Orly Lola

            Today's post is going to be really fast. It's Get Your Ish Together Day at Chez Butterfly, and that means lots of cleaning and organizing. As a result, I haven't had time to change my nails and probably won't have any until this evening. So I'm gonna bust out a polish from my backlog, Orly Lola. 

Lola is a bright and saturated pink creme. The color here is a little too dark though. The others are more correct.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

      My bottle of Lola is only a baby, and I must say that I'm a little glad of that. It's a fun, basic and pretty summer shade, but not terribly exciting, unique or interesting. I can't see myself wearing this too often, and I'll probably wear it on my toes more than on my fingers, so I don't need a full size bottle of it. Like if I see a full size bottle on sale for a couple of dollars, I'd pick it up. But I wouldn't pay more than that for Lola. Let me be clear, there's nothing really wrong with the color. It just doesn't warm the little cockles of my heart.

    Lola's application was really nice though. There were no problems with dragging or streaking, and the polish was nicely pigmented. The pictures are with two coats of color and one layer of topcoat, and it was nice and smooth and showed no VNL. 

     And I meant to mention this at my last post, but I was a little in a rush and forgot. I have 51 followers!! Yayyy!!!!! *blows one of those horn thingies that people blow at birthday parties* lol, I know to some people that's nothing, but to me, that's really big news! It's like...100 more people than I expected to be interested in my blog. So thanks to all of you!! ^_^

 I'd love to have a nice little giveaway, but I don't trust myself to shop for nail polish. However, I've been stockpiling polish, and will have one pretty soon. Probably this fall, when I'm back in DC and can get to the stores in the area.

  Hokay back to cleaning. Someone needs to kindly inform my mother that slavery was supposed to be over like...200 years ago. And that children are not for free labor. =___=

Orly Star of Bombay + Fauxnad

           Yay, it's Friday!!
           .....is what I should be saying. Unfortunately, I am saying no such thing because in my quest for summer employment, I lazily went through the city-run agency that places students with employers. Today, they're making me come in (for the third time in as many days) and get "counseling" about how to conduct myself in a professional environment and how to manage my credit. So I get to go to spend my Friday afternoon in a sweltering, noisy, and messy office being lectured about things that I already know about. I kind of want to just not work with them, but a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush and all that jazz. Since I woke up in a bad mood thanks to these people, I wanted to wear something dark on my nails and chose Orly Star of Bombay, from the Gems Collection.

Star of Bombay is a deep, jewel-toned, shimmery, navy blue. Like, if you've ever seen one of those borderline black sapphires, it looks like those.

Like this. 

Sunlight, no flash. The picture is washed out, but the color is accurate. 

Natural light, no flash.

Natural light, flash.

     I really like Star of Bombay. It's all deep, dark and mysterious, and bright sunlight really catches the shimmer and makes it glow from the inside. I admit that indoors, it could be mistaken for black, but if you look closely, you can still see that it's blue. Looking at it makes me think of the ocean at night.

    The application and formula were really nice too. The pictures are with two coats of color and one layer of topcoat. The coats applied really smoothly and easily, and full opacity could actually be achieved in one thick coat. I only used two because I wanted something to do besides think of this afternoon. 

After painting my nails and a few episodes of Reno911!, I felt a little better. It really doesn't take much to improve my mood. Since I was happier, I didn't feel like wearing a funeral on my nails anymore. But I didn't want to take Star of Bombay off, because that would be such a waste. So I fauxnaded over it. I wanted to use Orly Snowcone...I love the look of konads with dark and light shades from the same color family. But I don't have Orly Snowcone, so that wasn't going to be possible. I ended up using Color Club Revvvolution instead, and I think that turned out pretty well. 

I used the floral pattern from BM20. Because it's skinny and small, and my thumb nail plate is wide, I had to like...quadruple stamp it to get all the corners and edges.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash. Sorry for the dry cuticle corners.

    I like this look. It's really simple, but the holo makes it more interesting. And it reminds me of one of those old couches that you always find in nursing homes. And best of all, they're Ravenclaw colors!! When I was in the Harry Potter club in high school, I got placed in Ravenclaw and we had so much fun. We did nerdy things, like spending Friday night eating and watching the whole DVD set of Planet Earth , but we surely had fun. I'm not into Harry Potter anymore...I didn't even read the last book and am not remotely interested in watching the latest movies. But I will always look back on my Ravenclaw days with fondness.

   Okay, I'm off to my awesome counseling sesh. I hope everyone else enjoys their Friday afternoons more than I will!  :)

Color Club Swatches

           I was looking through past posts, checking for typos (I hate typos), when I realized that I do not have any Color Club pictures on this thingy. That's really sad, because I love all my Color Clubs. I've worn some of them too. I guess I just neglected to take pictures. But today, that all ends. And in the interests of space, I omitted the whole hand pictures. 


First up is Tru Passion, from the Glitter Vixen Collection. 

Tru Passion is a lavender round glitter in a clear base. There are also a few holo glitter pieces sprinkled around in there, although they're not visible in the pictures. In real life, you can see it. Actually..if you look at the top of the nail, you can see a couple. It's showing blue. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

  I only have one thing to say about Tru Passion: *_*

  Okay, that's not it. But from the first second I saw Tru Passion, it touched my soul, son. So freaking sparkleh!! And even though I tend to prefer deeper purples, I actually do like the pale purple of Tru Passion. Getting it to be this opaque was kind of hard though. This is with four thick coats. And I dabbed the polish, swirled the brush and did everythang...it still took a long time to be opaque. But I don't care. Finally, it dried nice and smooth, so I only needed one layer of topcoat to enhance the shine. 

More goodies after the jump!

Funky Fingers Moonwalk + A Giveaway!!

            Today, I got a chance to swatch my very last Funky Fingers polish, Moonwalk. I was planning on wearing it later, but then I was like...what the hey man. 

Moonwalk is a black creme with silver and holographic microglitter. I don't know what's been going on with these close up pictures...they all seem so washed out. Maybe something's wrong with my camera's aperture. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

     Moonwalk is what I wanted China Glaze Cosmic to be. There's a ton of glitter in this, but since it's so small, the glitter doesn't get sucked into the base and the overall look works far better, in my opinion. Its really quite sparkly and fun.

    The formula was nice too. Moonwalk was opaque in one coat, and wasn't gloopy or gross at all. However, it does need topcoat to really shine. The pictures are with one coat of Moonwalk and two layers of topcoat.       

    But incidentally, I think there are at least two versions of Moonwalk running around in the world. I call the one that I swatched today the new version because I bought it second. But I really don't know which one came first. Anywho, onto comparison pitchas!

The one on the left is the "new" version, and the other on is the "old" version. In the bottle, it doesn't look too different. When I saw the new one in Five Below, I was staring at it for like ten minutes, trying to decide if it was different from the Moonwalk I already had.

Label shot. 

From L-R: Old, New, Old, New.

Both versions share the fact that they are black polishes with silver and holo glitter, but the older version has larger, sparser glitter. I think the base is blacker too, although it may just appear so because more of it shows through. I actually prefer the older version too. I'm going to compare it to Cosmic at some point in my life, because they're definitely close looking, but for some reason, Old Moonwalk looks like twenty times better. Both of these are one coat of polish and two layers of topcoat.

 And finally, Susie at Susie's Home and Hobbies is having a nice giveaway! All of this good stuff can be yours:

Just go here to enter! 

Length Check!

           Happy Memorial Day to everyone! I haven't been blogging this weekend because one of my best friends (we call each other twin) graduated from my old high school, and I had to head to Connecticut to be there for her. I had a good time, except for that I busted ANOTHER nail and wasn't at home, so I couldn't save it. This time, it was the middle finger of my left hand. I'm thinking about if I want to put a fake nail on it, or just leave it alone.
            But that's not the point of this post. The point is that I finally finished my bottle of Barielle Growth Activator for Natural Nails, and I have opinions and comparison pictures. The pictures are from Friday, so they don't reflect my newly nubbinated nail. Haa, try saying that five times fast. ^_~

This was my right hand on March 15th.

This is my right hand on May 28th.

This is my left hand on March 15th.

This is my left hand on May 28th.

    lol, overall...I am less than impressed. My nails are longer, but they are also ridiculously weak and bend way too easily. So even assuming that my growth has been due to the wonders of Barielle, I haven't seen any added strength, and without the strength, the growth is a waste. Because it breaks off anyway. Additionally, this is a crummy base coat. My nails are all stained and yellow. Bleh. And finally, I kind of feel like my nails have grown a perfectly normal amount for two months, so I'm not even sure if the Barielle even did what it said it was gonna do.
    But looking forward, tonight, I plan on trimming down my nails a little, and then I'm starting them on Duri.  And I need to stop being so clumsy. My right hand is the one that I use to do stuff, and it's also the one that's all broke down and busted up due to my own foolishness. lol, it's worse than when I started. The left hand is busted too, but that's not my fault. u_u

China Glaze Cosmic

            Cosmic is another one of my previously forgotten China Glaze specialty glitters.I put it on for today because it's my mommy's birthday and I wanted to be festive.  But the best laid plans and all that jazz. 

Cosmic is a black creme base, densely packed with multi-sized silver and holographic hex glitter. There's more silver than holo, I think. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

       Cosmic is loud. It is loud and in your face. And it gets in the faces of all the people who are around you too. Normally, this would be fantastic, because few things are better than exorbitant amounts of glitter, but Cosmic takes it too too far. There is just too much glitter here. Yeah, I said it. There's too much. If the glitter was finer, or if it were sparser, I'd like this more. But that said, part of it is my fault, because I did wipe down my nail with a bit of acetone. Before I did, there was barely any sparkle at all, because the glitter was trapped under the base. Normally, a little acetone fixes that and makes the polish looks better, but not this time. :(

     The formula for Cosmic was not so pleasant either. It was pretty gloopy and thick, so application wasn't the smoothest. On the upside, it was opaque in two coats. But back to the downside, the glitter here is really gritty. In these pictures, I used three coats of Out the Door Top Coat, and I could still feel the glitter through it. The mani looked rough too. Granted, OtD is not the thickest TC available, but I used thick coats. I just think it shouldn't have felt or looked as lumpy as it did. 

    Overall, I think that Cosmic was a good idea that just wasn't executed in the best way. I'm going to take it off and find something else to do with my nails, because Cosmic took a flying leap over the line of festive and has entered obnoxious territory. Her party isn't until later tonight, so I have time. Hopefully, my next idea will be better. 

Later:

   I decided that I wasn't being entirely fair to Cosmic, because I didn't show pictures of it before I wiped it with acetone. With Meteor Shower, that was okay, because it looked better. But since Cosmic got uglier afterwards, I should have shown a picture from before. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Cosmic does look better here, but I still think it's ooglay. lol!

China Glaze Meteor Shower

            Yesterday, I was rearranging my stash and making sure that all my untrieds were actually untried when I ran upon a little cluster of China Glaze glitters in a forgotten corner of the bin. I had to laugh at myself, because the China Glaze specialty glitters were one of the very first polishes I ever bought. Milani Ruby Jewels was the first (boring, I know), OPI Mad as a Hatter and Absolutely Alice were the second and third respectively, and then I got the China Glaze glitters next from VNS. That was four months ago, and it's really sad that in all that time, the only one I've worn is Atlantis. I felt so bad that I decided to wear Meteor Shower for today, although if I had remembered to check the weather, I might have continued my neglect a little longer. Today is rainy, cloudy, and cold...perfect weather for me, but not so perfect for showcasing glitter. Bleh.

Meteor Shower is multi-colored square and hex glitter in a midnight blue creme base. There's way more square glitter than hex, and the colors that I can see are blue, green, and orange/copper. 

Natural light, no flash.

Natural light, with a gentle flash.

Natural light, no flash.

ETA (5/28):

Sunlight, no flash. It's bright and sunny this morning, so I took some quick pictures before removing Meteor Shower

Sunlight, no flash.

Blurred to show the sparklies.

     Even though it doesn't come across in the pictures, Meteor Shower is pretty and sparkleh. When I turn my fingers, all the different colors of the glitter wink at me from the inky base, and it's so nice to look at. I think it would have looked more like an actual meteor shower if the glitter was gold and holo, but there's nothing wrong with it the way it is. That said, Meteor Shower did require an extra step to reach its full potential. It is one of those glitter polishes where the glitter is a little too heavy and ends up just submerged in the base, so that you can see there is glitter in the polish, but the glitter can't sparkle and shine. To fix that, I let the polish dry to the touch, and then I used a bit of napkin dipped in acetone to gently swipe each nail, thus liberating the surface glitter. I didn't take before and afters, but it really made a big difference. To finish, I put on two layers of topcoat, which really enhanced the sparkle and smoothed out the grittiness of the glitter. 

    The formula of Meteor Shower was okay. All pictures are with two coats of color and two layers of topcoat, and application was trauma free. 

    Also, I very shamefully broke my no buy today. I'm so sad to say it, but damn son...I'm weak. See what had happened was, I was in Walgreens getting pizza rolls and nail polish remover, when I walked by the Sinful Colors display. I wasn't going to stop because I was just looking for Hidden Treasure, but I noticed a little display on the floor. So I went over, and it was the St. Patrick's Day display that I thought I would never see in my lifetime, chock full of Green Oceans. I've been hunting Green Ocean since March, so I didn't even think about it before snatching up two bottles and marching to the register.  While I was waiting in line, a little voice in my heart was telling me to put it back, but I just couldn't bring my body to do it. I felt good right after I paid, but the shame hit me hard while I was walking home, tenderly stroking the bottles in my purse.  I'm not so so mad at myself though, because they were cheap and there was no guarantee that they'd be there in August.  Besides, tomorrow is another day.   But I wonder...has anyone ever successfully completed a no-buy? If so, how in the heck did you do it?! Tell me....tell me the secretss....