Polish Review ~ butter London Royal Navy

Courtesy of butterlondon.com

I just recently discovered butter London polishes when they were on sale at ULTA for half off, which according to my polish diva friends, only happens about once a year. When I decided to take the plunge and invest in a number of them as they were on sale, a friend of mine sent me a extra Royal Navy that she had in duplicate after ordering a duo. If you are reading, thank you again, Belinda!

Appearance

This navy blue looks on the nail just as it looks in the bottle...a classic marine navy blue and heavy on the shine. Inside, it does hover on the side of black, but under lamplight and in sunlight, it is true navy blue. To me, one of the best things about butter London aside from the great product are the Brit names and the funny descriptions. On their website, butter London describes Royal Navy as "Hellooo Sailor. Nautical and naughty, this is the answer to your navy blue nail lacquer dreams." There is no doubt that it is a beautiful pure navy blue with an excellent shine.

Please, forgive the dribbles; this was pre-clean-up!

Application

Butter London fans will tell you that the reason why butter is in the name is because this polish applies like butter. I can't agree more. It goes on like silk. If you are new to butter London, one thing that is a little unique is that it has the large cover cap that you have to pull off first, and then there is the brush top underneath which is about the size you would expect. It makes it very easy to handle when you are painting. I did have some overage on the edges as you can see in the picture above, but clean-up of butter London is a breeze and the next day it rubs off your skin easily.

Durability

I applied two coats over Quimica Alemana, topped it with HK Girl and then, because I am testing out matte top coats, I covered it with two coats of Orly Matte Top. The first chip appeared roughly 48 hours later. However, as I have never had butter London lacquers chip that early before and my research into matte top coats states that matte finishes only last 2-3 days on average, I do believe that this was a result of the matte finish. I ended up touching up the chip and then covering all of the nails with an extra coat of Royal Navy, two coats of Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale and one final coat of HK Girl to seal everything in. This extended my manicure by two days and I noticed significant tip wear, shrinkage of the polish at my cuticle area, and an overall wearing down of the thumbs and index fingers on both hands.

Topped with Orly Matte Top Coat

Topped with Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale

Removal

All butter London polishes that I have used so far remove fairly easily with acetone nail polish remover which is what I use. The glitter polishes are very hard to get off and may require a dip-it solution or wraps on each nail to soak them. This one was one of the more difficult manicures I've removed, but I believe it was due to the glitter and had nothing to do with the Royal Navy.

Butter London nail polish is considered a "premier cosmetic" by ULTA, and as such you can't use coupons or discounts towards it. At $15/bottle, it's pricey, I won't lie. But for $7.50, it's a little easier to pull out the wallet. ULTA carries the brand, it's available on eBay and Amazon, and of course, it's available on the butter London website that offers free shipping if you hit $50 in your shopping cart, which is VERY easy to do when the polish is $15. They do have a Last Orders section on their website which is where they usually will advertise colors that are about to be discontinued or colors that are on sale. However, currently this polish retails for $15.00 at Butter London. It is the same price on Amazon, but you can always check eBay as butter London is frequently auctioned there as well.

And, as a last little treat, I joined Twitter today and one of the first "tweets" I read was a drawing for the new OPI Neons collection and a $100 Jeweliq gift card. I think we've all established that everyone likes free things, and I really like that pink and purple of the neon set, so...here's the link for you to throw your name in the hat! Good luck!