Butter London Holiday Dressing Table Tart With a Heart and The Black Knight Duo for Holiday 2011 Swatches And Review

Would you believe that I haven't used a Butter London polish since 2008? It's true. I bought two colors (Fash Pack and Billy No Mates) back when they were only $12 a piece, tried them, hated the bottle and didn't care for the formula and I haven't worn or tried another one since.

But then someone showed me this Holiday Dressing Table set and I had to have it. I went to Ulta and picked it up and put it back probably half a dozen times. I couldn't stop thinking about it every time I put it back, and I took that as a sign that I needed it. And... I was right.

It comes on this adorable little blue cardboard dressing table. It's just for looks, though... Mine only lasted long enough to take this picture before it tore in half. It probably isn't meant to stand on its own, it's very unstable. But man, is it cute...


In addition to being unstable and easily broken, the dressing table packaging has another flaw: excessively strong glue. It not only tore the label off of Tart with a Heart, it left gross boogery stuff all over the bottles!

W-what is it? BOOGERS?! No!!



Can't complain too much about glue blobs and missing labels because the colors are so beautiful. Click this for a close-up look, I dare you.

Butter London The Black Knight. Great color, great name. It's a black base with tiny multicolor glitter. The dominant colors in the mix are bright aqua blue and pink, but there's also red, gold, and from what I can tell, a little silver or grey as well.

A scratch? Your arm's off!

Butter London Tart With A Heart. I expected this one to be super sheer, but it really wasn't too bad. It is sheer, but it looks dense enough to wear alone at three coats, which is what I'm wearing here. It's a slightly cloudy but clear base with tiny gold microglitter in different tones plus larger round, clear opalescent glitter that flashes so brightly it borders on holographic. There may even be holo glitter in here, hard to tell with all the flashy colors and tiny pieces.
EDIT: One of my awesome readers just pointed this out to me: there's actually BLACK MICROGLITTER in here, too. Even better!

These two are nice on their own, but the real magic happens when you layer them together:

Butter London Tart with a Heart (one coat) over Butter London The Black Knight (three coats). Ho-ly crap. Look at that. It's like galaxy nails, but without all the work. I mean... ugh! Just look at all that sparkling, multicolored awesome on there! It's disgusting how great this looks. I don't think I can ever wear these two alone now. I've ruined them for myself.

The formula on these was a pleasant surprise. It was thin and manageable, even for such glitter heavy shades. The brush was long, slightly fluffier at the end, but still nicely shaped and made application pretty easy. Opacity was achieved at three coats of polish. Respectable dry time. But what I most enjoyed about these was the improved bottle. They used to have a non-removable vanity cap (well, they said it was removable, but mine wouldn't come off) that would never close properly. These have a removable one with a sticker on it that even tells you to remove it. No more misaligned caps and dried out polish!

I really like this set and I'm glad I got it. I still think that the bottles should be at least 0.5 fl oz if they're going to charge $14 for them, and I don't think all the colors are necessarily worth $14 each when you can get polish just as good, if not better, for less money from China Glaze or OPI or Zoya or even Sally Hansen. But I do like this set even with the $25 price tag. Now that I know the formula and bottles have improved, there's a few other shades I'm eying... Wallis, mainly, but now I'm going to pay more attention to their releases for sure.

So... there it is. My very first Butter London review on this blog.