Butter LONDON Pitter Patter

Butter LONDON has released a new limited edition, US only lacquer in honor of the soon-to-be newest member of the Royal Family, Prince William and Kate Middleton's baby. It's an incredible color, a rich, dark shade of purple that has royalty written all over it. I love the bottle so much--the color is alive with shimmer, swirling and gleaming like nobody's business.

Yay for vacations!

Because they're so lovely. I'm real big on the Staycation:  staying home, sleeping as much as I want, doing whatever, no pressure, no places to go...ahhh. I like traveling sometimes but that's a different kind of pain in the patootie, so I'm mostly to be found hanging out around my house for my time off.

With that in mind, I am not painting my nails this week. They've actually been kinda crappy lately so I figured I'd give them the week off, too. Sort of. I'm trying to get them into some kind of respectable shape for a certain bunch of swatching I'm going to attempt soon, so I'm pooping on them for a week.

Yep.

Update: OPI Bond...James Bond

Mostly uneventful. One thing I did notice was that it left rough tips. You know how when you wear glitter or now the texture kinds, where if you don't smooth your tips before the polish dries you feel your nails catching on things and being extra scratchy? This was nowhere near as bad as either of those but for some reason it did happen. I thought the first time I broke a nail but then there were like three others that did the same thing. So smooth your tips before drying with this one.

This is What Happens When I am Trying to do Something Serious in This House

I'm not going to apologize -- again -- for being neglectful of the blog. I mentioned having a lot of things on my plate, and one of the biggest is about a week from going public, so I've been a little frazzled. Also my nails have not been painted in anything resembling a real manicure since I removed the Red Ticket Item, as I've been super-busy testing out a bunch of different polishes I'm making in my sun room-slash-Frankenlab. The good news is, these polishes seem to have some staying power. The bad news is, I can't show them to you. Yet.

This blog is about life, cats, and our search for great nail polish. This post is about at least two of those three things. To wit:

OPI Bond...James Bond

Our first magnetic. I know right? I did one ages and ages ago, I think before we started the blog, and I freely admit it was a hot mess. Not that the magnet part didn't work or that it looked bad but I didn't wait long enough to top coat so it just smeared it all up.

This one was much easier. I think I got it to about 98%. And possibly broke the magnet. Is it even possible to break a magnet? I didn't think it was but lol I'm not sure what happened.

First off, if you haven't ever used a magnet or have tried and just can't get it right, read a tutorial. Or watch a video tutorial, I know they're out there. I went with Scrangie's, immensely helpful.

Update: Wet N Wild Sprinkled With Love

I'm sitting here trying to decide how to start this post, thinking and picking glitter off my nails about five hours after I removed this polish. LOL We'll get to that part later though.

First though, let's just say we made it the week with hardly any issues. Technically. Because halfway through I got a wild hair and decided to matte it. I finally caved and bought the whole set of the chunky holo top coat polishes from Kleancolor and their Madly Matte was included. Dana and I got on the subject of matte polishes and the thought just wouldn't leave my head. Wonder what this one would look like matted?

Update: Red Ticket Item

To begin, let me throw out a disclaimer: I made this polish. Fair enough? Good, good. Let's go.

Wet N Wild Sprinkled With Love

Also known as POLLILOPS!

Dana found these at Walgreens several weeks ago and it just took them so long to show up in my neck of the woods that she went ahead and grabbed them for me so I didn't miss out. They're very cute, all named after baking somehow. The reason they're pollilops is because they're actually displayed that way--as lollipops. The bottle shape matches and everything.

Don't you just love how my cat used it as a chew toy?

One of my nieces or nephew, I disremember which, misheard lollipops as pollilops and it stuck. Forever.

Update: Essie Hot Commodity

Good nail polishes make for such easy posts. Boring, but easy.

Barely a scratch. The removal wasn't even an issue given the glitter in it. Which means the glitter really went completely unnoticed.

Two more things to note. Good:  It did not stain my fingers an unholy shade of yellow. I appreciated that. Bad:  Dry time was much longer than I realized. Zoom in on that and you'll see all the pressure marks from my first night's sleep despite the SV I used.

Jess

Dreamy Lacquer Co - Red Ticket Item

Jess described in her recent post, Essie Hot Commodity, how she found this lovely polish. What she didn't mention is immediately after she bought her bottle, another was listed on eBay and I snatched it up. It's all her fault, she showed me a beautiful red sparkly and I wanted it for my very own. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

It's an incredibly lovely base color, but Jess was unhappy with the lack of sparkle from the red or raspberry/pink glitter. And I thought to myself, "I'm gonna try to make that red polish with silver glitter." I wanted to know a) how close I could get to that gorgeous red shade and b) would the silver be an improvement?

Essie Hot Commodity

I found out about this one thanks to a savvy seller on eBay who listed it as something like, "the cousin to Starry Starry Night." I'm not too sure about that. In the fact that it's a jelly polish with glitter in it made by Essie, sure. But then all of them are now aren't they?

Regardless, it's a lovely color. A nice dark red, it made me think of sangria. I at first thought it had silver glitter (it must have been the remnants of the SSN on the brain) but it's not. It's actually a pinkish, sort of almost a raspberry color.

Update: Wet N Wild Blue Jitters

This one was odd. I only had a few chips and most of them happened the very last day I wore it. But woo baby were they some chips.

That happened the second day out so I was not off to a good start. It chipped a little on the side the first day and then I'm thinking cuticle oil helped loosen the whole thing. At least it was easy to fix. Which I did and moved on.

In Which I Swatch Three New Sinful Shine Colors

Sinful Colors has released a new line. As far as I know, they're Walgreen's exclusives, and I happened across them accidentally about a week ago. They claim to be 5 times glossier than a patent leather shoe, which made me laugh. The tag line on the bottle says they have "Gel Tech" but I think this just means that it's all the shine of a gel polish without the UV lamp, cure time, and hassle of removal. They're just 2.99 a bottle, which is a 50% increase from the regular Sinful Colors polishes, but still, that's a lot cheaper than a lot of other polishes out there.

In addition, the range of colors is wonderful. I decided I'd get two colors to start, but I had a hard time choosing and brought three home. I chose Come Hither, Most Sinful, and My Kryptonite. All three are creme polishes. Come Hither is a bright Pepto pink. Most Sinful is a lovely cobalt blue. My Kryptonite is a bright green-leaning teal. There were at least six others calling my name (Blue Steel comes to mind) but I wanted to see if they were worth spending money on before I went too crazy!