 coats. I switched it up and used Zoya Anchor base coat and am finding much less shrinkage with Seche Vite. Also wrapped my tips this time, so I'm sure that helped as well.

butter LONDON Bluey

This is the first polish I got from the ULTA bogo free sale. It caught my eye as soon as the press releases for the Fall 2011 collection came out. Knees Up looked fab, and Wallis was very pretty... But Bluey? Bluey! Then I saw the British slang dictionary on butterlondon.com and decided I had to have it. Cannot turn down a polish named for porn. :)

butter LONDON describes Bluey as a peacock blue. I would definitely agree. I've seen some bloggers note that there is much more green to the polish in the bottle than on the nail, and I would agree. Still beautiful and I'm glad I was able to snatch it up. Especially since the online store sold out of all the polish in about 2 hours.

Below is 3 very thin coats over Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps and under a coat of Seche Vite. I didn't wrap my tips and got horrible shrinkage. I think it's the SH. No worries though because Victoriana is mocking me every time I see it. She's next. :)

Explosion manicure... Sort of.

Got bored and decided to try a scotch tape manicure I saw on Nailside's tumblr. (Tutorial here)

I decided to go for butter London Yummy Mummy after I took off DS Mystery. It was a nice, neutral palate cleanser, but then I decided to try something new. I used Rescue Beauty Lounge Anne for the explosions. Needless to say, I love it. I've gotten several compliments at work.

You should check out Nailside's other tutorials as well. They look easy, but very cool.

My final HP House Colors Mani!

I decided to try scotch tape, and I LOVE it! This is what was on my nails for the movie. The colors are as follows:
Index: Zoya Ibiza over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Wet Cement
Middle (hee hee!): SH Wet Cement over Butter London British Racing Green
Ring: Sinful Colors Let's Meet over Rimmel Burgundy Flirt
Pinky: Zoya Raven over Sinful Colors Let's Meet
Thumb: Zoya Raven
All of these were already in my stash, so that was a bonus. And now I think I'll go mourn a little more.

All Hail The Queen wear & Rimmel Burgundy Flirt

There's been a little lack of blogging, huh? The reason? All Hail The Queen has been lasting for ages! This (horrible) pic is right before I took it off after 6 days of wear. A few small chips, serious growth, and need of lotion & cuticle cream. :) I think a big contributor to the great wear is Hard As Wraps. 6 days is unheard of for me. Think I've found a new basecoat...

I went to Walgreen's yesterday and got some great deals. Plain old Wet n' Wild is $0.69, so I picked up 2 bottles of clear in case I want to try frankening. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear was 2/$4, so I got Wet Cement and a glittery red. I also had a $1 off coupon for Rimmel, and chose Burgundy Flirt. I'm finding it harder to remember where the holes in my collection are. I don't think Burgundy Flirt filled any, but it is pretty.

Formula was decent. These polishes have a very wide, curved brush. The name of it escapes me. The other 2 I've got work really well, but this one is rather wonky. It ended up looking okay though. This is 2 coats over Hard as Wraps and under Poshe. There was some balding, but I think I should've waited a little longer between coats.

Next up will be my new Zoyas from the BOGO sale.

butterLONDON All Hail The Queen

I finally got the last lemming on my list! A quickie overnight trip to Chicago led me to Ulta, which led me to the teeny, tiny end cap display of butterLONDON polishes, which led me to the next-to-last All Hail The Queen in the place! Behold...

I don't know why I love this one so much. I love holo glitters, but don't usually get so enraptured with nudes (Yummy Mummy excepted). This one has me though. I found myself staring at it all day today. I used Hard as Wraps, 2 coats of lacquer, and 1 coat of Poshe. There is so much depth to this shade! If I didn't know better, I'd think I were wearing at least 4-5 thin layers. The microglitter looks silvery and monochromatic in most lighting, but is definitely holographic in the sun. I tried my best to capture that in the photo above, but it just wasn't happening.

And really quick... a bit about Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps... I'm very happy with it so far. Granted, I've only used it on my last 2 manis, but it really does strengthen my nails. I think its helping with the peeling as well. I had Yummy Mummy on for 4 days before a chip, and I did some heavy-duty spring cleaning while wearing it. I'm curious to see how it holds up to hand washings at work, but so far, I've found a winner!

butterLONDON Yummy Mummy

This is the last of my recent butterLONDON order. I must admit that when I pulled the three bottles out of the box, I wasn't excited about Yummy Mummy at all. Marrow and British Racing Green stand out quite a bit, and Yummy Mummy is much more subtle. Subtle, but man oh man is it pretty! A great neutral with silvery shimmer. It might be my favorite of the three. Application was lovely. This is 2 thin coats with a topcoat of Posche. I think next time I'll use 3 coats. As many others have said, this one would be excellent to use after some bright, obnoxious color. You know, giving your eyes a rest and all.

I also tried a new base coat. Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps. It comes in clear, or tinted. I chose clear. I'm not sure it's meant as a base coat, but is supposed to make nails as strong as if they had acrylic wraps. I'm anxious to see if helps my peeling nails and has any staying power under polish. This is a shot of my 2 favorite nails. (I know, I'm a goober) I wish all ten of them looked that way, but hey. This is after 1 coat of Hard as Wraps.

Oh! And, my Zoya order arrrived. I got Faye, Areej, and Sooki. As a True Blood fan, I couldn't resist that one! I split the order with a friend and she got Sooki, Mira, and Breezi. I might be able to convince her to let me post hers here as well.

butter LONDON Marrow... and insomnia. :(

Yes, it's 2:44 am and I'm posting. Because I'm not sleeping, so might as well, no?

Look! My cuticles are getting better! I'm on vacation for a week, so hopefully between some moisture and not having to wash my hands so much, they can start looking decent again.

Marrow is wonderful. A bright, warm, shimmery purple. I had to use a flash for the photo, but you can see the very subtle silver shimmer if you embiggen. The color in that photo is a prefect representation as well. I used 2 thinner coats and like the look of it better than with the thick coats I used for British Racing Green. It flows like... wait for it... butter! (Forgive the corniness, I'm incredibly tired) I also used Poshe topcoat and have liked it a lot. Maybe I won't swap it out after all.

I went on a coupon spree at Meijer. I think this coupon business may be more work that its worth, but will give it a shot. I snagged Sally Hansen cuticle oil pen and Hard as Wraps. Looks like it can be used as a basecoat. I'm super excited to see if it really stops peeling nails. Of course, I'll let you know what I think.

Gonna go try this sleep thing again. Night, folks!

butter LONDON British Racing Green

I love this polish! As I said in the last post, just seeing how OCD/meticulous the shipping box was taped made me want to love the contents, and they did not disappoint.

I painted my fingernails with British Racing Green and my toenails with Marrow as I couldn't decide which to do first. Then, this morning, I broke a nail. This screws the whole manicure for me, so I'm going to take it off and paint Marrow on my tips. I'm so damn fickle. :) Actually, I know that if my polish gets blemished, I'll start picking. My cuticles are destroyed enough as it is. I need no encouragement.

One thing I didn't notice when I was looking at swatches of BRG was the shimmer. It's pretty obvious in the light and gives this color a glowy look. I also really like this look of the very dark green against my paler than pale skin. However, I'm not as pale as that picture would lead you to believe. It captures the color of the polish very accurately though.

Application was great. I really like the brush in these polishes. This is 2 pretty thick coats, as I am wont to do. Will try thinner ones with Marrow just to see how it goes.

Also, dear readers (are you out there?), I will be needing new topcoat soon. My Seche Vite is about half full, and getting thick. Will lacquer thinner ruin it? What topcoat would you recommend? I've used Poshe and wasn't wowed at all. (In fact, let me know if you want it, and we can swap something) I love the thickness of Seche Vite and the way it evens things up. Debating refilling it or trying something else. Wisdom is much welcomed.

Oh, I am a sucker for packaging!

I arrived home today to find this perfectly square box on my doorstep. The tape was perfectly, ocd-ly mitered as I always try to make mine when I mail a package. (sigh!) Inside were adorable little bottles wrapped perfectly in cellophane with proportionate little labels holding them closed. Perfect. Based solely on presentation, butter LONDON has completely knocked Rescue Beauty Lounge out of my favorite not-completely-practical polish spot. Application cemented it there. But that's for another post. Here are the iphone photos:

Yummy Mummy, British Racing Green, and Marrow