Butter London Fall 2012: Dodgy Barnett

Butter London Dodgy Barnett is part of their Fall 2012 collection, and while I may be a little late to the party (the holiday collection is already on their website), it's still well worth a look-see.

I wouldn't have done this polish post justice without a close-up of the holographic goodness in the bottle. Dodgy Barnett is a holographic confection of gray and silver suspended in a clear base. The shimmer is very packed, so two coats will cover most of the nail. 

Lips: Becca Ultimate Colour Gloss in Berry Twist

Truth be told, Dodgy Barnett feels more like a holiday shade to me, but that's a tiny detail that doesn't really matter as long as it's available for purchase! It was easy to apply and the end result is smooth. In the pictures above, I am wearing two coats, which if you hold your hands against the light and squint, you'll be able to catch a glimpse of barely visible nail line. Why you'd want to do that instead of admiring the holographic rainbow, I will never know.

So far, I'm happy to report impressive wear – four days in and nary a chip, and the bonus of indescribable, irrational happiness from staring at my fingers.

Butter London Dodgy Barnett retails for $14 and is available at butterlondon.com and Nordstrom.

This post features product(s) sent by the company for editorial consideration

An Update (and ooh nail wheels!)

(all pictures can be clicked to enlarge)

I spent the last weekend in Vermont and experienced firsthand a sort of modern rustic American lifestyle. I hiked, I ate eggs straight from the chicken, we sat around a campfire with a guitar at night, we had waffles with oodles of local butter, fruit, and maple syrup. Then, I came back to the city and it became a little tough to get back to the swing of things, largely because the phoneless, Internet-less trip was perfect to ignore a few brewing problems (such as having to get a job within the next 51 days or I'll have to leave the States). It's been three days and I'm still finding new insect bites. Those are uncomfortable.

Most bloggers will tell you nail polish posts are the easiest to write, so what better to make myself get back into blogging again than a plethora of polishes? These (shamefully) aren't all of my nail lacquers. There's another shoe-box-full that I haven't managed to swatch. The reason I nail wheeled it (read this ala Barney Stinson. I chuckled) is so I know what polishes I actually own and what to avoid buying more of. It's been as helpful as I thought it would be and I've started wearing long forgotten colors again.

Butter London

Dior

Chanel

Le Métier de Beauté

Rescue Beauty Lounge

Rescue Beauty Lounge

I didn't intend to label them, since this is really just an "ooh colors!" kind of post, but if you want to know the name of a specific color, I'll try my best to reply you in the comments.

Butter London Holiday 2011: Tart With A Heart, Fairy Lights, and The Black Knight

Holy sparkle! Butter London dishes up holiday cheer with oodles of glitter. I grew up in a tropical climate, so we never had four seasons, much less snow, and my family does not celebrate Christmas. Thus, year-end festivities were relegated to tacky mall decorations and monthlong blaring Christmas carols (which I secretly enjoyed - I used to be part of a caroling troupe singing at malls), snow globes and glitter sparkles on every corner. 

But really, you don't need my dose of nostalgia to enjoy the new Butter London Holiday collection polishes. Here are some pictures to illustrate my point.

The Black Knight

Tart With A Heart

Fairy Lights

L-R: Tart With A Heart, Fairy Lights, The Black Knight

The collection consists of three nail lacquers. Tart With A Heart contains pink and blue reflecting glitters suspended in a pale gray-pink base, Fairy Lights is a "liquid metal" rose pink, whereas The Black Knight is pink, silver, and blue glitters in a black base. 

The naming of the polishes confused me. I thought Tart With A Heart should have been called Fairy Lights considering the explosion of reflecting glitter that comes with the polish. It's like a Christmas party on your nails. 

While it doesn't bother me, I thought you should know that like all glitter polishes, Tart With A Heart and The Black Knight comes with serious grit, even after smoothing a top coat over it. These two are easy to apply, and the glitter spreads evenly as you pull your brush along. They also seem to dry a lot quicker than usual polishes. While Tart With A Heart only requires one for sparkle aplenty (I did two, as you might expect of me), The Black Knight requires at least two coats to achieve the above opacity. 

Fairy Lights proves to be the only one out of the trio to give cause for concern. The age-old problem with metallic polishes is visible brush strokes, as in you'll most likely have them. I found that the best way to tackle that issue with Fairy Lights is to not scrimp on polish. Thick is the keyword for success. Compare the application on my middle and index fingers above, where the middle finger was painted with two thin coats, whereas I oozed polish onto the index finger. While one coat was enough to achieve opacity, I definitely suggest two coats for this. 

More pictures for your viewing pleasure:

I know glitter polishes are done by every brand under the sun for holiday, but I think The Black Knight can be a huge contender in that massive field. I personally am partial to Tart With A Heart because it reminds me of swirling snow globes and looking at it saved me from biting a (very disrespectful) person's head off. Something about pretty polish distracts me and calms me down.

One last note about these polishes: I keep hearing people groan about the torture of removing glitter polish but I didn't find it all that difficult. I soaked a cotton in nail polish remover and pressed it onto my nail and waited for 5-10 seconds, then proceeded to wipe it off like how I would any other polish. Worked like a charm. 

Butter London Holiday 2011 retails for $14 each and is available at butterlondon.com and select other retailers. I usually purchase Butter London from ulta.com (though it doesn't seem like this collection has arrived on the website yet). 

The products in this post were sent to me for review purposes.

Butter London Toff

Aaaaaand we have a winner! Just in the nick of time too. Rola gets the virtual monthlong supply of Emergen-C with the correct guess of Butter London Toff. May you never have to reach for a real packet.

I love that the answers from yesterday's Guess What were so varied. Out of all the answers I only had Rescue Beauty Lounge Bruised on hand, so I whipped it out for a little comparison.

Top-bottom: RBL Bruised, BL Toff

L-R: BL Toff, RBL Bruised

Very close, but not quite. Bruised is just a smidge of a tone darker. 

Now for the goodness of Toff. I mentioned some months ago that I will own it - now I do, and it's brilliant. Toff is Butter London at its best. Smooth application, opacity (I did two coats just because, but you could easily get away with one), insert all adjectives for a good polish and it's right here in this dusty rose bottle. 

Toff retails for $14 and is available at butterlondon.com and various other e-tailers. I purchased mine at ulta.com, and they still have the nifty buy two get one free offer going on. I say take full advantage of it!