Bee Polished: respect the stache

Respect The Stash: butterLONDON

It's time for another edition of Respect The Stache!! Today's post is about one of my all time favorite brands. They're 3Free, cruelty free, vegan, US based and have awesome names! Plus they apply like butter, last ages and play very nicely with my Seche Vite. Have you guessed the brand yet? Here's one last hint for you: they are Seattle based but have a British founder. Still haven't gotten it?

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I LOVE this brand and I can still remember my very first two: Dosh and Victoriana! Of course, lovely and fabulous as they are butter LONDON's do have a slightly higher price level than most of the polishes I buy: $14 a pop. So I haven't amassed quite as many as some other brands! But it's coming along rather nicely if I do say so! So here we go....I've broken these down by collection to make it a little easier for you to see! :)

We'll start with the Spring/Summer of 2009 Collection called Fashionista’s Favourites. I'm missing one from this collection (Blowing Raspberry's) but I have the other four. They are: Cheeky Chops, Artful Dodger, The Old Bill and Muggins.

Moving forward to Fall of 2009 we have Rosie Lee, Scoundrel and British Racing Green. The other two in this collection were Minger and Pearly Queen, neither of which really interests me. These collections seemed a little mismatched in the beginning. But I digress.

Spring of 2010 was the Jelly Collection. I have one of those and I threw it in a picture with some other randoms so here we have Fall of 2010. This one was very designer influenced. It had Bumster (which I don't own) and All Hail McQueen which were nods to the late Alexander McQueen. Sometime later All Hail McQueen was re-dubbed All Hail THE Queen and that's the version I have. It also had Victoriana, which is pictured on the far left and which was a nod to vintage British fashion and Marrow (to the far right) which was a collaboration with Vena Cava's designers.

Spring of 2011 gave us some pastels and brights! The collection had Hen Party (which I don't have), Teddy Girl, Dosh, Blagger, and Lady Muck. All gorgeous shades!

Fall of 2011 ushered in some cool metallic and shimmery shades. I have the entire collection of those: Knee's Up, No More Waity, Katie, Wallis, Bluey and Toff.

So that brings us to Spring of 2012!! I'm sure most of you will recognize these colors!! We have Bossy Boots, Knackered, Disco Biscuit, Trout Pout and Slapper. I LOVE Bossy Boots. It was my favorite of these. Knackered let me down and Disco Biscuit was a little finicky. :/

Fall of 2012 gave us some sparklies and holographics! The first from butter LONDON. We have: Gobsmacked, Lovely Jubbly, Dodgy Barnett, Trustafarian and Shag.

There are two Holiday Collections from butter LONDON. This is 2011's. It had Tart With a Heart, The Black Knight and a pinkish metallic called Fairy Lights which I didn't purchase. I have a China Glaze which is a near exact dupe.

Then there's the 2012 collection which had six colors. I skipped Shambolic and Fairy Cake and picked up: Fiddlesticks, Scallywag, Jack The Lad, and Scuppered.

Then we have some randoms:

The first row in this group is special edition or limited release polishes. My one Jelly is up first and it's Chuffed. Then we have Two Fingered Salute which is a Nordstrom specific polish. Then there's Scouse, a Dillard's release. Last we have Lillibet's Jubilee. Released for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee it has since been discontinued and is slowly becoming harder to find. The bottom row was a special release for Goop. It has Hampstead Heath, Bread & Butter Pudding and Abso-bloody-lutely.

Some more sort of random colors, these are all core as far as I know. We have: Big Smoke, Aston and Branwen's Feather. Then on the end I have Fishwife which is an online exclusive. It should have been in the last picture but I sort of forgot. :/

Some glitters! West End Wonderland, Chancer, Henley Regatta and then a metallic: Diamond Geezer.

And finally, some core cremes. Starting from the top left: Queen Vic Pillarbox Red, Primrose Hill Picnic, Saucy Jack, LaMoss, Tea With The Queen and then the one off to the side is Jaffa.

Total Count: 57

My bL's currently reside with my Deborah Lippmann's. I also have their top coats but I haven't tried the shiny one yet. The matte is comparable to Essie Matte About You.

How many butter LONDON's do you have? What's your favorite?

2:43 PM
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Grow stache. Grow.

grow stache grow

Today I have some fun for you! I was SOO good September and October. I added practically zero polishes to my stash and even managed to clear a few out. I did get the Zoya Gilty set in October...but in my defense, I bought it in September on a pre-sale. So...this month I've added a few pretties to the stash BUT I'm really trying to only add things I really want and am going to use from here out. I have way too many at this point and it's difficult to even find what I want. I start going through drawers and find things I didn't even know I had. I know...first world problems, right? You can help me unload by visiting my blog sale. :) More will be added soon I'm sure but it's work going through all these! So here we go with the additions! Above are my new Duri's. Duri is a brand I hear a lot about from professionals and it's always advertised in the nail magazines I get but I've never tried it. Most people I know are familiar with Rejuvacote, their strengthener, but not much else. I finally found an online retailer for them (which let me just say, was NOT a pleasure to work with) so I snagged some. Since I'm not really familiar with them and couldn't find much in the way of swatches, I ordered a few I thought looked pretty and then relied on some friends for a few. :) What did I grab? From the top left we have: Irish Coffee (a one coat brown which is amazing for stamping!), The Big Score, Indulge My Whim, Angels and Demons, You Belong To Me, Summer in the City, Summer Rain, and Summertime Blues.

Of course I also snagged the infamous Rejuvacote and also a bottle of their Hemp Seed Liquid Wrap. I have to say, this stuff is really great. It has fibers of hemp in it to help strengthen nails but it also smooths them and makes a great base to polish on top of.

Grabbed these China Glazes on clearance. I really wanted the new magnet because I have lots of magnetic polish so it gives me three new designs right off. I also grabbed the one bottle of magnetic polish that didn't look like one I already had; Con-fused. The other is Cast a Spell. It's fabulous and reminds me of a deep green version of Midtown Magic.

Also snagged two new Orly's. It's been awhile since I added an Orly to my collection which is funny since my first salon brand polish WAS an Orly. Anyway I kept going back and forth between Essie's Beyond Cozy and this Orly; Halo. I finally decided on Halo since the glitters in it are different sizes. Also got this So-Go Diva. It was the only of the new glitters I had my eye on and was on clearance. I'm glad I waited...I'm not in love.

Nails Inc. Got these for free at Sephora with a gift card. Yay! Sweets Way and a mustard color called Hampstead Gardens.

OPI Bond...James Bond. I really wanted these OPI magnetics because they're sort of sparkly. BUT I didn't really love the price tag. However, I found one finally for a steal and when I looked at the three it seemed like two of them are dupes for the Barry M glitter magnetics. So I only got this one. The magnet is cool and this is EPICALLY gorgeous. A win in my book.

I caved and bought the Zoya Ornate Collection. I kept seeing them on blogs and thinking, no I don't need that. But I did. I really did. The only one I skipped was Electra. I have enough bar glitter in my life.

Indies! I'm not a huge indie girl, I don't know why. Part of it is the price tag and the other part is I've gotten so many that aren't that great. But I'm working on it! Dollish are among my favorites and I got this mini Cold Winds are Rising from a friends blog sale. Also got Candy Lacquer Argyle which I'm in LOVE with. The large bottle on the left is a franken from a great friend which is amazing for fall. Then I also finally got the breakfast duo from Tough As Nails Lacquer. I LOVE Go Sit on an Egg. The Baconian Method is nice but I'm not totally in love with it. Not surprisingly, my husband liked it best.

And finally...a gift from my husband; Butter London's Two Fingered Salute! He said he also tried to get Deborah Lippman's Ray of Light but they didn't have it. Sad face. This one is my perfect polish though, I wish it were a TAD bluer. But all in all it's really a stunner.

What have you picked up this month?

10:52 AM
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Barry M

respect the stache

OK so I know it's been a little while since the last one, but I keep adding to my polish collection and that's making stash photo's difficult!! I'm still trying to work through a bunch of untrieds, but I may have a plan for that very soon. So today I'm going to show you one of my very favorite brands, Barry M. Barry may just be the perfect man because his polishes are STELLAR.They're not incredibly easy to get your hands on stateside so that's the reason I don't have a whole lot of them. I still remember my VERY first Barry M's because they came from a friend in London. I think I first saw them on Sam of the Nailasaurus' blog. I had mentioned I was looking for a few colors to a friend and he sent me three. They weren't the three I asked for, but he's a guy so let's face it I'm lucky I got any at all! And I loved them. The colors: Indigo, Mint Green, and Shocking Pink.

Check out the usage on those suckers!! There are so many things I love about Barry M. It's vegan and cruelty free which is HUGE for me. It's not very expensive (at least not if you don't have to pay shipping!!), the coverage is STELLAR. I'm talking one and two coats for 90% of these bad boys. The wear is great too. ~~They aren't three free which may be the only downfall of the brand for me BUT that said, I use Seche Vite top coat so it's kind of irrelevant!~~***UPDATE*** Barry M has contacted me and I can officially confirm that their polishes are 100% Big Three Free!! And you know that just makes me love them more! I have ordered many of these directly from Barry but since most of my Barry's have come from my wonderful friends in the UK I'm doing this post a little different than the OPI one!! Here are some pictures of the arrival of my baby Barry's!!

New Barry's from Debbie. These were Copper, Denim (my first matte/suede Barry!), Silver Lilac, Teal, Aqua Blue and Red Black.

This Swap was from Claire. It includes Blue Print, Lilac Foil, Croc Effects, and Raspberry.

A birthday pressie from Claire! Peach Melba, Red and Blue Glitter and Strawberry Ice Cream.

My most recent Barry's. These came from Debbie. The chameleon color change collection, Jewel Britannia, Magenta and Aqua Glitter.

A compilation post!! This is a selection of most of my other Barry's. I counted and the total count is at forty-seven. Including the above I also have the entire foil collection, the limited edition Silver Glitter from Boots, all the ice cream colors, most of the glitters (missing the new gold, Hologram Hexagons, and pink silver), and quite a few other gems like Silver Cascade and Silver Sea! Currently my Barry's are residing with my butterLONDON and Deborah Lippmann's but it's time for them to move out on their own since the drawer has more than reached it's limits! My favorite in the bunch is probably Blue Moon. Close second might be Mint Green. I'm hoping to get the Pink Silver glitter very soon!!

Check out some Barry M mani's I've done here!

What's your favorite Barry M shade? Which are you dying to try?