Honest Babes

Does it count as a haul if you only bought one polish (and got one for free)? I was at my local Ulta ten minutes after they opened... and they hadn't restocked at all. They didn't have any of the colors I had to have, only old stock that had already been opened and tested. So disappointed. At lunchtime I visited another Ulta and they seemed to at least care about the sale that was being promoted. They had polish in a little section just in front of the door with some butter LONDONs, the regular endcap (that sadly hadn't been refilled), and the endcaps over in the drugstore makeup that are dedicated to different trends (metallics, dark blues, etc.) I hesitated over getting Toff and someone who was also looking at the display grabbed it when I went to go check other areas. Curses, foiled again! Yummy Mummy and Tea with the Queen, it just wasn't meant to be this time. Maybe I'll get lucky during the next sale...

I did pick up Victoriana (my mom's favorite butter LONDON shade) and West End Wonderland. WEW is described as "classic gold glitter" and looks like it has small glitter that reflects gold, silver and orange. Victoriana is described as "a textured twinkling vintage blue pale and slightly smoky." The texture is a significant amount of silver shimmer. It dries slightly darker than what you see in the bottle and the shimmer is slightly subdued but definitely still there. The base color is darker and a little more gray than Artful Dodger's base color.

Three coats of WEW (though two might have been enough) and two coats of Victoriana:

If you went to Ulta and bought some bLs, let me know what you bought so I can live vicariously through you.  I've already spoken to my mom about her haul (she loves bL polish!) and she had a much better selection to choose from at her Ulta. So jealous!

Today's the day! You can buy one butter LONDON and get one free at Ultas that carry the brand. I've heard that some sales associates say that you can buy two and get two free, while others have said you can only buy one and get one free. I'm not sure what the restrictions are, but if you encounter any, I'd be curious to know what they are.Thirty seven thousand pictures later...

Recently I had the pleasure of writing a guest post for Sara over at Daily Polish. She's a really awesome person and I didn't want to disappoint her blog readers with something boring, so I picked a topic I thought her (and my) readers would like- three of butter LONDON's Fall 2011 offerings. Please head over and check out my post because if you haven't seen Wallis... YOU NEED TO! And if you've seen her already, you'll still want to check her out again. The post also features Knees Up and Bluey, which grows on me a little more every time I wear it. Since Ulta is going to have a buy one, get one free sale on butter LONDON, I'm going to have a few more swatches coming up in case anyone is making a list of polishes to buy. If anyone has any requests, please let me know here or over on my Daily Polish entry.

After seeing Makeup Magpie's post on YSL's fall collection, I had to go see the polishes in person.  The display and tester bottles did not list the numbers or names of the polishes, but my ever faithful SA found them after opening several boxes and checking them against the testers.  Wintergreen is #43 and Moonlight Blue is #44.  If you're a fan of greens, I highly suggest checking Wintergreen out!You should definitely check Wintergreen out, green lovers!

butter LONDON's Bluey is part of their Fall/Winter 2011 collection.  I guess the term is slang for porn movies, but there's not much shocking about the actual color.  My Ulta had both Bluey and Wallis in the bL display already, even though there weren't defined spots for them.  Wallis was much neater in person than in the pictures I saw online, which says a lot because I've seen some nice pictures of it.  Wallis is a very gold olive and very shimmery to boot.  I put it back because I figured I'd get it when Ulta was running one of their 3x or 5x bonus points events.  After all, golden olive isn't exactly the best color for someone who's cool-toned, right?  Maybe the polish I should have put back in the display was Bluey.

On the plus side, I had no issues with the brush, which is usually something I complain about.  My bottle has a thin consistency, and I used two coats on my fingers except for three coats on my thumb.  I don't see much of a difference between two and three coats, but if pressed to pick, I'd pick two coats as the winner.  On the negative side, I ended up with some bubbling, but that could be the combination of crazy heat and humidity here.  Another negative?  She looks strikingly familiar...

I had a devil of a time trying to get a color accurate picture of Bluey and my swatches.  My camera kept taking out the green (this is definitely a blue green polish), even when I played around with the white balance.  Imagine this picture just a little darker (or mix it with the last image in this post):

If that picture is intriguing enough, come on in...

I purchased butter LONDON's Scoundrel on a recent trip.  Had I checked my local Ultas, I would have known that they now carry bL.  But my purchase ended up supporting a local business, which isn't all bad, right?   I figured Scoundrel was a different take on the typical dark medium lavender crème polish.  It's a little more red toned than blue toned, so those with a warmer complexion might want to check this one out.  I was a little disappointed with the formula, which may have been a bit watery.  I think I used three thin coats, but still ended up with with some areas that weren't entirely covered.  That's part of the reason I added Silver Shatter- it covers a multitude of nail polish "sins."  Or that's what I'm telling myself at any rate!  But I do like the color of Scoundrel, so I'll have to try it again and see if the formula gives me any problems again.

Typical... more pictures!

This was on butter LONDON's Facebook page: "Receive a complimentary full size bottle of British Racing Green lacquer with any purchase of $25.00 or more NOW through March 22nd on butterLONDON.com. Simply enter StPaddyDay11 upon check out. Happy St. Paddy’s day bezzie mates! (US only)" It's a darn good deal... if it works.  I've heard reports that some people aren't able to get the code to go through.  Boo!   I say... keep trying!  Email customer service if you have to.

British Racing Green is a jewel-toned dark green with great shimmer.  The green is softer than a black in lower light.  The shimmer really pops in the sun.  On the nail versus the bottle, BRG is darker with more subtle shimmer; in the bottle versus the nail, the green is lighter and the shimmer is more pronounced.  (Which is weird, since that's slightly different from what I thought a few months ago.)  The shimmer and pigment are pretty evident in the bottle- you can see a bit of yellow pigment settling at the bottom of the bottle.  My bottle is nicely aged. If you love greens, click here!

So my blog was down yesterday.  While I'd like to say that it was because of a redesign or software upgrade, it was due to a power outage that knocked out my blog server, a mail server and my own personal computer.  Boo.   To add insult to injury, my aloe plant doesn't look too happy in his new digs, something (I'm voting woodpecker while my husband is voting ants) ate through part of our front wooden railing overnight, one of the cats had a hairball issue who knows when and I just found it today, and I really could just kill for a Mexican Coke but that's more carbs than I'm allowed to have even over two meals.  Being diabetic blows.  Wah wah wahhhhh.

One of the major things that really gets my goat right now is something that really shouldn't have been all that difficult.  I ordered three of the new butter Londons from ulta.com, plus the bL nail polish remover, on 7/31 and received an order confirmation that same night for everything I ordered.  Fast forward to today, when I called to find out what happened to my order, because obviously it wasn't here.  I was told that it shipped out today, and the gal on the phone said she had no idea why.  Two hours ago, I got the order shipment notice, and go figure, All Hail McQueen was not on it.  It also said my total for the order was still the amount I'd owe if AHMcQ had been included.  It would have been nice if the gal I spoke to earlier had actually looked at my order and noticed that it was delayed for a reason.  So at this point, it looks like my only option is wait for the package to get here, refuse delivery, wait for Ulta to get it back, have them credit my charge card, then try to figure out where the polishes are still in stock.  What a big pain.  I don't think it should have taken a week for the order to ship, and I do think that they should have contacted me when it became clear that the whole order wasn't going to ship.  (Sephora.com will cancel your order if it looks like an item isn't in stock.  I now see why.)  It even looks iffy that I'll get a free shipping code out of all this annoyance if I do decide to keep what I ordered and wait until AHMcQ does ever come back in stock.  For now, I highly suggest ordering directly from butter London, or waiting for Beauty.com to get the polishes in stock. Do not order from Ulta.com unless you like drama in your life!

The other thing that bothered me this week, polish-wise, was that the place I get my OPIs didn't have the individual polishes for sale.  Not wanting to have driven out there for nothing, I bought a display box, cursing myself the entire drive home.  What on Earth was I going to do with a display?!  And these polishes I didn't even want?!  Well, as it turns out, it's a solid collection and the display is cute, though I doubt I'll be keeping everything.

I keep trying to tell myself, "Deep breaths!  Zen!"  I have to go get ready to go to a comedy club- first time in years- but before I go, I have two things to say:

Thanks for listening to me whine.  A preview OPI swatch for you for all of your troubles:

AND HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, NATHALIE!!  I'm glad it was so good!  I wish you a very wonderful next year of life!

A long time ago, in a land not so far away, a young company named butter LONDON offered their polish for almost free.  Plenty of us availed ourselves of that deal.  But complaints were not few.  The cost of the polish, at full price, was not cheap.  The bottles themselves were relatively small.  The polish tended to dry out because it was hard to twist the cap onto the bottle all the way.

Clearly BL listened to the complaints.  While the polish is still a wee bit expensive at US$14, the bottle size has increased from 0.3 fl oz to 0.4 fl oz.  (A bottle of OPI is 0.5 fl oz. for US$8.50.)  The caps are much, much easier to remove, revealing a smaller plastic nub to hold while polishing.  Of course, the caps have always been removable, but it practically took a bodybuilder to wrestle the older caps off.

When I caught a "buy one, get one free" offer from Beauty.com, I caved and bought another BL polish.  I'm not sorry I did, either!  The free polish was Portobello Pink, and since it was in the 0.3 fl oz bottle, it must've been old stock.  But I didn't think the cap was as hard to remove from it, so I doubt it was that old.  The polish I decided to purchase for the deal is British Racing Green, one of the more recent BL colors.  It came in the 0.4 fl oz bottle, and the cap was easy to remove.  The cap even had a cute sticker on the side, letting me know to "lift to open."  Good idea, BL!

And now we get to the pictures part...

I find myself wondering if I need to get any more Rescue Beauty Lounge polishes, since they will be 50% off later today.For pictures and more wordy musing... click!