ButterLondon Wallis Swatches and wear, so far!

butterLondon Wallis is a fascinating color. It's an iced sparkly blackened olive..it's too many things. It's gorgeous and strange. It shifts in the light...Wallis is elusive. But not. I'm enamoured.

This is a bit blurry but it shows the sparkly. See how it looks different even on a single nail? Yet, it's not a duochrome, not by a long shot. It's just that complex.

Look how it blackens along the curve of the nail. Hot. One of the guys I work with, who is one of those gay guys who knows about style was immediately drawn to it and declared it "chic". Great descriptor for this. It's a lovely color for Fall but you could rock this any time.

It's almost a glass fleck effect. It's stunning and completely original. At least, I don't have anything else even remotely like this. It's almost like blackened gold, but it's too green.

I guess it's indescribable! Hmmm...Let's see what they say on butterLondon.com...

Ha. In typical butterLondon fashion:

"Wallis

In honour of the Saucy Yank who ran away with the king’s heart. A tarnished, metallic olive gold, as mysterious and regal as its namesake."

That's a working linky so click away on it. If you haven't visited butterLondon's website you really should because it's gorgeous and fun. The whole product line is fun and is one of the Good Customer Service sites that I recommend. I've had them call me to make sure I was ordering what I really wanted, when I added my freebie bottle to my cart so I would have received two. Who does that? butter! It's great, in this day and age of ecommerce to deal with a company that actually reads your order and then checks to make sure you've done what you really want to do if they see something that doesn't seem right. I did NOT want two bottles of the same color and she saved me $14 by making the call. They even sat on my order until I called them and didn't ship anyways when I didn't answer. I love that. If that annoys you then, Ulta might be your thing, but...my local Ulta does carry butters now, they've even got an end cap display these days that keeps the polishes from falling off. However...butters have an over cap...

In the early days, they didn't and you had this big rectangle to paint with....actually, I do have one old bottle.

Awkward in your hand, and butter changed these after a lot of customer complaints. See? Good customer service. This is Billy No Mates, it's a beautiful soft grey but I won't swatch it because it's no longer available. I scored this one on evilbay. Something else I learned, in this process...butter is giving us larger bottles than they used to. Billy No Mates is .3fl. oz. The new ones are .4. Just noting that.

So...you have these top caps so you only have to deal with this:

In order to help keep the over caps with the bottles, they are taped on:

That little tape comes off pretty easily, or you can cut it, whichever. (This is Marrow, incidentally. Gorgeous, just haven't worn it yet)

At Ulta...these are frequently missing, meaning someone has been doing something with that bottle and given the amount of small yard apes I see running amok in my local Ulta...I'm not paying primo price for polish that's been opened, I don't care. I love butter, I want to support them, so I will go to Ulta, scope the colors I am interested in, make my decisions and then come home and order off butterLondon.com. Sorry, Ulta. If you sign up for their promos, you sometimes can hit a free bottle or something, too. Ulta...not so much. beauty.com is another good place to score some butters, you get a kickback. Nice.

So...the moral of that loooooong tale was...keep an eye out for the tapes if you're buying these at the stores. That is, if that is the sort of thing that disturbs your calm like it does mine.

So, while I was going off on a tangent about the over caps and taking extra swatches, I took swatches of the wear. This was my formal mani from Wednesday evening and it's now Saturday. It's done some long and difficult days at work, though not a lot of dishes or housekeeping. Some. Here's what we got, along with a fascinating shot of how much of a chameleon this baby is.

Yeah, yeah...a minimal amount of tipwear. If I didn't point it out, would you catch it? Possibly not. I can deal with this. I haven't done any maintenance, either. I seriously need to, my nails would be better for it, but I have been tired.

No excuse, I know!

Here's the other:

Mmmm. Yes, that is Wallis. Grass green in that light, aren't you, you little minx! Isn't that lovely!?! It looks textured, but I assure you, it's smooth and glassy.

OK, mechanics!

2 coats Fiberglass Network base coat (wears nicely and repairs beautifully)
2 coats Wallis
1 coat Out The Door top coat.

I don't know the cruelty free status of either Fiberglass Network or Out the Door. I did kind of like Out the Door, it appeared to go on thinner, more like Poshe, and it did dry pretty fast, though I was still dentable awhile later. Meh...annoying but no other issues.

What do you think? I adore it. It's strange and beautiful and fascinating...LOVE!

Happy Talons!