BB Couture - Glampyre

 I haven't done a BB Couture in forever. I don't know why that is. I love them. If you read this at all consistently, well, not recently, but in the past, you will know that I love them. I've even missed the last couple of collections being released. I think I stayed away because I knew I would have to have them and that was $120 bucks I don't have to spend. I'm on a strict no-buy for awhile, except for the really great stuff. Like the new Cult Nails collection, which I will have to scam money for from somewhere.

Regardless!

Glampyre was a late addition to the Saints of Ruin Collection which was inspired by...The Saints of Ruin. Which is a band. I'm old. I don't know them and I don't care because the collection is great and late or no, Glampyre was a great addition.

As you can tell, it's a lovely shimmery blackened olive drab concoction of wonderful. It's changeable, it looks brown in some lights, it looks definitely olive and at times definitely gold. There is a lot of gold in the color.

And it does that fantastic blackening past the curve of the nail thing. And it has the male seal of approval as well!

There is it's olive coming through. And the shimmer. And please keep in mind that each of these pictures is true to it in one light or another. I didn't get any sun shots of it because honestly, we're in record highs where I live, the air quality is shit and they are warning people to stay in. Healthy people. I am not unhealthy but I do have crap lungs. I can barely breathe most of the time and that's in the air conditioning so I don't go out there unless I have to.

Lookit me, pretending to be in an advertisement.

This is an example of it looking brown. Just one more of the colors it offers. You can see the goldish green color in the bottle...it reminds me of a patina. That is really the way I see it. Gold that has a patina on it, like bronze. But yes, you will see it look brown as well.

Not the world's to die for swatch, to be sure, but it does show the blackened darker aspect of this. You will never mistake it for a black but black is a big part of what is happening with it.

Just one more shot of the blackened olive gorgeousness.
Now...I appreciate this color isn't for everyone. It's not going to work on everyone and it's not going to appeal to everyone. It's really pretty unique and it takes some cojones to wear it. it's one of those colors people will look at you crazy for. Which I don't personally mind. I find a nearly sarcastic benign smile takes care of the judgmental and fearful of color people out there, but if you've never pulled that smile off then...I understand your taking a pass on this one. However, I love it. There are similar ones out there, I'm trying to think of that Nars one...MASH? Think so. I think too, that it lacks this blackened dark and sinister quality. Think so. Then again, that's not for everyone, either. And of course, I won't promote that...animal testing! Not Nars but their parent company Shisheido. Of course, almost all the big cosmetic companies are animal testing because China is requiring it. Huge step backward.

This is at the end of it's life. The manicure is 5 days old, it's filed hundreds of papers and washed a lot of dishes. It's still holding it's shimmer but you can see the cuticles are starting to peel and it's just looking shabby.

This was a problematic manicure for a lot of stupid reasons. Here's a tip, don't play xbox while painting your nails. It doesn't work out. When repairing said damage the next night, don't smack your nails into your computer desk. I got this all fixed but it did take it's toll.

Given the hard luck life of this manicure it did amazingly well. I had to put another coat of paint over the existing top coat to fix the xbox massacre so that helped. But it also caused some peeling and lifting, which you can see where a chunk came out towards the top of the middle finger. Nice.

Wait til you see the other hand that I've been picking at.

DOH! There it is. Bad, huh? Yeah..it's going away tonight.

You can see on the tip of the index finger where I tried to clean up some of the mess I made. I should have started over! Plus, my base coat isn't wanting to dry so it just had problems. None of that is the fault of the lacquer, which held up amazingly well with the whole nail world stacked against it.

And it looks bronze here. Such an odd color.

Application was great, when I wasn't messing it up, and it went on in two lovely coats. Very opaque, very easy to manage. It dried just fine, what was under it didn't so I would guess drying time to be quite good on this.

It's readily available on Overall Beauty. Kim's a sweetheart so check out what she has going on. She's now handling quite a few polish lines including GlitterGal, Ozotic, Cult, A-England...I need to write to her and suggest she talk to Cheeky Monkey...maybe I will.

Glampyre...Just try it.

Happy Talons!

BB Couture - Sinfully Polished, the Women's Collection - Envy

Envy...it's a terrible dark feeling. It makes you feel sour and mean and awful. I hate feeling envy and am pleased to say I rarely do. Usually it manifests as self-pity. I beat myself up, dust myself off and soldier on. I think this version of Envy is spot on. It's a very good rendition of what that feeling is. It's slightly olivey and dank green with a side of gunmetal for coldness.

This swatch only shows you a slight hint of the olive but a whole lot of that dirty.

More of the dirty. Like most of this collection, this color is one thing from one angle and one thing from another. However, not a duochrome, not in the, for example, Nubar sense.

NOW we're starting to see some green. It's not...it's almost more dirty olive and less green, if you see what I mean. It has a pearly shimmery thing going on which gives it interest. Straight olives we've seen: Rescue Beauty Lounge's No More War to name one much lemminged example. Something like this is a whole other animal. This is olive on the dark side. This is drab BDUs that have been in the battle and returned.

See, it's almost charcoal here. It's just a matter of lighting.

Now you see some olive, but really...I don't even know that I would call this green. It's so grey and dark. It's BB Couture's Ashes with a hint of green thrown in.

I really like it. It's edgy, it's shimmery, it's different.

As ever, great application and formula, great shine...what's not to love? I don't know that this color will be for everyone. This is the kind of color that BMWWU wouldn't want to put on me and tell me I'd better do myself! But, I do like it. It's moody, it will suit some episodes of life, but I think this is a color that says don't mess with me. Me likey.

You likey?

Happy Talons!

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!