Butter London Victoriana

Medium teal blue with lots of silver shimmer. 2 coats. Applied... LIKE BUTTER! HA!

More comparisons

You know you have a problem when you keep seeing dupish colors in your collection and yet you keep buying more nail polish. I'm hoarding for beauty armageddon.

Here are some taupes (and one brown).

From L to R:
Zoya Dea, Essie Mink Muffs, Orly Prince Charming, Sally Hansen Commander in Chic, and Maybelline Touch of Taupe.

They are in the same order on my hand, from thumb to pinky.


Dea is OBVIOUSLY way different from the rest. (One of these things is not like the others!) So here's a shot of just the four fingers.


As you can see, Mink Muffs and Prince Charming are similar, with Mink Muffs being just a titch darker. Commander in Chic is less brown and more grey. And Touch of Taupe is completely different, and I actually love this color for that reason. It's taupe without being just like every other taupe. And I got it for a dollar at the Dollar Tree. :)


Then I was looking at another mini from that Essie set, and thought that Angora Cardi looked a LOT like Butter London's Teddy Boy. They are quite similar in the bottle.


I just alternated fingers -- Angora Cardi is on my thumb, middle, and pinky, while Teddy Boy is on my ring and pointer fingers.


And in more direct lighting:


They are similar, but not exactly the same. Angora Cardi is more purple and a little deeper. I have no idea what to call this color. Mauve? I dunno. I do like it, even if it is a little boring.

So there you have it. I have one more post planned re: the asian beauty supply, but I probably won't post it til tomorrow or Saturday!

What a crazy week!!

I have been so busy this week, I haven't had time to do anything with this blog. And the thing is, looking back on the week, I have no idea what took up all my time. It just seems like I've been going, going, going!

First, I have mailed out five packages from my destashing post. It is now updated and current, as far as what I have left. Please go check it out here: http://lissasnails.blogspot.com/2010/04/destashing.html

Secondly, I am keeping an Excel spreadsheet of all the entries in my giveaway. I've discovered some new blogs this way -- it's pretty cool! If you haven't entered, go here:
http://lissasnails.blogspot.com/2010/04/giveaway.html

THIRD, I ordered some stuff from Urban Decay's Friends-and-Family 30% off sale. If you haven't shopped it yet, it ends Monday. Use code 1SFNF. I ordered a couple of things that were on clearance. Clearance + 30% off = dirt cheap. I got the Apocalyptic nail kit (of course), which appears to be gone now. I also got the Hall of Fame set. I'm debating placing another order to get their new nail set, but I'm not sold on the colors in it. Maybe I'll just wait til it goes on clearance... :D

Anywho, now that all that's been said... I actually do have some pictures to post. Oh yeah, and I chopped my nails off. After trying to get them to be long and pointy, I decided that I actually hate the way that looks, and shorter and squarer is just easier to deal with. So now they're just barely past my fingertips -- you'll see in the following pictures. :)

First of all, remember how I said I got that black glitter set at Icing for $5? I actually hate these polishes. The first coat is super sheer. The second coat drags and leaves bald spots. The third coat has to be really thick in order to cover up the mayhem left by the first and second coats. Then you have to deal with glitter removal, which I'm starting to really hate. Like, it's not even worth it to me to wear glitters because I hate removing them so much. Even with the cotton balls+tin foil trick, it's just a pain.

So I only ever wore three of these. Maybe I'll wear the other two one day, but I'm going to go ahead and post what I've got because I have a feeling that'll be a long time from now, if ever.


First up is the purple glitter, which I immediately gouged the hell out of by removing a power supply from a computer at work. This one is really pretty.


Then I wore... yellow? I guess? Or is that gold? Or a very light lime-green? It's sort of an ambiguous color.


Then blue, which I actually really liked, too.


The two remaining ones are orange and green (teal?), and yeah. Maybe one day. But not today.

This is China Glaze Strawberry Fields. I saw this on someone (a blogger, not IRL) recently and realized I had to have this polish! I couldn't seem to get a decent picture of it, but it's really pretty. I approve. I really like the tiny gold glass-flecks in it -- it makes it a very unique pink, in my opinion.


This was another of the Butter London polishes I got. It's called Teddy Boy, and it's a brownish-pinkish-mauvish color. I really liked this. However, those bottles suck. I found the application to be really difficult because of the way the cap is shaped. Then I read somewhere that they've changed their bottles (and obviously, the ones I got so dirt cheap were the old bottles... dammit). Maybe one day when I feel like shelling out too much money for nail polish, I'll try some of the newer ones. I just don't really like the idea of paying more than $10 or so for a bottle of polish. I've done it, but it's very rare for me. I am lemming Chanel's Illusion D'Or right now, though, and that's WAY more than I care to spend on polish, ever.


This was a polish I picked up at Sally's. It's Finger Paints "Magenta Mood." It's a pretty, foil-y, glitter-y magenta. Actually, it seemed to go back and forth between bright red and magenta. In certain lights, it looked magenta. In others, red.


I decided to do some fauxnading last weekend, and did this using China Glaze Light as Air for the base, and China Glaze Grape Pop for the stamping. I used a fauxnad plate that doesn't have a plate number, but these were just flowery. This is the last manicure I did before I chopped my nails off.


This was the first mani I did after chopping my nails off. This is China Glaze Grape Pop with Colorama Sonic Sunset (holy crap, I am loving the Colorama flakies!) on top. Later this day, I got my Urban Decay order in the mail, so I have only been wearing those colors since then. :)

Seriously, you guys

I have NO IDEA if I'm ever going to actually finish wearing all the Icing "black glitters" I bought. I got through three of them. Shitty application, terrible wear. Color me NOT IMPRESSED. I'm so glad I only spent $5 on these on clearance instead of the $16 original price. Really.

Soooo anyhow. Yesterday I bought my wedding dress. It's not a wedding dress-wedding dress, just a white cotton dress. Appropriate for getting married on the beach, I think, and I LOVE it. NOW I just need to decide what polish colors I'm going to wear.

This is what it looks like outside today. Look at that wisteria! Too bad I have a horrible phobia of bees/wasps/flying-stinging-things. It's freaking beautiful!


ALSO today, I dyed my hair bright ass cherry red. Pardon the hair-in-the-face, but I wasn't wearing any makeup.. LOL.


Here is a color I picked up on clearance recently at Sally's. China Glaze "Cherry Pie." It's more of an orange-toned red than what I would normally pick, but this color has been on my toes for a week or two now and I LOVE it on my toes. It's a red jelly with a glass-flecked finish.


I also picked up some Butter London polishes from Hautelook a couple weeks ago because they were $5 apiece. Color me not impressed. I'm seriously glad I only paid $5 for these. I've only tried two of the four I bought. The first one, Swinger, was so bad I ended up just removing it halfway through and putting this one on instead. Not even so much as a picture.
This is Billy No Mates, a very soft grey.


I got bored with that and decided to do a vintage-y half-moon mani, using Zoya Ibiza on top of it. I then prompty destroyed that by doing dishes. I'm trying to slowly shape my nails into more of an oval shape instead of square or squoval. I want more of a vintage look. But it takes time, my nails aren't that long, so I figure I'll eventually get the oval/almond shape I want with regular, proper filing.


In other news, I have a bunch of nail polish I want to give away. Some is new, some is used. I'm thinking of doing a contest to give away the unused stuff, and then maybe just having a free-for-all, first-come-first served thing for the used stuff I want to be rid of. I have too much and I need to destash. I figure for the free-for-all, I'd just want someone to pay shipping, which would depend on how many bottles you got. What do you guys think? Is this a good idea or no? I feel like I'm becoming a hoarder, and I KNOW I'll never wear a lot of the stuff I have.