Butter London Jack The Lad: Christmas Green Glitter

This year, I happen to be pretty busy during the Christmas season, so unlike previous years, I didn't get the time to do any Christmas nail art. But, I did manage to squeeze in a little Christmas cheer on my nails! Behold, probably the most Christmassy green ever, Butter London's Jack The Lad!

Butter London Jack The Lad: My Christmas green this year.

Butter London isn't actually a UK-based brand, despite the brand name and the colloquial British names. Butter London is actually based in Seattle, USA, and if you look at their About Us page, you'll notice that also, the top C-suites of the brand are all people from the US, too. It seems like the only vaguely British thing about the brand is that was founded by a British person, Sasha Muir, who now lives in the USA. I've never pointed this out before, but as the brand picks up in popularity, I realized I was coming across people who actually thought it was a British brand (doesn't help that esteemed fashion publications like Elle UK, no less get it wrong, too), and they seem so surprised to think that a US brand could capitalize on the world's Anglophilia. It's not the first time I've seen brands trying to masquerade as coming from another country - if you recall, my post on Elianto cosmetics noted that the Korean stylings of the brand really belied a Malaysian origin.


Butter London Jack The Lad: Just so you know, Butter London isn't actually a British brand.
But let's proceed. Brand image and marketing aside, I've honestly been slower than most nail bloggers to take up Butter London with significant enthusiasm. Part of it is the price. $25 for a nail polish is just not really splurge-friendly - not that it has stopped me from racking up a tiny Butter London stash of my own. The other part of it is the fact that, well, Butter Londons seem to vary highly in quality. Some shades are really excellent, some are four-coats-and-there's-still-VNL kind of less excellent.

Fortunately, Jack The Lad isn't one of those dud shades. It's a gorgeous, beautiful Christmas/forest/evergreen kind of shade, and it has my favourite - glitter! I can't really discern for sure, but I do think there are green, aqua-blue, and yellow glitter in there. The overall effect that you get on the nail is a deep green with a somewhat metallic-looking glitter finish. It's a very pretty shade, for sure, and really looks like Christmas!


Butter London Jack the Lad: A forest green base is loaded with green, blue, and yellow shimmer.
The deep green shade does look a tad blackened sometimes, but for the most part, you can always tell it is green. Which is good. I don't really like blackened shades because a lot of them tend to just look like plain ol' black or grey on your nails, and that's always a little disappointing. All these photos you see here are taken in ample natural light, so in dim light, the colour would look a tad blacker.


Two coats of Butter London Jack The Lad gives a fairly opaque finish with smooth application.
Application on this was good - fortunately this wasn't one of those streaky, VNL-prone shades, and I managed to get pretty good coverage in two medium coats. The texture was good, and I didn't feel like I had to wrangle with the nail polish in order to prevent glitter pooling or unevenness. The brush was a bit on the small side for me (I prefer the larger OPI-style brushes), but not problematic in anyway. Butter Londons generally last about 4 days on me, which is average for most nail polish brands.


My Christmas manicure: The overall effect of Butter London Jack the Lad is a metallic look.
So that's my Christmas colour this year! I didn't really have the time to do any fancy (or non-fancy, even) Christmas nail art this year (in previous years, my not-so-pro attempts at Christmas nail art included a gold nail with stars and a simple gold gradient). But my tips are still dazzling, and I'm happy for that!