Candy Crushing With New Butter LONDON Lolly Brights Summer 2014 Collection

What do you call a lollipop in England? Why, a lolly, of course! The butter LONDON Lolly Brights Summer 2014 collection, then, packs as many vibrant colors as a Candyland board, with its quirky ice cream cone, lollipop, gummy bear, bubble gum, candy-coated apples, and jelly bean illustrations. When looking at the bright nail lacquers, cream eye shadows, cheek colors, eye pencils, and lip glosses in the collection, then, women will literally feel like kids in candy stores. Capturing the exuberance of summer —the bright colors seen at  boardwalks, amusement parks, ice cream parlors, and outdoor festivals — the Lolly Brights collection will bring a smile and, most importantly, perky color to your face.

Though the collection also includes two new WINK Eye Pencil shades (Alabaster Gaze, an off-white color, and Holland Park, a shimmering blue-green color), two new WINK Mascara shades (Cheerio, a pastel yellow, and Chav, a robin blue), and three new CHEEKY Cream Blush hues (Piccadilly Circus, a sheer poppy red; Abbey Rose, a rosy pink; and Pistol Pink, a bright fuchsia), in this post I’ll be concentrating on the new Wink Cream Eye Shadow colors and Nail Lacquer hues since these are the products I had the privilege of testing out.

So, without further ado, let’s discuss the details of these new offerings!

WINK CREAM EYE SHADOW

The Lolly Brights collection incorporates three new WINK Cream Eye Shadow shades (each $18 at butterLONDON.com): Sun Kiss, Indigo Punk, and Pistol Pink. The cream eye shadows capture the sweet, innocent quality of pastels, but their metallic sheen and overall intensity makes them feel bolder and more adventurous than any power pastel.

The Sun Kiss eye shadow, for instance, is a pale yellow, a lemon chiffon hue with muted gold tones inspired by the first rays of sunshine in the early morning hours. The color is rather sheer, but its shimmery finish makes the color look like a very light veil of color when applied onto lids.

The Indigo Punk eye shadow shade is a punchy lavender with a metallic sheen and tiny specks of silver and purple shimmer.

 Last but not least, the Pistol Pink color is a warm, sheer but buildable, French rose pink with honeysuckle pink touches and tons of shimmer.

Below, check out swatches of all three shades:

Now, moving on to the actual performance of these colors, it’s important to note that the shades will look more sheer on lids. The Sun Kiss cream eye shadow was a bit frustrating to apply since, although it’s billed as being buildable, I found it really difficult to attain complete opacity without lids looking gunky. Finally, I realized that the best thing to do would be to pat a powder color atop the cream shadow, and so I swept a light layer of the Urban Decay Strike eye shadow over the Sun Kiss shadow. That ended up working marvelously! Check out the photos below so you can gauge the final intensity:

Next, I tried Indigo Punk, which I loved pretty much immediately. Again, this cream shadow is relatively sheer but because the color itself is more intense, the sheerness looks more attractive on lids. When I first tried the color, I wanted an easy and understated look, so I didn’t apply anything else atop it (no additional powder shadows), and I discovered that the color does look a bit see-through — particularly along the center of the lid. Still, I found the diaphanous effect of the color lovely and, when I needed to build up the coverage, I swept  my favorite purple shadows atop the cream base.

Check out the Indigo Punk shade as it looks on lids:

I love the shimmer that is infused into these colors and the ease of application provided by the sponge tip on the applicator wand inside each cream shadow tube. So convenient!

NAIL LACQUER

Since butter LONDON is a nail lacquer brand above all else, it makes sense that the most abundant segment of the Lolly Brights is the nail polish array. The carnival-ready collection includes six nail lacquer shades, some sheer and others completely opaque, some creamy and others shimmery and sunny, that together create a nail-ready kaleidoscope. The six shades are:

• Chuffed: a shimmering bright orange
• Sozzled: an opaque kelly green with a creamy finish
• Ladybird: a poppy red cream color
• Stroppy: a mystical, deep purple with violet, blue, and purple shimmer and swirls of metallic violet color
• Airy Fairy: a mermaid-worthy azure-meets-turquoise color with tons of shimmer
• Disco Biscuit: a sheer hot pink jelly color with tiny iridescent glitter particles

Each of the six nail lacquers retails for $15 at butterLondon.com.

I had the opportunity to try three shades: Chuffed, Sozzled, and Stroppy. Here’s what each looks like:

Chuffed Nail Lacquer

This fiery orange color reminds me of the China Glaze Riveting polish releases as part of the Hunger Games-inspired Capitol Colours collection. That particular shade was inspired by the flaming mockingjay logo seen on the film’s posters. Check out pictures of China Glaze’s Riveting color here, so you can see the similarities between the two. That said, the butter LONDON Chuffed shade is way more sheer than the Riveting shade, and it also includes a bit more yellow gold shimmer, which makes it feel a bit more beach-y.

Sozzled Nail Lacquer

The Sozzled nail lacquer is one of the few shades in the collection that has a cream finish and is fully opaque, so that two coats deliver full coverage. What in the world does “sozzled” even mean? Well, it’s British slang for being intoxicated — as in, “I drank too many Cuba Libres and got sozzled.” Clearly, naming a kelly green color “Sozzled” is a cheeky and irreverent move since there’s a reference to turning green due to the nausea that accompanies drunkenness, but that’s one of the reasons why butter LONDON is such a lovable brand — it doesn’t take itself (or life) too seriously.

Stroppy Nail Lacquer

In England, the word “stroppy” is slang for quick-tempered, so the connotation is that this is one feisty, irreverent, punk-y color — and indeed it is! At heart it’s a deep metallic purple, but there’s so much shimmer to this shade that it feels almost mystical and otherworldly. The polish incorporates swirls of silvery violet color and is also saturated with metallic purple  and lilac glitter.