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...
Here are the swatches:

Top to bottom: Lady Muck, Dosh, Blagger. All two coats.

The downsides of these polishes is the size, they are 11ml and cost £12 from Bath and Unwind which is more than OPI and many other brands. For the amount you get, it is disappointing but I really do love the quality of these colours so I don't mind. The longevity of these is good, I wore them for three days (if I remember rightly) and Blagger and Lady Muck were still perfect. Dosh has slight tip wear and I wore these all at the same time on alternating nails. I think it is the finish of Dosh which makes it wear for a less amount of time as the other two are a bit thicker. I did use a topcoat of Seche Vite on all of them.

Overall, if you like the colours and can aford them, go for it. They are of a lovely quality, really nice. If you like Blagger, OPI Ogre The Top Blue is very similar so you might be able to get hold of that, however, I don't know dupes for the other two.

- Jennifer