Butter London - Scouse!

Oh my!  I do believe that my butter London nail polish collection is growing and growing!  They just seem to be coming up with color after color that I looove.

For this post I layered Scouse, which butter London describes as "Sheer, royal blue and indigo duochrome nail lacquer with pink, purple, and blue microglitter.", over Nina Ultra Pro's Cobalt.

The definition of Scouse is a "Brit slang referring to a person from Liverpool"

Cobalt is such a stunning color, and is HOT HOT HOT this season, but it is so hard to photograph, as blues usually are.  I did have to fiddle around with my camera and settings in order to get to capture it's "in real life" color, so please forgive the brightness of some of the shots. 

For this manicure I started with the usual Orly Bonder base followed by 3 coats of Cobalt and topped with a coat of SV to render it super shine-tastic.   I had to include a partial shot of the ring I wore with this mani, which is a sterling silver setting with a chunk of a Ming vase in it.  What can I say?  It matched perfectly. 

After I grew bored of Cobalt all on it's own I layered on 2 coats of Scouse to my mani and topped again with SV.  That's quite a few layers of nail polish, but it all held up very well. 

Scouse is an exclusive color that can be found only at Dillard's stores or via the butter London website and sell for $14.00 each.  Cobalt can be found at Sally's online store  for $4.19 with their beauty club card.  I picked mine up in person and believe it was actually priced at under $4.00 in store with my Sally's card.

Will you be jumping on the Cobalt band wagon this season?  Please do!

Until next time...

☺ 

Back in action with butter London - Trustifarian

  As you know, my computer's hard drive crashed a couple of weeks ago and was subsequently confirmed to be dead as dead could be. Nothing from my hard drive was recoverable, so I lost a crapload of pictures and documents including my all of my nail polish swatches from 2012 and those that were ready to be blogged. :( That's what I get for not backing up to my external hard drive.  Lesson learned.  Grrrrr!
  I ended up buying a new little desktop and am trying to make up for lost time. Thank goodness for my Best Buy card. Whew! You really don't realize how much you rely on technology until it's no longer available. Trying to do everything I needed to on my smart phone was super annoying so I'm very happy to be back on my PC.
 While I was in PC limbo, I had the pleasure of taking a quick trip to the CA Bay to visit a couple of my girl friends. Of course I packed several polishes so that I could do a quick change while on my vacay. One of them was Butter London's Trustifarian, which I had picked up at Dillard's just before I left on my trip. Trust me when I tell you that YOU NEED TO HAVE THIS POLISH! This polish is Gor-ge-ous! Granted, butter London is not an inexpensive brand, so some folks may not even consider giving them a chance. Their polishes are $14 each unless you are lucky enough to pick them up on a BOGO promo at Ulta, but those are few and far between. Even still, butter London puts out polishes of excellent quality and in fantastic colors, so really they are worth the price in the long run. I bought Trustifarian with Scouse, which is a Dillard's exclusive color that I'll be posting about soon.
  The way I know that a nail polish is a winner, aside from my own opinion and what I read online, is based on the extent of compliments I receive.  Case in point, I was at a store on Haight in SF called Land Of the Sun, trying on numerous sterling silver rings with my friend, Nicci. While we were looking, there was a lady behind me that kept leaning in and hovering around.   I thought she was just anxious for us to hurry up and make our selections so that she could look at the rings as well.  Instead, she must have realized we weren't going anywhere any time soon and finally interrupted us telling me "I'm so sorry, but can you please just tell me what color nail polish you're wearing.  It's beautiful!" I ended up writing the name and brand and where she could buy it down on a piece of paper for her. The sales lady then chimed in "Write it down for me too!". How about that?!

 As you probably know, I am a nail polish NUT and I make sure that I read up on proper application and tips on removal and all that jazz.  Trustifarian is a holographic polish, so for this application I did not use a base coat and instead buffed up my nails to offer a smooth base for the polish to go on. I have read that most holos apply better if you do this vs using a base coat.  After the smoothing and buffing, I applied 2 coats of Trustifarian...although it may have been 3, but I can't remember.  I topped it with a coat of SV and voilà!  Gorgeousness incarnate! So enough talking this baby up, just check it out for yourself.

Trustifarian - hangin out with the Golden Gate Bridge

Trustifarian - enjoying the view of SF from afar

butter London's description ofTrustifarian - A golden holographic finish gives this delightful sage green nail lacquer a sophisticated edge. Per Urbandictionary.com a Trustifarian is: A word that combines Trust-Fund with Rastafarian.  Privileged white kids who subscribed to the hippie lifestyle (because they can since they have no worries about money, a job etc.  They can then devote their lives to eating organic, following Phish, and wearing dreadlocks (no need for job interviews)

You can find butter London for $14 a pop @ butter London, at Ulta, Dillard's and Nordstrom's.  

How do you feel about Trustifarian and butter London?  Love it or leave it?

Until next time.  ☺

China Glaze Electric Beat Dot Mani

I'm really digging the whole dot manicure thing and trying to get the most out of all the nail polish I have and my tools.  The payoff is so good for such little effort.

I had picked up China Glaze Electric Beat at Sally's because it was on clearance and loved it so much, I couldn't bear to take it off, but at the same time I was getting bored.  So I figured the best was to get some freshness and added longevity to Electric Beat was to go dot.

I used Electric Beat as my base.

such a preeeetty blue!

Then picked out a few colors in my stash that I thought would compliment it. 

OPI DS Coronation, Revlon Blue Lagoon, CG Electric Beat, Butter London Victoriana

I used a piece of foil and folded it in half to make it a little more stiff and dropped a pool of the first color I was going to use, which was Blue Lagoon.  I dotted all my nails using the same polish keeping in mind the design I wanted and then let dry.  I keep a cotton ball with acetone on it in the corner of my foil to wipe the tips of my dotting tools so that they don't get globby.  If the pool of polish starts to dry, I just drop another little pool on the foil.  I noticed that applying the dots with the "side" of the tool vs straight down on the tip seems to be more effective in getting a nice dot shape.

Then I switched to Victoriana and finally Coronation.  I let everything dry completely before apply a topped of SV.  

Hope you like it.  

Until next time.  ☺

Butter London Black Knight & Tart With A Heart Holiday Dressing Table

What a great way to start 2012!  Butter London, baby!

So today we have a some pics of the Butter London Black Knight & Tart With A Heart Holiday Dressing Table that was available over the holidays and is still available online at Butter London.  I picked my set up at Ulta the week before last.  This is a 2 polish set with a bottle of Black Knight which is described by Butter London as
"A dark dazzler from butter LONDON, this glitter fusion contains black, pink, blue, and silver suspended in a black base. *Limited Edition*" and Tart With a Heart which is a nude-ish glitter.   I have only worn Black Knight so far (which I just applied tonight) thus the following pics, but will be looking to find something to layer Tart With A Heart over in the coming week or so. 

The packaging for this set is so cute in theory, but it is very flimsy and does not stand up by itself.  I had to prop mine up in order to take the photos below.  I doubt I will be keeping it very long.  The price was decent and a savings of a whole $3.00 dollars as they are usually priced at $14.00 each bottle of nail laquer.  I used 3 coats of Black Knight with 2 coats of SV for smoothing.  This polish is a fantastic exciting glitter to me.  I like that it has a smokey black base that builds to opaque.  I love that it has mostly purple glitter with flashes of blue, red, gold, silver, and even green glitter (check the out of focus pic).  I just love love this polish and have nothing like it right now.  Thank you, Butter London, for another home run. 

And here are the pics...

Until next time...

Butter London Fall 2011 Wallis, Bluey and Knees Up!

Wow, it's been awhile.  I feel like it was just Halloween and now November is almost over! 
Well, I'm going to try to play blog catch up over the next few days with a backlog of swatches I have and let me tell, you I have TONS to share.  Plus, I'm SUPER excited about my one and only Black Friday purchase of the Cult Nails "Super Powers" collection, featuring the much coveted Unicorn Puke which has been released as Clairvoyant to the masses.  This lemming was snatched up just in time as it's now sold out and who knows when it'll be available again (Thank you facebook for the heads up).   Here's a link for your previewing pleasure: Cult Nails Super Powers Collection.  I'll swatch them just as soon as I get them. 
In the meantime, I have 6 colors of the Muppets Collection to share, Color Club Foiled Collection, part 2 of the Color Club Back to Boho Collection, some new American Apparel colors and Wet N Wild's Behind Closed Doors, which is a red and black masterpiece. Yup, tons of back log.  I'm also thinking of doing a "my favorites" blog, with my favorite general beauty products- not just the products I like for nails.
Now on to the swatches!  I have to say that I love love LOVE butter London polishes.  They are a 3 Free polish company (aka non-toxic) that can be found at your local Ulta store. Aside from the 3 colors that I will be showing you, I have about 5 others that are absolutely stunning as well including No More Waity, Katie, All Hail McQueen, West End Wonderland, Lady Muck and Victoriana.  On my current lemming list is the Black Knight - hopefully I'll get him on my next Ulta run.  I recommend you check out their adorable website for the full collection of colors @ Feast your eyes on butter London! Anywho, first we have Bluey, which is shim-mer-y blue madness!  We'll just the swatch speak for itself.






(This picture is more true to Bluey color-wise.) 



 Next up is Knees Up, which I think has to be one of the most stunning reds I have ever laid my eyes upon.  It is the perfect red satin and I think is a must for a nail polish lovers collection.  Check it out..

Let me just add that the above photo doesn't do this color justice, but as I have learned some colors such as red, are just harder to capture than others.  Application for both Bluey and Knees Up was only slightly tricky, as it can leave streaks if you are not careful and if you are not using even strokes while applying it.  I used 3 coats for each with a top coat of SV. 

Lastly, the Queen of all butter London colors, is Wallis, which is named after Wallis Simpson.  If you don't know who Wallis Simpson is, she plays a big part in British Royal history and a small part in the King's Speech.  This color is almost indescribable, it's so unique and eye catching.  It's like an antique bronzey gold with a greenish hue and speckles of black and is super shimmery.  If I had to play favorites between Chanel's Peridot and Wallis, I think Wallis wins hand down.  Wallis a must more interesting color and is much more affordable, at half the price.  Here she is...

(excuse the tip wear, please)

What did I tell you?  I told you she is GORGEOUS.  Now you will just have to run out an buy yourself some butter London, won't you?  butter London polishes run a little higher than your typical OPI, Orly and China Glaze brands at $14.00 a pop, but I really feel they are worth the price.  Definitely, nail polish investments, as I like to call them.

FYI: butter London also has some really cute nail skins that I am dying to try out, but I have to spread out my nail shopping budget so that I don't end up nail poor.  Maybe for X-mas. 

Until next time...