Zoya Kendal and Butter London Knackered

Zoya describes Kendal as a lavender beige creme. I'm not sure where they get the beige part from. To me, it's a well-pigmented whitened lavender-esque purple with soft grey undertones. Think, like, the palest most muted purple you could have and still be purple. It's actually got a very clean feeling to it on the nail, like white linen in summer, but the grey nuance softens it, keeps it from being stark and makes it much more interesting and wearable year round.

The formula for Kendal is very good considering it's a whitened color. I experienced some user error patchiness that is visible in the photos at the edges of the polish on my left hand especially. This is a phenomenon particular to some but not all whitened colors that occurs when the second coat doesn't follow exactly in the track provided for it by the first.

I didn't find Kendal to have Zoya's usual self-leveling capability with the result that my himalayan nail ridges show underneath the polish. If I were going to wear this polish on it's own I would be inclined to add a third coat to see whether the additional polish would better camouflage my furrows. But I'm going to layer over it so while nobody likes to see decorated nail ridges pretending to be a manicure I'm satisfied with it for layering purposes. 

Photos show two coats of Kendal over my basecoat duo of Seche Rebuild and Butter London Nail Foundation, with a layer of Seche Vite topcoat added to speed the drying process, minimize potential for smudging and to keep those pesky dent gremlins at bay.

Zoya Kendal, bottle shot

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

at the window...

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

Zoya Kendal

Knackered by Butter London is a delicate very sheer pale purpley grey (which Butter London calls "oyster") duochromatic polish with a lovely purple to pink to pale teal to green color shift. There's also sparse holographic microparticles thrown in for good measure, adding to the ethereal faerie-like quality of this polish. It's so sheer that it's nearly impossible to achieve opacity in a reasonable (for me) number of coats. Which isn't necessarily a deterrent to wearing Knackered provided you don't mind a bit of VNL (visible nail line). But my naked nails are a polish-stain yellow strong enough to distort the color of such a sheer polish, so I chose to layer.

I've seen Knackered layered over darker purples and black, which galvanizes the duochrome to great effect. But the delicately-colored chromatic feats of the pure polish in the bottle appeal to me so much that I wondered whether I could replicate that look with a pale purple base polish. That would be Kendal.

Photos show three coats of Knackered over the Kendal manicure above plus a topcoat of Seche Vite. As far as duochromatic shift goes I could have stopped with just one, but after two and then three coats the shift became more dramatic and the colors richer and silkier looking. The chunky little holo particles that could be felt on the surface at one coat were much smoother and more integrated at three. After topcoat they cannot be felt at all.

Butter London Knackered, bottle shot

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal on the nail, Butter London Knackered in the bottle

ditto

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

at the window, lookin' green...

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Butter London Knackered over Zoya Kendal

Being such the color purist, I've had limited experience with duo and multichrome polishes and never saw the appeal. That's kind of changed now, with Knackered. I think part of it has to do with experiencing the color shift in person, in three or however many dimensions. With every change of light a different color variation washes over my nails. Silver, pink, violet, teal, aqua, green. It's like having a great mystery evolve on your nails!

I think the other part of this is that I was uncomfortable with the randomness of chromatic shift. It wasn't grounded enough for me. The complexity of random events means you can't always know what's going to happen, but things don't have to be understood or anticipated to be meaningful.

Nail polish. It's a good thing. *wink*

love,
Aunt Liz