Lava Nails

This was a bit of a 'happy accident' as they started out rather crap and I hated them but was too lazy to start over. I thought I'd add some black crackle to see if I could rectify them by making them look even more messed up... without being messed up... if you see what I mean lol. Deliberate looking. I actually thought they resembled lava flows when I had finished, like the liquid lava with the solidified lava on top when it turns grey-black. I liked it and wore it for a full week and even my boyfriend liked it (he was biased though because it involved the colour orange which is his favourite).

I used Chanel Mimosa for the yellow base then used Butter London sheer jelly polish in Chuffed for the orange. I applied it straight from the brush in thin layers making a gradient towards the tip. You could sponge it on instead or use a more opaque colour when sponging and fade it upwards towards the cuticle instead if you didn't have a sheer or jelly shade. Then I used BarryM black crackle on top and sealed it all with a coat of Seche Vite - my top coat of choice, I'm on my third bottle of this now!

This would be really easy to change up the colours to whatever you wanted and I will be trying it again in the future, I'm thinking of purple and blue with silver shatter on top!

I'm off work sick today so I'm going to try to mess around with some makeup to create some different looks while I have a chance and will be getting those up soon :)

Jennifer xx

Butter London Spring 2011 Review

Butter London is a relatively new brand to me and it was this collection that grabbed me. All of their nail polishes have names which relate to London or 'British-ness' and this collection is made up of five colours:
Blagger (bright colbolt blue), Hen Party (sheer opalescent baby pink), Teddy Girl (retro bubblegum pink), Dosh (green apple with gold shimmer) and Lady Muck (periwinkle blue-grey with micro shimmer). I picked out Blagger, Dosh and Lady Muck. As soon as I saw these shades I couldn't wait for them to come out, I thought they were so beautiful.

When I got them, I loved the bottles. They are rectangular and have rectangle caps which you pull off to use revealing a circular grip cap underneath with a little bird on the top. They are very practical for storage considering their shape, they can be closely packed together into my box easily. I like that about squared bottles as they take up less space.

The lacquer was a great consitency, so easy to apply and it just glided onto my nails. The brush isn't too small but isn't a wide brush like an OPI lacquer which I find easier. Still, due to the perfect consitency of the lacquer, the brush is easy to control it with and you get fantastic coverage even with one coat. I always use at least two coats when I paint my nails as you get true depth of colour which one coat doesn't usually achieve. The finish is lovely, glossy and smooth. The two colours with the shimmer don't feel gritty, and I really like the size of the shimmer in them as it is subtle but at the same time large enough to notice it.

The colours themselves are beautiful, I love them all. I did find that once I recieved them that Blagger is quite similar to OPI Ogre The Top Blue which I already had and is another of my favourite polishes. Just goes to show that I am obviously attracted to that particular shade of colbolt blue. I've seen that some bloggers have been comparing Lady Muck with a China Glaze shade, Sea Spray I think but I don't have any shades which are similar, same with Dosh.

Read on for swatches...