butter LONDON Swatches

For the past two-three months, I put myself on a strict budget.  I started a new job in Charleston and was paying close to $80 a week in gas.  I also wanted to pay some bills down so I cut out most unnecessary spending.  This pretty much took out my clothes and beauty budget so I really haven't bought anything in several months.  Then in September, I got an amazing job offer to work for an airline. It isn't a glamorous job and it doesn't pay well, but I get to travel for free.  I've always said my ideal job was one where I got to travel often and I got my wish.

Since I'm no longer paying obscene amounts on gas anymore, I've been able to open my budgets back up.  I then went on a massive nail polish shopping spree, which you'll see all week.  I'm going to start off with one of my favorite brands, butter LONDON.

I've been wanting a good shimmery red for some time.  I was going to buy one from Chanel, but while in Ulta this weekend I saw this one, Knees Up.  It's very close to the Chanel one I like and half the price.  It does apply a bit streaky but as it dries the streaks go away.  I'm in love with this polish.  It's beautiful with lots of depth and it'll probably replace Essie's Geranium as the weather gets colder as my go-to red.

I've been eyeing this bright coral for several months.  While it does have a lot of orange in the formula, it comes off as mostly pink.  I think this will be a nice color for the long winter days.  It also applies streaky and thick.  I have on three coats in this picture and I'd say they dry pretty quickly.



 

I've been into neutral polish this year and I thought this light brown with a gold shimmer would go well with my polish collection.  It applies easily and I got full opacity in two coats.  The shimmer doesn't show up very much, but every now and then it will send out a sparkle.  I thought I would want more shimmer but I'm liking the subtle shimmer.  However, I did ask myself as I was swatching it, haven't I seen this color before?

Yup:



I knew I had a creme, L'Oreal's Devotion from a limited edition collection last year and typically I'm okay with having both a creme and a shimmer in the same color.  However, I forgotten I had also purchased L'Oreal's Brit Invasion a few weeks ago and had forgotten all about it.  As you can tell from the pictures, the butter LONDON and the L'Oreal Brit Invasion aren't very close on the nail as they appear in the bottle.  So now I don't feel as bad for having bought two of the same color.  I'm also swatching the Brit Invasion later in the week so watch for that.

butter LONDON ranks as one of my favorite lines of polish because of the unique colors the line carries. It's often hard to find dupes them, trust me, I ran down the path for two years trying to find a dupe for their popular British Racing Green polish.  If you're looking for something fun and unique, butter LONDON is the way to go.

Yummy Cake!

Despite the fact I just bought this set, it's already gone off the Nordstorm website.  An old college pal who worked at a Nordstorm up in Columbus, OH, advises to call the customer service line ( 1-888-282-6060) to see if they can find a set a store can ship to you.

I adore Nordstrom.  Quite possibly it is my ideal store, with the exception of Anthropologie.  Now, if they were in the same mall, that would be heaven...

Anywho, sometime before Christmas I had been browsing the Nordie's site when I fell in love with the Deborah Lippman Layer Cake collection:



The colors just popped out to me, especially the dark plum on the end.  A few years ago, I had fallen in love with an aubergene polish from Maybelline's now-discontinued Salon Expert line.  I wore that polish non-stop for the fall/winter of 2007, and was depressed when I had to part with it when it went bad.  I've been looking for a suitable replacement, but really couldn't find one that stood out to me.  This polish, called Dark Side of the Moon, called my name out loud and clear.  And the shimmering lavender gray on the left hand also called to me. I didn't think anything of the glitter in the middle, but I love glittery polishes so it didn't matter to me.

I sat on buying this set until almost the end of January.  It was $25 for the three polishes, which at .30 fl oz aren't very big (I'd say they're a little bit bigger than half a regular Essie bottle).  The lavender gray shade, Wicked Game, is very sheer, and took me four coats opaque.  After getting it on my nails, I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I love lavender/purple polishes, but I'm having a hard time warming up to this one.  I may try to layer it over some darker colors and see how I like it then. 

Dark Side of the Moon turned out more maroon than aubergene (which is a dark shade of purple).  Very pretty, but it's such a fall/winter color I might wear it once more this season.  The real winner in this collection is the glitter polish I, at first, wrote off.  Let me introduce Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday:


The colors as they appear on the screen are pretty close as to how they appear in the bottle and on your nails.  Happy Birthday is a glittery topcoat that I can best describe as "awesome," "fun," and "OMGwantmoresparkles!!1!"  If you like glitter, get this set, or the full-sized bottle.  I probably will, as it takes about 3-4 coats to get the glitter coverage that I like (very sparkly).

Here are some swatches I took wearing it with both the other Layer Cake colors and some others:



This is the Happy Birthday over Butter London's Queen Vic.  Please excuse the tip wear on my manicure, I type with my fingernails, which wears my polish quicker that anything else.  I only did the first two nails, to give an idea as to how the glitter looks next to a plain, painted nail. 

1. Wet 'n Wild Nocturnal (actually a very dark blue) ($2, Drug Emporium)
2. Deborah Lippman's Wicked Game
3. Deborah Lippman's Dark Side of the Moon
4. Pure Ice Kiss Me Here  ($3, Walmart)
5. Chanel Black Pearl ($25, chanel.com)

To me, the shimmer polishes (Wicked Game and Black Pearl) don't work well with the chunky glitters, it's as if there's too much going on at once.  It looks great against cremes, with my favorite comboniations being the Wet n Wild dark blue and the Pure Ice gray. 

Would I buy this set again?  I don't know.  I love, love, love Happy Birthday, but the other two colors are just okay.