I’ve been a bit of an Anglophile since I was young, a result of reading a lot of British children’s (and not so children’s) books and watching possibly too many Britcoms and dramas on Channel 9, the local PBS station, so I have a long-held weakness for things with British themes. When I saw L’Oreal’s new London Fall collection at a local drugstore, I initially resisted, but after seeing it again at another, gave in and bought the peacock-blue creme, Rainy Piccadilly. I’m still tempted by a couple of the others, but am holding out for now.
It’s a beautiful color, very rich and deep, and it does dry a bit darker on the nail than it looks in the bottle. I’ve found that quirk common with this sort of dark blue, though this one is a bit lighter than the others I own. I decided to pair it with Enchanted Polish Vampire’s Dessert, which is a deep brownish-red holo. It tends to look mostly black in full sunlight, but in bright indoor light, shows off the true color, which is a bit like a freshly dried scab over a wound that bled profusely. It’s quite lovely, and I think looks very nice with the rich blue as a contrast. The holo effect was fairly strong, though not crazy rainbows levels of madness, and it does mostly fade in the shade.
Both of these polishes were fairly opaque at one coat; Rainy Piccadilly was slightly streaky on a couple of nails where my base wasn’t fully dry, but perfect all the others. Two coats are ideal, I think, for depth of color and evenness. I’ve really liked the color and texture of both the L’Oreal polishes I’ve tried, and would definitely consider purchasing them as they release more appealing colors.
Both of these are intensely pigmented, and cleanup was a bit of a horror. Not a full-on-screaming-in-terror-AUGH-WOULD-YOU-JUST-LEAVE-MY-CUTICLES horror, to be certain; they’re a holo and a creme, not serious glitter monsters, but still, if you have the interest, cleanup is easier while they’re still slightly damp, or by the terrible habit of peeling after they’re fully dry.
Vampire’s Dessert is one of the many shades that is being discontinued by Enchanted Polish, at least for the time being. As of last I checked (August 4th) it was still available at Llarowe. L’Oreal is a drugstore polish, and you can probably find it at any of your local shops. I’ve seen them at Walgreen’s and Bartell Drugs for certain, and heard rumors that they may be on sale at Rite-Aid, so check your local equivalents. This one is limited, but you can also probably find a decent dupe for it in other places; it’s a lovely color, but not super-unique.
Pastels make me happy sometimes. Okay, frequently. Especially when they remind me of ice cream, and not just any old ice cream, but spumoni. I could have made it more like spumoni by adding, perhaps, a light amount of pink glitter to the pink nails and including a milky brown nail for the chocolate, but pshaw. This was quite pretty enough on its own.
The two main polishes here are OPI Where’s My Bikini Top and First Names Only. These are from the current crop of Ulta exclusives, but are actually straight-up renames of, respectively, Stranger Tides and Steady As She Rose from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection last year. Where’s My…/Stranger Tides is a mildly pistachio-esque, pleasantly dusty pale green, and First Names/Steady As is the cool light pink; both are cremes, both had reasonably good coverage. I used two coats of each color over a Revlon basecoat, and, much to my dismay, these OPIs did not play well with it at all. Shrinkage started almost before they were dry, and they started chipping around the edges after less than a day.
The sparkle topcoat is Zoya Glimmer. It’s a silver and gold shimmer in a slightly peachy translucent base. I’ve seen people use this for a full mani, but I think it’s really best used over other colors. It did alter the color of the base slightly, making it slightly more warm. Compare the nails on my left hand (green shimmer, pink matte accents), with my right (pink shimmer, green matte). I think it’s more noticeable on the pink; without Glimmer, it’s cooler and with it trends slightly more peachy.
Pistachio and cherry ice cream. This is entirely what this reminded me of, soft and creamy and suddenly I want spaghetti. Check out the chipping action on the side of my index finger there. I cannot recommend the Revlon quick-dry basecoat with OPI, or at least, -these- OPI polishes. It has worked reasonably well with other brands, especially other drugstore brands, however.
Sparkly! Did I mention that I’ve had a full relapse into my matte-ifying ways? Well, I have. Oh, Matte About You, why are you so amazing? I have no good answer for this, but I certainly do love it.
Funny story — the ring finger on this hand actually had a different base coat because I dinged it badly enough that it needed repainting. Can you see how much less shrinkage there is on that finger? All the others just look slightly lumpy at the edges, but not that one.
The two OPI polishes I bought at Ulta, as you might expect, although I’ve seen the original releases with the Pirates names at the Nordstrom Rack recently. The Zoya was purchased from Zoya.
I apologize for a bit of brevity for the next little while. My cat is sick and we’re having to take her to various specialists. I’ve got a few posts in the queue, so there will still be updates, but I’m a bit distracted.
I am trying my hardest to avoid using my matte. Really, I am. But I desperately wanted to for this manicure, as Glitrix’ polishes look so darn pretty matte. I resisted, and here we are. Look! Shiny! (do not look at my raggy cuticles. the force compels youuuu)
Zoya Bevin was the base polish for this. Zoya’s site description is: “dusty, medium sage green with teal tones and a creamy opaque finish”. I generally agree. It’s less aqua than, say, Wednesday, which one of my friends was wearing recently and I crushed hard on until I reminded myself that the spoon swatch that I have of it is practically identical to Julep Miranda.
Sous La Mer is from Glitrix, and it’s a very pretty aqua polish with a bunch of glitter: large holo hexes, gold bars, tiny red hexes, plus some added gold shimmer. It’s neat, though the gold doesn’t show up as well on the nail. I’m betting it would stand out more if it were matteified, though. Just saying. ;) The big hexes are a little tougher to dig out of the bottle, but as you can see, I managed a pretty decent distribution, though some of them got buried by the second coat. It’s actually a pretty opaque polish.
This is the only indoor photo (the rest were taken at a bus stop. :3 Many of my photos are). I should have taken a bottle photo, but if you kind of take the one of Sakura from a few days ago and turn it aqua-green instead of pink, you pretty much get the idea. Seriously adorable little star-shaped bottles. She actually sells empties, too, if you’re interested in getting some for making your own tiny frankens.
One coat of Bevin on everything, another Bevin on the accent nail, and two of Sous La Mer on everything else. I really enjoyed wearing this, though I am considering getting a bottle of Seche or possibly Gelous to accommodate for the slight bumpiness of the glitter. It’s not really distracting, and actually shows up more in photos than it does to the touch, but I’m thinking about it.
I get my Zoyas from Zoya.com. Glitrix sells on Etsy.
(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 