Kelli Marissa X Orly: Swatch & Review

Summer is about to start and I am NOT excited. Last week Southern Oregon decided to sneak in a few early 100 degree days, very thoughtful of it to remind me how much I don’t want this season to start. There have also already been some small wildfires in the area, yay. Luckily I have awesome nail polish to distract me from all of this. No matter how hot it is outside, my nails are always going to be cool 😎 I have barely talked about Orly on the blog, which is weird because they are probably one of my favorite brands. A shining example of how quality does not automatically mean expensive, I think they are very reasonably priced compared to some of the other mainstream brands. They recently collaborated with NailTuber (nail YouTuber… not sure if this is a term I’ve heard other people use or if I just made it up) Kelli Marissa. She does swatch videos for a variety of mainstream and indie brands, her channel is such a great resource! Her collaboration with Orly features some galaxy inspired shades that will work for a variety of seasons. These are so up my alley, it was a no-brainer to purchase them even though I’ve been trying not to buy so much nail polish. Truly, I think about it all the time. I may not act upon it, but I’m thinking about it. If you don’t want to buy more nail polish yourself, maybe stop reading about now because these are SO GOOD.

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Butter London Spring 2021 {PR}

This week is a very wonderful week. I’m getting my first vaccine dose ON THURSDAY!!! I seriously have never been this excited to get a vaccine in my life; I truly hate needles and usually dread these occasions, but I am willing to do whatever I can to help. The second wonderful thing is that we are talking about Butter London’s new spring collection, which they very kindly sent me. I almost did a happy dance when I opened the package, good stuff people, good stuff! The four new polishes are all part of their patent shine line and excitingly, there is a lighter green, which I don’t think they had anything like in the patent shine collection until now, and a new topper. I’m way too happy about this, let’s just get into the swatches because you know there’s going to be some blabbing.

Butter London Jelly Preserves

*The polishes featured in this post were gifted to me by Butter London. I am under no obligation to review them. All opinions are my own.*

I got a mystery package in the mail and was seriously wondering whether I should open it or not… USPS had lost a previous package of mine and I thought there was a longshot chance that was it. Upon finally opening it… goodies from Butter London! I was, of course, sad that it was not my long lost package but that sadness was quickly dashed by the appearance of the cheerful packaging. I have seen the new Jelly Preserve polishes/treatments on Instagram and hadn’t purchased them yet because I don’t think I am the target audience for them. But, put the bottles in my hands and you know that I’m going to give them a go! I actually don’t own any true jelly polishes that never get opaque on their own nor do I own any treatment type polishes that aren’t for hardening, so these are truly unique in my collection. Other brands have done these tinted treatments before, OPI and Essie come to mind. Butter London is cruelty-free, so perhaps there is a niche for these that needs to be filled in the cruelty-free market! I both polishes on their own for you today and then got creative with a good ol’ jelly sandwich. Remember when those were super popular? Always love rediscovering old nail polish community crazes!

Palate Polish Spring/Summer Haul Part II

Palate Polish Cookies & Cream, 1 coat over Cauliflower, Pistachio, Spirulina Smoothie, & Lavender Macaron

Hey friends, long time no see! This post was supposed to be up last week after my camping trip, but then the wildfires hit (not only Southern Oregon, but all of Oregon). I evacuated for one night and let me tell you, never want to experience that kind of terror again. If you even THINK about saying “Can 2020 get any worse?” just stop yourself because YES IT CAN! But, I digress, I have had these swatches for possibly months now and I am really excited about these polishes, it’s time for you to lay your eyeballs on them. This is the second Palate Polish haul I did earlier this year. They had a 5 for $50 sale and you know I can’t pass that up!

I’m going to start with the first polish here, which is the black and white topper Cookies & Cream. This is one of my new favorite toppers and probably my favorite of the black and white ones I already have. It has a variety of black and white circular/hex glitters, which means you can see the base underneath really well and it gives a splattered polka dot effect. It also looks fantastic over… everything? I think the only colors it won’t look good over are plain black and plain white, but hopefully someone will prove me wrong. It has a great density in one coat which is so key for me in a good topper. I put it over the other cremes I got in this haul!

Palate Polish Spring/Summer Haul Part I

For some reason it’s been a million years since Palate Polish has been on my blog, so now I have two posts planned! Because of my utter lack of self-control, I placed two orders during the spring during two different sales. I had spring and summer shades in mind and yes, okay, it ended up being spring and summer greens and blues in the first order! I had meant to order a purple, but it was out of stock. I ended up picking up Margarita (a newer shade), Sweet Mint, Blueberry (another newer shade), Cornflower, Cotton Candy, and Robin Egg during a 6 for $60 sale. Unfortunately Cotton Candy and Robin Egg are now discontinued, but I’m going to show them all to you anyway. Sometimes you can still snag discontinued Palates at some of their online stockists!

Deborah Lippmann Permanent Vacation Summer 2019: My Picks Swatch & Review

Summer’s still in the air, unfortunately. I think it’s been in the 90s for over a week now and, well, Old McDonald’s had ENOUGH. Not enough polish, though! I feel like I have barely gotten to enjoy the summer collections before the fall ones started pouring in. They clearly know what the people want (cozy colors! cooler weather!). Deborah Lippmann has recently released their fall collection, so of course today we are looking at some of their summer releases. I actually have my fall picks already, but I refuse to post swatches until official fall. Deborah Lippmann shades tend to hang around for a while anyway, so I’m sure it’s fine. These posts actually generate quite a bit of activity here at Short Nail Swatcher. I don’t think many people swatch Deborah Lippmann, and they really do not help themselves by posting super not color accurate photos to their site. I cannot tell you how often I read their color description and then look at the bottle shot trying to figure out in what world they are a match. I suppose I should be thanking them for making swatch work more valuable! Anyway, I have 3 colors to show you today, all in their gel lab pro formula (more money, better brush). I also have comparisons for all of them. Let’s still try to get some enjoyment out of summer while we can!

Spring Has Sprung: Deborah Lippmann I Like It Like That

I always look forward to Deborah Lippmann’s new collections; they are one of the few higher-end brands that consistently releases polishes that are actually interesting. They do not shy away from crellies, cool glitter mixes, duochromes, contrasting shimmers, etc. The spring collection this year was a little lackluster for me, but I think that made today’s polish, I Like It Like That, stand out even more. It is a teal/purple duochrome shimmery metallic. It fits in with some of the other dreamy, ethereal shimmery polishes that have been found in other collections this spring (Essie’s Tiers of Joy comes to mind). I had a lot of fun wearing it and, yes, it is a compliment grabber. People notice it on your nails!