It's St Pat's! And other various musings

As a redhead with a diabolically Irish name, St. Pat's has a special place in me heart.. Even a middle name composed of a suitably Irish Catholic saint and no, I won't tell you which one, I hate it. I was convinced for years my mother had concocted it from her imagination just to torture me. And an Irish grandmother of whom I have only vague memories except she bought me a set of bone china which I loved because it quote had horses on it end quote, and that she smoked like a chimney. I love Irish cooking, mainly because it boasts the advantages of things like cabbage and scones, dream of visiting the place, and rarely bother with green on the special snake free day because, let's face it, I'm a redhead with an Irish name. I never feel I need to prove a thing. But for some reason this year, possibly because I am so completely unhappy a lot of the time because of my job and other things, I have embraced the holiday with open arms. I have green toes, green nails and a corned beef in the fridge just waiting to be paired with some cabbage. Yes, I still eat meat. I struggle with being at the top of the food chain, but also feel I have to accept the working of Mother Nature, but that does not mean I think animals are here to be tortured so I can sparkle and shine. That's just silly to me. Trust me, the meat thing is a struggle more than you know, but I live with omnivores and vegetarianism isn't a viable option. Regardless...I have a very pretty and I think perfect green for the holiday to show you. Then I'm going to go watch movies like Intermission and Boondock Saints. And that one about the matchmakers...maybe it's called that, I don't remember, it's hiding the massive DVD library I've built over the years, but I'll find it! It's set in Ireland! Everything is green and gorgeous and given that winter here has decided to hold on like grim death, green and gorgeous is what I need to see.

So, I give you Swinger from butterLondon!

This is a lovely grass green jelly base with a very dense glitter. The glitter is green, sporting some larger green particles of glitter, and with some gold thrown in for good measure. This is the leprechaun, the pot, the gold and the amazing shimmer all in one little glass bottle.

This took awhile to get where I was thrilled with it as far as coverage. It's dense, but I had VNL until three coats, which is what this is. It's so sparkly and pretty and I think the perfect green for St. Pat's.

All of these were taken in natural sunlight through the window. It's a bit overcast, but bright enough the flash never tried to go off. I let the autoedit thing on Picasa fix just this one picture. It's darker than the real thing, but it shows the glitter so nicely I left it. This really is more like the other shots in true color. As you can see, I had no trouble controlling this, it went on nicely and wanted to build up. I wanted thinner coats to help suspend the glitter and it worked well. Two coats may have been just fine, but I'm glad I did three. Look at the depth, here! The gold in it really is what adds that special feel, without it, it wouldn't have nearly as much dimension, I don't think.

I was trying to get you a close up of the glitter, which sort of succeeds here. You can see some of the larger pieces and the gold.
So pretty!

I dread removing this, but hopefully that's a week away. Here's the mechanics:

1 coat Nailtiques 2 Extra (I am fighting a peeling problem right now)
1 coat Growth Spurt base coat from the fine people who bring us Gelous. I'm liking this base coat a lot. Like the price even more.
3 coats butterLondon Swinger
2 coats Gelous top coat, Swinger was a top coat eater
1 coat Seche Vite to dry it all up

That is probably my one complaint about Swinger, it ate top coat. However, Gelous is perfect in those situations and I am finding that if I put on two coats of Gelous and one coat of Seche to force it to fdry (Gelous doesn't like to dry, lads. Doesn't like it a'tall.) then I can get 7-8 days of wear. The last manicure I did, which was Models Own Zest A Peal, which I didn't swatch for some reason, I will some time, I promise cause it's pretty! lasted approximately 7 solid days. I had to take it off to go to my manicure and it had just chipped. I actually got tired of it.

So I'd like o thank all of you other bloggers out there who introduced me to this little $5 wonder and to Kell who found out they're bunny safe.

Swinger, the St. Patrick's Day for your nails!

Or whenever, really...but I found it perfect for my Irish roots.

Happy Talons!

Illamasqua - Swinger

Swinger is from the Naked Strangers collection that Illamasqua put out awhile ago. In spite of one of my friend's request that I wear a polish that matches my purse du jour, I haven't worn any even though the are all pretty much great matches to it. (The purse, incidentally, is fabulous, a creamy shade for the main body with antiqued brass highlights, dark brown underside and handle and red trim. FAAAAABulous!) I finally did because I had promised I would.
I believe I've mentioned that color for me is very mood based. It's very...intangible. I respond strongly to colors. I was feeling pretty depressed for my last manicure. I didn't want to make the drive, it was fuhreezing outside...my brother was being an ass. You know. Depressed. Didn't want to get out of bed. So I copped out, just decided to finally make good on my word and went with one of these neutrals.
BMWWU took advantage of my unusually subdued state to put my color over a UV gel base. Yeah. Still hate it. And I will show you why!

Here is Swinger. I took a shot in the box to show you the neat thing Illamasqua is doing. It's both pretty and utilitarian, as you know, if you've ever tried to rack your brain remembering what the hell Snap looks like, or how dark blue Baptiste is.

It's a little window! They've been doing this for a little while now, but I think it's great. You can view your color without having to open the box and it saves the boxes, too. I hate raggedy boxes. 

They also put little colored labels on the tops, which is cool. I think they have caught on that we all have drawers or Helmers or whatever like that, where we often are choosing a color by looking into a storage container. Is this label anywhere near the color? Obviously not, but it's in the family and really...won't you take that? It's not out in left field.

So the color itself, and I only have a few pictures because half of what I took were blurry. I tossed them. I'm here to show you colors, not give you vertigo. I can do that with what I have.

It's a lovely gold tinted champagne. It's described by Illamasqua as "glistening platinum gold", which is...way more accurate than I can get! It's pretty difficult to describe.

This is quite color accurate, actually. It has those lovely shimmery particles that I love, almost glass fleck like.

And that is why I don't like gels. I had this same experience with them before. I still have them on and I can't wait for them to go on Saturday. They're peeling around the cuticles, the tips are peeling...don't like it a lot. It is what ultimately ruined this manicure. The middle finger there peeled off in a big chunk, which is what I have known gels to do. I wound up having to remove the gel from that whole nail, which irritated me no end. Yes, I was able to take this off and apply a new color easily, I was also able to swatch and remove glitters easily (Wait for it!) on it. I could almost recommend gels just for glitters, but...I just don't like them!

This wore a solid week. 7 days. Which is great, and could be owing to the gels. BMWWU has become a devoted gel applier, I will probably never be converted. And she tolerates that.

The color is gorgeous and sophisticated and highly wearable. Because it's such a neutral gold, it works with every outfit. I felt a little like Lorelei in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Square cut or pear shape these rocks don't lose their shape! I felt flashy! Fancy! Oh so Ritzy!

And then the gel peeled and that was the end of that.

I hope you do like this color, I recommend it whole heartedly. It's beautiful and understated and elegant. I think anyone could wear it.

Can't recommend the gels, though.

Happy Gel Free Talons!!

butterLondon - Why didn't I know about these?

I was carousing around the butterLondon website a couple weeks ago and low and behold...new colors. I don't think they were advertised, I didn't get an email and yet...there they were. I felt oddly betrayed! I have loved and supported this brand since I discovered it and they can't even tell me when there is new fabulousness to be had? Plus, I've found where other bloggers already have their claws in the new collection! Not this one, the Fall one! Granted, this is a little small-time blog compared to theirs, I mean...7 whole followers and MDAMO isn't exactly a crowd of readership, but one of my posts did get over 9000 hits. That's not so small, is it? And yet...they can't even shoot me an email? BASTARDS.
So of course I ordered them straight away.
I swatched them because I didn't want you to feel likewise betrayed. I mean...we need to know about this stuff, right?

These are just swatches, they aren't real manicures with base coat and all that. Just the colors themselves.

I present to you, Scouse, Swinger and Sloane Ranger.

Yes, they are this fabulous in real life, the only thing I can say is honestly different from the picture is that they are more sparkly. Except Sloane Ranger. It just has a lovely sheen to it with what appears to be on close inspection the teensiest hint of silver. 

In reverse order. Why I didn't make this easier on myself by painting the first three nails instead of the last three, I don't know. I am sometimes a dingbat.
Scouse has definite pink sparkle in it. It's really stunning. It's very sheer, though. This is three coats. It's three coats for all of them, though Sloane Ranger didn't actually need it.

Sloane Ranger showing off it's silver microshimmer. You can see a hint of this on the nail. Nice!

The shimmer again is a little visible. It adds depth but this is so neutral...it's really kind of elegant and understated. I like it. It also has a hint of kind of dirty about it, which is also nice. It keeps it edgy. It's not a clean grey and I like that about it. There are a lot of greys out there, they were really the hot color a couple years ago and they've never completely gone away, for which I'm grateful. I happen to love grey. I even love Earl Grey of the tea fame. Particularly yums with some milk and sugar. :D

This is Swinger. It's a true grass green glitter. It's a green jelly sparkle base with larger green glitter suspended in it. Its really sheer, this is three coats. So I tried it over Union Jack Black and it was nice but really less spectacular than on it's own, I felt. If you're serious about wearing this as it's own color, I would find something that works for you as a nude and layer over that. It's really verrrrry pretty.

You can see the Union Jack Black experiment here, and it does help. I still think a nude would be better unless you want to darken this down for some reason. Aside from eliminating nail line, I'm not sure this does this much for it.

Scouse. The star of the show, IMHO. Nice glare. But you can see on the nail that this is a wonderland of sparkle. What is not translating in the picture is that the sparkle in this is blue and PINK. Yes, pink. Hot pink, but still pink. And it works. It makes a really nice contrast but doesn't conjure up images of a co-ed nursery. This is a super sparkly micro-glitter in a blue jelly base and it's seriously lovely. I fell in love. It was one of those **gasp** moments when I took it out of it's bubble pack.

Very sheer, you can see the nail line clearly here. This is also three coats so you want something under this. Either a similar blue, which would lend depth, or a black, or nude...but I wouldn't be afraid to experiment. I am betting that a deep purple, a bluish one rather than red, would give this depth and bring out the pink. Pretty special, this one. Why are they hiding it? I scope out the butters at Ulta every time I go in and they didn't have it, either. I don't typically buy there, I order them online because you often get better deals and you know that some 14 year old hasn't opened it and painted her toes with it in the store or something equally nasty. I don't know about your Ulta but mine is rampant with little teeners playing in the big girl toys. That's fine and all, but I don't trust what they do with stuff. Know what I mean?

So that is the latest haul from butterLondon. With these I got a free Powder Room polish remover. I had a couple of them from a sale I hit when they first came to this Ulta and I'd never tried it. So I finally did and I am impressed. For being acetone free, it's really really good. And smells nicer than the normal stuff as well. I'd try to hit one of those specials if you're interested though. $8 for that teeny bottle is a shock. I think you don't use as much, but still. You should be warned. I thought they were sample bottles but nope.

Are you ordering these right now? I did, almost as soon as I saw them. Gorge!

Happy Talons!