Another super-quick post, this time because it’s way past my bedtime. :)
This is All Hail The Queen. It’s pretty, sparkly, and beige.
BUT WAIT. In the sun, it shows off a delicate scattered holo! :D
It’s not a strong holo, but it’s definitely present. Application was easy, this is two moderately thick coats of polish and one coat of a Butter London topcoat.
This was probably the strongest image I got, also in full sunlight.
I think this may be the shortest post I’ve ever written. XD
I got this from a new limited sale site called Coterie (yes, that’s a referral link. I do get credit if you click it, sign up and buy something.), but I get my Butter London more often via either Nordstrom or direct from Butter London.
Next time: …I’m not sure, actually. I’ve got a couple of sets of photos in my camera, but I’m not sure which ones have photos that look decent. :)
If you pair that ranger with an impolite thief, you get the beginnings of a D&D-inspired slash fic. (Sorry.) (Not really.)
So the most popular search term that people use to find this blog is “butter london sloane ranger”. That’s fine, but the only pictures I have of it are not particularly good. So I took some (hopefully) better ones. I was not particularly in the mood to do a one-color mani, so I paired it with a recent purchase — Illamasqua Faithful, a coppery brown. I’m not 100% convinced my choice was perfect, as Faithful is a little warmer than I think goes well with Sloane, but I enjoyed wearing them together nonetheless.
I’m very pleased; this time I managed to catch the silver shimmer in Sloane Ranger. It contrasted nicely with the golden/coppery shimmer in Faithful. I’ve been itching to buy Faithful since I first saw swatches of it, so when I saw the Naked Strangers display finally up at Sephora, I jumped on that like a kitten on her dinner. I adore that sort of semi-metallic shimmery finish, and the color is lovely. The base is almost caramel in tone.
Sloane Ranger continues to be a very pretty grayish green with a decent formula and a subtle silver shimmer. It hasn’t changed at all since I first posted about it in June, though I’d like to theorize I’ve gotten a little better about my camera work since then. :) I’ve still got quite a long way to go, but I’m working on it!
Observe the sheen! That silver shimmer doesn’t show up at all at a quick glance, or even a second one. You have to really hunt for it when looking at your nails in person.
Faithful looks considerably more copper in the bottle, in fact, it needed to be shaken slightly before using it because it had separated in a really beautiful swirl. This mani was two coats of each color over Butter London Nail Foundation and topped with Butter London P.D. Quick topcoat for shine.
I bought my Sloane Ranger at the Butter London salon in Sea-Tac Airport, but you might more commonly find it at their website, or at Nordstrom, or at any of a number of other possible places. Illamasqua I purchased at Sephora, though many people also buy through their site. They are more expensive that way, due to the exchange rate from the U.K.; however, there are some colors that Sephora doesn’t carry, and you can get things earlier direct. It’s a trade-off. *shrug*
May I present Butter London Trustafarian. People, PLEASE.
Look at this holo — look at this shiny, shiny color. This is a part of the Butter London Fall 2012 collection, one of two holos. There are a couple of other colors from this collection that may come home with me later. True to form, I immediately started wishing I had a pink holo to pair it with, because I am apparently really not over pink and green.
Yeah, it’s somewhat the color of cash, indicative of the financial backing of the Trustafarian lifestyle. But whatever, you don’t have to get into the meaning of a name to describe a polish (especially when dealing with Butter London or OPI.) I’m just used to fragrance reviews. ;) I prefer to think of it as a pistachio-sage-limeskin kind of color. It’s greenish and goldish in certain lights and I really think it’s beautiful.
I’m quite impressed at their efforts into this soon-to-be-very-crowded field. The formula is a little thin, but really pretty on par with most holos. Two coats were reasonably opaque, though a third was optimal for getting it to the color it looks in the bottle. It looks much more yellow with one or two. My only complaint is that the drying time is long compared to what I’m used to from other holo polishes. On the other hand, it has quite an impressive shine and sparkle.
It was tough to take this off — after three days (with Butter London base and topcoats), no chipping, no tipwear, it looked perfect. But I just got in some polishes I’ve been really looking forward to, so off it goes. I’ll be wearing it again, and maybe next time I’ll have something to pair with it. Brown might be nice, or a yellow-toned pink or maybe darker green or even a dark red. I’ll think about it.
This and the third photo were in full sunlight. The others were taken all indoors under a bright light.
I bought this at Nordstrom’s, but you can get Butter London polishes from their website, or at many other department stores and boutiques. I’d say that B-L is probably the company I’m most likely to see at gift shops, nurseries (plant-type, not babies) and salons/spas. Their displays lend themselves well to those environments.
So one of my friends is moving and decided she had a dreaded case of Too Much Nail Polish. Being awesome, she decided to share it with her peeps. My polish collection increased by two-thirds. This is awesome, but provides me with the hilarious problem of choosing what to wear next.
OH MY GOD. WHAT TO WEAR?! I could go for some vintage China Glaze, or some ridiculously amazing duochromes from Hits. Maybe a nice OPI or something from an entirely new-to-me company, like Nubar or Barielle! Too many choices! How awesome is that?
Wrelp, I picked none of those. Instead I re-attempted a manicure I’ve been trying since March with varying degrees of success. This time I got both vaguely closer to my goal and much, much further away. It’s pretty much just a hot mess, but I’m sharing anyway. Feeling penitent, perhaps?
In March, Zoya released the Peter Som New York Fashion Week collection — three colors, two sheer, one creme. The two sheers I have attempted several times to layer into a sakura-inspired sort of jelly sandwich gradient manicure with varying (mostly failures) degrees of success. Well, tonight I tried it again. This chappie was about eight layers of polish, I think? Towards the end I was just stacking things on there for the hell of it.
I did use two polishes that I didn’t have the last time I tried this: Tart With A Heart and Give Me The Chills. The latter was from my friend’s stash. Her full ‘keepers’ stash is epic and gorgeous and I am not-so-secretly hoping I can convince her to guest post someday — when she is not moving, of course!
Butter London Nail Foundation Base > Zoya Audrey (sheer petal pink) > Butter London Tart With A Heart (sparrrrkly holo-tastic glitter with a mildly pink base) > Zoya Katharine (sheer mauve-y purple) > T w/a ♥ > Audrey > T w/a ♥ > Maybelline Colorama Top Coat in ‘give me the chills’ (hilarious peachy iridescent thread top coat > nails inc. westminister bridge matte topcoat (which is not particularly matte, as you can probably see. It’s more satiny than anything else.)
Okay, nine, including base and top. It’s excessive. The color payoff is minimal. I have to take pictures of it now because it is never going to dry and I will destroy it in the night. Also, so you can have a good snicker at my attempt. On the plus side, holo sparkles!
Observe the tiny, weird, shiny hairs on my nails. As my friend said when I picked up the bottle and eyed it skeptically, it’s pretty easy to tell why this finish didn’t exactly take off. In person it ends up looking a bit like your polish has tiny, shiny fault lines, or as if sheet marks had developed a glossy sheen.
AH GAAAD. Yeah, I actually wiped this right off after taking pics. I didn’t even let it dry completely because of the glitter nightmare/heaven that is Tart With A Heart. I love it, it’s beautiful, but hurrrgh that many layers of it fully dry would take forever to remove.
The two Zoya polishes were from a limited edition box set from their site. The Butter London I got at a Nordstrom, but you can get them various places, notably at their site. I don’t really recommend the Nails Inc. matte topcoat, but I bought mine at Sephora. The Maybelline hairy topcoat was a gift, and if you want it, um. Check ebay, maybe? I haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else. Bar glitter, sure, but hair glitter? Uhhh.
Please note that I will be attempting to use it again someday. Maybe then I’ll succeed in making it look good; I definitely didn’t this time.
All polishes were either purchased by me or gifts from friends. Nobody ever wants to see me do this one again, not even me.
(ETA, 9/16: If you’re just looking for swatches of Sloane Ranger, I’ve got some better ones up here, now. :) Otherwise, thanks for visiting!)
I like painting my nails multiple colors, especially when I get new polishes. Isn’t that a common feeling, though? You get a new thing and you immediately want to play with it. I do this all the time, with art supplies and games and perfumes. Delightful.
I took a trip to San Francisco last week, and on the way back discovered that there was a Butter London salon in Sea-Tac airport. Neat! They had a couple of new colors that caught my eye: Lillibet’s Jubilee, a lavender-silver metallic foil, and Sloane Ranger, which is a rather fantastic khaki-green creme with a very slight silver shimmer. I haven’t worn Lillibet’s Jubilee yet. It’s intense, and I haven’t quite been in the mood. Sloane Ranger, however — yes, please!
I can never quite resist wearing as many shades of polish as I can get away with on any given day. I feel a bit bored if I don’t have at least a single contrast (or accent, as you prefer) nail, so here’s Sloane Ranger (two coats) on three nails, plus a nail with one coat of Sloane Ranger and one coat of Zoya Ki, a dark green/purple duochrome, and one with Sloane and two coats of Butter London Knackered, a sweet lavender/green/blue duo/multichrome with bits of holographic glitter.
Sloane Ranger trends towards the grayish in certain lights, but is really more khaki than my camera/light quality was permitting. Everything was gray for most of today. Feh. At certain angles it looked like I was wearing three green polishes. This is the wonder of duochromes.
Ayup, I have managed to dent my nails already. I am truly awful about that, actually. In order to actually photograph my nails perfectly, I’d probably have to have someone else do it right after I’d finished one hand. I’m very tough on my hands, as well as terminally impatient about letting them dry properly. Here Ki is looking a bit more greenish.
Showing off the shift. Check out how green both Ki and Knackered look at the top of the nail, compared with how respectively purple and bluish they are at the tips. You can see a bit of the silver shimmer in the bottle of Sloane Ranger; it’s really very subtle. One might even say nigh on invisible.
And here you get to see the purple side of my duochromes, plus some of that glorious holosparkle.
It is worth noting at this point that I will probably never have anything to say about wear time on this blog, as I almost never wear the same polish for more than a day or two. Likewise, I’ll leave serious swatching with notes on formula and comparisons with other companies to those who are more known for news. I’m in it for the pretty, folks.
I think I’ll do something in copper next, or red. I’ve got a couple of nudes I haven’t used yet, too. Hm.
Butter London polishes are available in a number of places, including Ulta, assorted small boutiques, and on their site, here. Zoya can also be found at Ulta, but I prefer to buy from them directly, especially when they’re having one of their frequent sales.
All polishes were bought by me, for me, with my own purposes in mind.
Vanitas Rex 