Recent NOTD: Butter London Lillibet's Jubilee

I happened to catch some of the BBC America coverage of the Thames Diamond Jubilee pageant at the beginning of June, so when I saw Butter London Lillibet's Jubilee in my untrieds while looking for my next mani color, it seemed a fitting choice. Butter London's website describes this as "a silvery, lavender metallic foil that boasts the perfect amount of sparkle". I don't know about perfection, but this does boast a lot of sparkle, that's for sure—I had trouble cleaning it off my skin and my camera had trouble focusing on it.



I used two coats of Lillibet's Jubilee but it's quite possible I could have gotten by with only one; I just wasn't prepared for that so wasn't especially careful lining up the brushstrokes on the first coat so needed a second to straighten things out. The abundance of sparkle does soften the appearance of the brushstrokes that foils are known for but I still like to get them as straight as I can.



At first glance, the color wasn't as purple-leaning as I'd hoped; mostly it just looked silver to me. When I held it next to the true silvers on Wheel U: Silvers and Friends, I could definitely see the purple in it.



This wore pretty well. My base under was Barielle Pro Nail Rebuilding Protein plus Salon Science Instant Artificials, and I topped with my usual Sally Hansen Insta Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat. Here's what it looked like in the sun almost five full days after I put it on, all of those work days, when I pound a keyboard eight or nine hours at a time and then come home and often type some more. There's some tipwear, but no chips to speak of.



Two days later, a few chips had started to show up. Before I took it off, I just had to try L'Oreal Silver Sparkle over the top of one nail to see what it could add to this sort of base. My verdict: pretty. In the background, you may be able to see one of the chips that meant Lillibet had to come off (it would have anyway because by then I was ready for something new).



All in all, I'm happy with Lillibet's Jubilee, though I do wish it were just a touch more purple.

*****

In other news, I wore the Sally Hansen Pedicure Salon Effects strips as long as I could stand them, which turned out to be six full weeks. Not one of them even partially peeled off in all that time; I'm sort of thinking they might have grown off instead of chipping or peeling off if I'd let them go that far, but it's summer and I couldn't wear sandals with this action going on (ensmallened for the sensitive but as always clickable for full size):



I'd be interested to see how the pedi strips would do on a beach vacation, but since I don't have any such vacation planned, I don't know when I'll be able to do that experiment.