Nail of the Week: Zoya Katy

This week I decided to go with a more pronounced accent nail - Zoya's Katy with butter LONDON's Black Knight. The photos can't really do justice to the color combination but the photos do show the thing I like least about Black Knight.

In natural light

Katy really brings out the colored glitter in Black Knight but the texture of Black Knight is really distracting, especially in a shade that's not matte. It looks like eggshell paint or poor application technique  and it's really bothering me. It's a shame because I do like the glitter in this better than Zoya's Storm.

Indoors

Katy's blue-based pink is perfect for the Electric palette from Urban Decay - swatches and review on that tomorrow! 

Nails of the Week: Butter London and Deborah Lippmann

This week's nail of the week is more like a nail-of-the-three-days. The Butter London polishes I picked up are all very pretty and come in colors that Zoya doesn't have but are only lasting about three days on me, no matter what  do. So this week, I have two manicures to share this week.

First up: Butter London's Fairy Lights with the accent nail having a two-coat topper of Knackered

Butter London Fairy Lights and Knackered

Butter London describes Fairy Lights as a "rose gold" - but much like Urban Decay's Naked 3 palette, I'm not seeing the gold qualities. The rosy pink is too cool-toned to be "rose gold," in my opinion, but that's certainly not a complaint! It is on last orders at Butter London's own website but Nordstrom and Beauty.com have it in regular stock still. Knackered on its own is kind of a sheer metallic blue with a bit of sparkle, which made for a nice lavender here that worked well with Fairy Lights. 

On Monday that was so ragged that it really needed to be redone so of course I waited an extra day to do anything about it. That brought me to Deborah Lippman's Private Dancer, which Beauty.com is currently doing as a gift-with-beauty purchase (ending 4/4 - go! They're stackable, too, so get as many as you can!) For the accent, I settled on Zoya's Mimi

"Outdoors" natural light

Indoors, no flash

I feel like the chrome on this one isn't very, well, chromed. It's a very pretty color and seems to ride the line between duochrome and just chrome. We'll see how it wears! 

Nail of the Week: Butter London Petrol

After my recent post on Zoya polish being the only polish I use, a friend begged me to give Butter London another chance. Given that my application and routine have improved since the last time I gave it a try, I was considering it. Then I stopped in at Nordstrom's Beauty Trend event and they had the Backstage Basics kit just sitting there. So I picked it up with Petrol.

Butter London Petrol

I've been wearing this for three days so far and, I'm sorry to say, I've got major tip wear and what looks like a french manicure from the polish wearing away on my right hand. (I'm trying to let it go a full week so I can take photos then.) What you see above is Nail Foundation, three coats of Petrol (it's very sheer as it is intended to be used as a top coat in addition to being a stand-alone,) and a coat of Hardwear.

Petrol is very aptly named - it has the very pretty sheen of gasoline or an oil slick. No photo I could manage did it justice.

I do like the feel of both the base coat - Nail Foundation - and Hardwear, the top coat, better than Zoya's. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be doing the job as well. I wish Zoya could do something to be as quick-drying and lightweight as the Butter feels without sacrificing the quality and wear time. I do use Zoya's quick-dry drops but they leave my fingertips greasy until I'm comfortable washing my hands. Butter London's top coat dries quickly with no fuss. 

I think for the foreseeable future, I'm sticking with Zoya and will only be picking up Butter London polishes on sale in shades that Zoya doesn't have (yet.) Admittedly, Zoya is not always up on trend colors, even if they are usually on the frontlines of runway color.

Butter London polishes clock in at $15 per bottle, base and top coat at $19 a bottle - available from Ulta, Sephora, Nordstrom, many Whole Foods stores, and Butter London's website directly. 

Nail of the Week: Pinta and Chloe

As I've mentioned before, I use almost entirely Zoya polish because it holds well for over a week and keeps my nails strong. In last week's madness, I didn't get a chance to shape or paint my nails which lead to some breakage. When that happens, I tend to cut them short and even and go for a glittery or dark (or both, in this case) color.

I had some trouble capturing the holographic glitter that is Chloe's main characteristic. I'm not seeing Chloe on Zoya's US website but I am seeing it on their Australian website (lucky Aussies!) Any pink-toned holographic flake nail polish should have the same general effect, I haven't found them to be all that different from one another and there are quite a few out there - Milani, Color Club, Chanel, and a lot of indie brands have all made holographic flake polishes.

Chloe here is layered over Pinta, which is a deep royal purple cream. The end effect is something like a speckled egg and works well as a transition-to-spring color, as well as a transition-to-fall color.

Here you can really see the base color of Pinta but the fleck isn't showing up that well.

And here you can see the fleck of Chloe but the base color isn't showing up that well. 

I find that I like darker colors better for shorter nails than bright colors but that is perhaps a product of remembering the '90s well and the admonitions to not wear black polish on long nails (which I do anyhow.) Do you keep your short nails bright, light, or dark? 

Nail of the Week: Zoya Kotori

This week's nail-of-the-week was determined by this week's forecast - Seattle's specific kind of light-sky, smoky-gray, light rain all week long. Some of my favorite weather! 

Zoya Kotori, 2 coats with 1 coat of Zoya's Armor

Kotori is, at two coats, semi-sheer blue glitter over a smoky gray base. At three coats it becomes mostly glitter, enough so that even with a single layer of top coat it feels slightly textured. This makes it really versatile because it can be transitional-season smoky or mid-summer blue glitter. Just the thing for a late February manicure.