bitches be shoppin. some great sales and other opportunities yielded an awesome end-of-summer score! some long-coveted butter londons, some walgreen exclusive wonder woman collection by orly, a couple of blackheart beautys from my local hot topic, and a china glaze from their latest 2016 fall collection! here are my swatches and first impression reviews. hope you enjoy! ❤️ butter london polishes 😇 tj maxx had a ton of discount butter londons on sale last week. they typically have only 1 or 2 shades, but this time they had 8! at $4.99/ea, they are 1/3 of the regular retail price!! 🤑I bought a total of 6: great autum shades and greyed-out tones that were really popular 3 or 4 years ago: I think they are due for a come-back! "british racing green" hunter green creme with subtle emerald green shimmer a staple at british fashion shows for years, i have wanted this polish for way too long! I thought that I had missed my chance as butter london seemed to have discontinued the shade. finding it on discount was like a hogwarts wizarding miracle! the application was like... well, like butter! the shimmer is only visible in direct sunlight (but I prefer a creme finish anyway!). the color is a popular english car finish ... and it reminds me of the season of mad men when they get the jaquar car acount! vroom! vroom! "blagger" one-coat royal blue creme "blagger" means charming bullshitter in brit-speak. this blue is indeed charming and the one-coat formula is terrific! to be fair, many polish brands can boast of a great royal or cobalt blue in their core lines, so this color/good formula combo is not crazy unique. even so, if you see "blagger" I highly recommend picking it up! this color would look great with a matte top coat. since mattes tend to highlight any application failings, this great formula would be the perfect polish to use for a faultless look! i will try it and post soon! "muggins" light-toned greyed-out lavender "muggins" is brit slang that you should look up yourself, because i don't want to explain it ... and i am pretty sure i don't understand it. I have been pursuing a lot of very light grey-tones for my collection, but there is something special about this shade. forgive my shit-show of a swatch photo on this one: trust me ... it looks awesome in person. there is something really classy yet trendy about a very light cool or warm grey creme right now. I can't get enough!! "lady muck" cool-toned light grey creme with silver shimmer "lady muck" means an entitled person (usually a woman) who thinks highly of herself. i almost didn't buy this as shimmer is not my bag. i am really glad that I did because the cool grey is beautiful on the nail and the application, a dream! call me "lady m" because I deserve a polish this beautiful! "artful dodger" greyed-out teal creme i am not sure if this color fits my image of the iconic dickens character, but I still like it well enough. all of these polish shades seem similar at a glance, but again, this grey/teal is really unique in my collection. i want to wear this all autum long! "sprog" greyish cool lavender creme "sprog" means army-brat or newbie or ... something. again, I recommend doing your own research as i am a lowly american. I have a shade similar to this that i adore from sinful colors 👿 called "lavender." "lavender" is bit darker, but the good formula is comparable to "sprog." this is the least "greyed-out" polish of the "greyed-out" polishes that I picked up. if you are new to this style, "sprog" might be a good jumping off point. this color is a comfortable yet playful neutral: it's like the "mom jeans" of nail polish. it doesn't say "I've given up," it shouts "I'm still here!" orly's color blast wonder woman collection (walgreens exclusive) 😇 "super strength" blue creme that leans turquoise "don't lasso me around!" yellow gold metallic huge thanks to my friend, cat, for tracking these down when I couldn't find them in local stores! (I admit, i was waiting for them to go on sale and I think I waited too long!!) don't know how many colors were released in this collection, but cat found me 4 of them and they all have pretty good formulas. "super strength" dries a bit dull, but a glossy top coat can fix that. I like that the colors look rich, but also vintage. "don't lasso ..." is a great polish because it doesn't show brush-strokes, which is unheard of for a metallic: pick it up if you need a bright gold in your life!! "in the name of justice" deep royal blue creme with (appears to be) aqua & turquoise shimmer this shimmer is not subtle, which I usually avoid, but this seems iconic and wonder-woman-y to me! this was a best formula in the bunch! the swatch is 2 coats, but you could get it opaque in 1 go. "hop in my invisible jet!" white opaque creme a solid white is nothing new, but I love a white polish even though I own oodles of them! the formula was thin, but not at all runny, so I tried the thickening trick ("hop in my invisible jet 2: the thickening") and left the cap off of the bottle for 7-8 minutes. this worked and the formula was much better to work with. not my fav white, but not bad at all! "purple grape" blackheart beauty at hot topic 😇 purple crelly for as much as i sing the praises of blackheart beauty's creme polishes, a couple of crelly bastards have snuck in the mix. a label never declares the opacity of a given polish, so it is always a fun surprise to discover that you've purchased a polish that requires numerous coats to look tolerable. Ugh! the term "crelly" refers to a combo of a "creme" or solid opaque shade, and a "jelly" or sheer shade that builds to opaque color that has some depth or appears "squishy," (like a jolly rancher on your nails). i have never encountered a "crelly" that wasn't just streaky and stupid. this crelly was no different. is this the same company that sells the best black creme and the best bright neon ever? perhaps some goth kid loves this polish and i am just too old to understand. 😓. i am so out of touch! "black/peach splatter" matte hex confetti/greyfitti topper in a clear base the labels on bh polishes always read $5, but my hot topic has a permanent "2 for 1" special, so i have always paid $2.50/ea. however, I do have to purchase in multiples of 2 to get the discount (ahhh ... math!) i had already purchased all of the cremes & I needed one more polish to round out my haul. my hubs suggested this splatter polish (and I love when he takes an interest!) so I picked it up. this type of topper (i assume it is a topper because I could not get it opaque on its own) is out of my creme comfort-zone fo' sho' but I figured the world is full of polish that I have yet to understand: glitters, holos, duo-chromes, flakeys, textures, powder chromes ... I could go on all day! this is really just a teeny step outside of my creme box (dirty!) and I really need to see what the fuss is about! p.s. i did a full of mani of this over "hop in my invisible jet!" and the confetti splatter is very fun. I still think my nails are too short to pull off the look, but perhaps that is only my insecurity. pics to come. "dope taupe" china glaze fall 2016 "rebel" collection 😇
transdesign.com i picked this up way earlier this summer and forgot to include it in my huge 3-part "haul of fame" bio-pic of a blog post!! first of all, transdesign is a great site for the latest polish lines at discount prices (for certain brands: china glaze, orly, color club). "dope taupe" came with my neon pacific highway orly bottles in early july. so I was able to buy a fall collection china glaze before it hit stores at about 45% of the retail cost ... pretty amazing! the taupe color swatches a bit more purple on the nail than I had liked, but I could not be mad at the formula: one-coat and like butter! as cremes dominate 2016's autum polish lines, i think all companies have stepped up their formula game ... now, if they could ALL stop testing on animals, (I'm looking at you,opi & essie) that would make my day!! "dope taupe" leans a bit warmer and more putty than "sprog" but it proves that grey and taupe tones are not just fall staples, but very much #now. thanks for reading! let me know in the comments: your fav butter londons, your impressions of orly's wonder woman collection, or your picks for fall!
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5/29/2023 12:47:37 am
The Lisou collection is full of wearable, classic shapes with a modern twist and are made from the finest silks. All prints are designed in-house by Rene, which makes every Lisou print exclusive.
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AuthorI try to paint my nails adequately. CategoriesArchives
November 2017
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