Illamasqua - Baptiste

If life (or moving) gives you stumpies then wear vampies!

So here's a quick post of my current mani, the totally gorgeous Illamasqua Baptiste.



It's a dark purple with loads of pink and purple shimmer. My picture really doesn't do it justice and it's probably a little more pink toned IRL. This is two coats with top coat which so far, 1 day in, is wearing well.

And why do I never remember to put hand cream on before I take the picture - d'oh!

butter London - Bezzie Mates

Gawd, this moving lark is killing my nails. This weekend I managed to badly bang my thumb against a desk corner while moving a sofa. Boy did it hurt, almost as much as when I accidentaly electrocuted myself changing the bulb in the extractor fan! And I now have a small blood blister under the nail - eek!

And today I've had to trim my ring and pinkie on my swatching hand as they looked so out of place with the index and middle that had broken low down. So I am stumpy nails for a few weeks which means more old swatches from 'back in the day'.

So here's my first featured butter LONDON. I don't have many of these, in fact the sum total of 2!

I picked them up in a previous ASOS sale, not because they were particularly amazing colours but just because I didn't have any and at the time was reading a lot of conflicting opinions about the polish quality.

Now obviously you shouldn't judge a brand too strongly on just two polishes (otherwise I never would've bought another OPI! - seriously my first two were lame, a big disappointment - I must dig them out and revisit)

This is Bezzie Mates a bright fuchsia pink that has a slight squishy jellyness to it. The name is a UK colloquialism for best friends, originating from Liverpool.

butter London, despite the name, is not a British brand though. It's an American company, though founded by two Brits, Sasha Muir and Nonie Creme, hence the polish names.





This was two coats and topcoat.

I thought the polish was fine, not awesome, butteryness (as you might imagine from the name!) but by no means as bad as some of the comments had led me to think.

Anyone got strong opinions on butter London?

Pure - Persian Red

This is Persian Red, a Raspberry creme with slight jelly finish.  I wore this as a full mani so this is 2 coats and  topcoat.  It's a pretty colour, good with my skintone (cool) and very shiny!

Pure is one of those brands I'd never heard of before. I spotted it while browsing on the Debenhams site. I think it's a Spanish brand - the squiggly writing on the left of the bottle says "Carlo di Roma"

I've never seen this in stores nor seen it on any other blogs.  Although I think Carlo di Roma have other brands that are more widespread - am I right in thinking they crop up in Dollar stores in the US?