Friday, April 29, 2011

A right royal haul: Butter London

…In which I discover Butter London, and my wallet weeps.

One of our lovely readers asked if I could get hold of Butter London's 'No More Waity Katie' to swatch. The answer was that yes, I could, but only if I was prepared to surrender fifteen of my Great British Pounds (about $25) for the privilege. Fifteen! Plus postage! That's almost enough to buy you a house in some of the less salubrious parts of Birmingham*. Ironically it's much cheaper to buy over the pond - it's available to US and Canadian customers for the much more reasonable sum of $14.

Anyway, incredulous cheapness aside, my interest in the brand was piqued. I decided to try a few of the more 'me' polishes available (their regular polishes are also quite a bit cheaper than NMWK at around the £9.50-£12 mark, which is a little less than an Illamasqua polish). So I put in an order from powderrooms.com (I've not tried them before), and prepared to pounce on my nice postlady. We've had four bank holidays the space of 11 days here, so all the nation's post is sitting in some mighty pile at Royal Mail HQ while the posties top up their tans in the unseasonably good weather we're having. Just as I was starting to sweat that I would have nothing to show you, the package turned up! And what a package it is:


The little envelope one? SWEETS. With 'powder rooms' piped in the centre. Greedy squee!


Here's my haul. L-R: Henley Regatta, West End Wonderland, Victoriana, Rosie Lee. Confectionary, blogger's own

I'm really stoked about the glitters. I mean, it doesn't take much to get me fired up where glitters are concerned, but these are So. Pretty. West End Wonderland looks to me like a finer, sparser version of OPI Gift of Gold (which I have been stalking on ebay since Christmas, but I can't quite bring myself to drop £17 or so on it). Henley Regatta is a little like China Glaze Atlantis in the bottle, except that the colour in Henley is glitter in a clear base, whereas atlantis is silver holo in a coloured base. Same hue family, though. Victoriana is paler than I was expecting, probably as a result of all the pearly silver shimmer/micro-glitter. It's only a wee bit deeper than Illamasqua Caress, although I'm expecting it'll dry darker, so I'm looking forward to trying it. Rosie Lee I have nothing even vaguely alike - not a surprise since I don't wear pink (on which more later) but it's just oodles of awesome.


Which one do you want to see first?

I may have already put in another order. Happy wedding day, Royal people! If you'll excuse me, I'm off to coat my mitts in glitter.

*Not really. I'm allowed to make that joke because I live there.