Adventures in Matte Land

I was a little skeptical of the whole "matte thing" but being one not to shy away from a challenge, I found a girl willing to swap her Essie Matte About You on MUA.  Here are the results of my findings.

Butter London - Trout Pout with Essie Matte About You (Index finger layered with Essie Flawless then Matte About You.)

I hunted this down at Ulta.  It was the last bottle and looked like it could have been opened but I gave it the benefit of the doubt.  It is an absolutely gorgeous color on it's own but with a matte finish gives it a pretty interesting look.  I plan on experimenting with other brights in the near future.

L'Oreal - Waters Edge with Essie Matte About You

Waters Edge is supposedly an Essie Greenport dupe.  As I don't own the latter, I can only rely on pictures from other blogs and it looks pretty close.  I really like this family of colors (being a Pisces) and it also looked pretty neat as a matte, but I still prefer Trout Pout.  Incidentally, I also ordered ILF from Manglaze who happens to be the purveyor of fine matte polishes.  It's supposed to be a nice teal color so I'll be swatching that as soon as I get it (which I hope is soon!)

Formula wise, MAY is nice, not too goopy like Seche Vite can be and dries quickly, which from what I understand is typical in a matte polish.  I like that this type of topcoat allows you to turn your normally glossy polish matte as opposed to turning your matte polish glossy.  Anyways, its a nice addition to my top coat family and it will probably be one I'll be using frequently to "tone down" a lot of the bright shades in my collection.

butter LONDON Love at First Brush

It was hard to decide which butter LONDON polish to buy first but I managed to choose Wallis because a) I was looking for a gold polish and b) it looked absolutely lovely on all the swatches I found online.

Named for Wallis Simpson, the woman who so beguiled a king he abdicated, is a mature shade which, in my opinion, is pretty work appropriate especially on shorter nails.  It feels like a dark brown/black that's been washed with an almost matte gold layer of shine, not so much shimmer.  Its an absolutely gorgeous color and has sort of got me jonesing for the rest of the line.

Judge for yourself:

The most wonderful thing about this polish is that it only took two coats for me to be happy with it opacity wise.  Lately I've been on a "two coat policy," in which, a polish passes or fails solely based on if I can get it opaque in two coats.  Clearly, Wallis doesn't disappoint. 

I'm always curious to see how shades like this come across on Asian skintones.  For example, I look terrible in most green polishes so I've pretty much decided to give up on them.  The interesting thing about Wallis is that its not a bright gold by any stretch.  Its more of a patina-ed gold that gives it a very interesting olive tone to it.  This actually brings out the red in my skin even though you can't really tell in the pictures.

In the beginning, I wasn't sure if I'd like this polish.  But, in the week or so I've had it, I've worn it three times.  I think that's saying a lot.  I'm not sure about tip wear yet so in terms of longevity, its still yet to be tested, but when it comes to my overall first impression, butter LONDON's Wallis is as equally charming as the Duchess of Windsor herself.