Bah. All my brain power is busily being co-opted for schooling.
Anyhow, this is a quick mani done with one of the L’Oreal Project Runway polishes, The Muse’s Attitude, plus a-england Excalibur, both with serious holo topcoats. If you’re looking for swatches of either of these, I apologize; this is not the post you are looking for. *waves fingers*
On to the photos:
.Without the topcoat, Muse’s Attitude is a ridiculously pretty deep teal-esque green foil that shows a slight purple duochrome or flash at extreme angles. It seems as though it’s pretty close to Illamasqua Viridian, as I’ve observed the same thing about it, but I don’t own Viridian myself, so I can’t do a proper comparison. This was two coats; the first was streaky and the second was opaque. I don’t think it got on well with my basecoat, but I’m a bit used to that from drugstore brands. I apologize for not taking any pictures of it without the topcoat. I’ll definitely be wearing it again before fall is out, though, so check back again later!
Excalibur is The Perfect Silver. Seriously, I will probably never buy another silver metallic polish (ask me about that in six months and we’ll see how well I’ve kept to that promise) as long as I have this. I initially applied one coat and it was opaque, but I inflicted a few dents via kitten and did another to fix them. I need more a-england polishes. I need them until I have all of them. :)
Over Excalibur, I applied one coat of Glitter Gal Silver 3D/Holo. Over Muse’s Attitude, I used my standby Piper Polish Co. Spectraflair Topcoat. You will be seeing a lot of that over the next month, as I don’t have quite enough actual holo polishes to fill a whole month, and I love playing with it.
There’s really nothing like a holo nail for distracting you when you’re walking in the sun.
I bought Muse’s Attitude at a Walgreen’s, but I’ve seen them other places as well. Glitter Gal is available various places (Llarowe, Ninja Polish, Beautometry). a-england polishes are also available at all of those retailers, but I got this one straight from their site during a sale. Piper Polish Co. is on etsy. *whew*
I’m on vacation this week, so this is going to be a bit perfunctory.
Here’s Rescue Beauty Lounge Jack, from the GOMM collection. It’s a deep green with a subtle turquoise shimmer. I failed at taking really accurate pictures, but here’s what I managed:
It’s a pretty perfect color for fall.
I cannot explain the scratched look, unless they’re sheet marks from my top coat. Bah. This is in full sun, and it really shows the base color perfectly.
Naturally, it looks substantially darker in the shade. The formula was excellent, and this was two coats.
The bottle really shows the shimmer.
I got this directly from Rescue Beauty Lounge. Of special note was that it was two days from making the purchase until they were in my hands. Turn-around is a little longer during pre-sales, but this was as close as I’ve gotten to instant gratification while shopping online. Also, the boxes were signed by RBL’s creator, which was a lovely treat.
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*
I’ve been posting a lot of brand shiny new things lately (and with more on the way!), so I think today will instead be vintage madness day! Note that this will not be a frequent occasion, and possibly will never be repeated; I don’t have that many vintage polishes, and this is by far the most entertaining one, or at least the oldest. I do have a few other older Urban Decay polishes, but not quite this old.
Urban Decay Mildew. This is circa their very early days, when they were selling at Hot Topic — which is where I got this after reading about the brand in some goth magazine or another. Propaganda, maybe? — and still used brown paperboard for their boxes and brushed aluminum for their tubes. Yeah, I have a couple of vintage lipsticks, too. Scary!
It took probably the equivalent of a full dropper of polish thinner to actually render this usable, and in the couple of days since, it’s gone right back to gooey again. That’s okay, I still have more thinner. :) Mildew is a vaguely metallic, yellow-toned green, more reminiscent of moss or mold than mildew. It’s hard to say whether the high tendency to show brushstrokes is a result of the formula or just the age. This polish is probably around fifteen years old. This is two coats of polish and a quick-dry topcoat. Incidentally, Mildew smells awful. It’s been stinking up my polish boxes for months.
The accent nail is Daring Digits Why So Serious, and I’m sure, if you are familiar with The Joker, you can accurately derive the inspiration. It’s a somewhat thick purple polish with variously sized green glitter and the odd red sparkle. It covered evenly in two coats.
I enjoyed wearing this bizarre blast from the past. The day after I put it on, I went to see Dark Knight Rises, and giggled quietly at myself. It’s interesting; the bottle is about half-empty, so clearly I must have used it somewhat (though I understand evaporation happens and all that), but I don’t actually remember ever wearing this when I was younger. I must have, and yet.
Here you can somewhat see the mini-bottle of Why So Serious. I should consider actually planning superhero/villain-themed manicures, rather than stumbling into them with the grace of a bison. Considering that I’ve worked on and off in comic shops for almost as long as I’ve had this polish (since 1999!), it would seem to be a theme I’d feel comfortable with.
Oh, man. I’ve just had a brilliant idea for Aquaman nails. I’ll keep that one on the burner for later. Heh.
Daring Digits has an etsy shop where you can buy Why So Serious and other variously geekly and non-geekly polishes. As for the ancient Urban Decay — perhaps try ebay? Or elder goths of your acquaintance? A time machine? Good luck! :D
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.
Vanitas Rex 