Butter London Pistol Pink

Pistol Pink was released by Butter London as part of the Rock Your Colour collection for fall 2013. Butter London describes it as simply an "opaque magenta pink shimmer," but I think that there's more to say about it than that. The color is a deep shaded fuchsia or red/violet berry pink with some claret undertones to it, hovering somewhere between mulberry and Fandango fuchsia. It carries multitudinous shimmers in two types: a bright tone-on-tone metallic particle shimmer and a silvery translucent flake shimmer that reads as silvery pink through the base color. The flake shimmer provides some nice visual texture while the particle shimmer takes care of the sparkle, especially along the axis of light. This isn't an outrageously sparkly shimmer polish, but it does have a sweet eye-catching twinkle. It's a very pretty, graceful, feminine color that fills the niche of a dark pink that leans purple rather than red and has a little zing. Excellent for fall!

Application was quite congenial. The consistency of Pistol Pink is fluid, smooth and dense with components. It's a little thicker than I'm used to from Butter London, but goes on nicely with good control from Butter London's short-wanded, flexible brush. Pigmentation is very good with completely opaque coverage in two coats. There's a little bit of pull to this polish that crops up if applying too soon over wet polish, or if applying with an underloaded brush. It self-levels fairly well, with some unevenness to the coverage and color on the first coat that is rectified by the second. Cleanup is easy and straightforward with no trace of staining left behind. Pistol Pink dries naturally in average time to a smooth finish that wants a good topcoat to even out the shine and make the shimmers pop. All in all an agreeable, eminently paintable polish.

Photos show two coats of Pistol Pink over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. Mortification du jour: peely skin on the finger tips. The kind you get when you forget that you've got cuticle remover on because you're engrossed in a particularly good episode of Law and Order Criminal Intent. 

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Butter London Pistol Pink

Those flecky flake shimmers give this polish a look that reminds me of the speckled, dimensional appearance of apple skin. I love that look! Indie polish maker Mentality's red matte polish Stunning has it in spades once you apply a glossy topcoat to it, it's my favorite apple skin polish. But I'm irresistibly attracted to all flecky dark pinks and reds. I saw one this morning on The PolishAholic, here. Jen reviewed the new SpaRitual fall collection, which looks pretty awesome, and it includes an intensely beautiful red with a finely speckled finish that totally elicited my exaggerated covet response.

I guess that's why I forgive Pistol Pink for not being as unusual as I expected it to be. I was hoping for more of something, I'm not sure what, but the speckledy flakies make up for that. The red/violet color is so pretty and flattering, if not that unusual, and while it's very dark -- almost vampy -- in dim lighting, I kind of like that.

love,

Liz