Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Butter LONDON Fall 2010 swatches: Bumster, Victoriana and Marrow

After hearing about all sorts of bad application problems people had with the somewhat costly ($14 a pop, I think) brand Butter LONDON, I avoided buying any for the longest time. But then I saw swatches of these online and fell hard... and then found myself staying at a hotel right across the street from a huge ULTA that carried Butter LONDON after I had won $150 for my research at the conference...

The Universe conspired to get me to buy Butter LONDON. And I am so glad! (Though they were out of All Hail McQueen... sad.)

Butter LONDON Bumster
I love this muted saffron yellow. This is officially the easiest yellow I've ever applied: two coats! (Wow!!) Well, two coats on most fingers. My index finger needed three. So smooth and easy to control. As many readers undoubtedly know about me, I love yellows and this was certainly worth the $14 to me, as it is such a well-made yellow.

Butter LONDON Marrow

This is maybe not the most unique polish but it does have a nice twist: the very subtle (but still noticeable) silvery shimmer that actually seems to be more of an iridescent shimmer (click on the second pic for a closeup). Again, two coats, super easy application.

Butter LONDON Victoriana

This one is a stunner. Teal blue with intense silver shimmer. It's like they took Essie Sew Psyched (or RBL Diddy Mow) and punched up the saturation and multiplied the shimmer by a thousand. I rarely ever do a mani with polishes I've swatched right after swatching a bunch: it just feels like a waste with so many untrieds. But this one... this one I wore as an NOTD right after. It takes two coats. A word about the application though: you have to use thin coats on this one or else it gloops up a little bit. I did my swatch with thin coats but then did my NOTD with thick coats -- by the time I'm done swatching, I'm pretty impatient to get on with my day -- and my NOTD was kind of rough and bumpy prior to applying topcoat. (FYI, it also dried fast and well with Diamont tc and unlike some polishes that are topped off with Diamont, I have no shrinkage.)

So I tallied up my working out from last month (which was a bit under par, since I decided not to exercise properly while away in Chicago and I skipped out on about a week because of either exhaustion from Chicago or just feeling discouraged by this dumb wrist brace). According to the scheme I laid out at the end of July, in the month of September, I can buy:
6 nail polishes that cost $2 (or under)
3 nail polishes that cost $4 (or under)
6 nail polishes that cost $8 (or under)
5 nail polishes that cost $14 (or under)
0 nail polishes that cost $14 or over.

Okay, that's not a bad start. :)