Lady Violette

A Long Lasting Professional Quality Manicure Through Thick and Thin! This is Lady Violette de Courcy’s Amazing Survival Experience With Butter of London’s HRH Rich Royal Purple Polish! And how she did a manicure that lasted so extremely extraordinarily well!

My Butter of London pre-injury manicure using HRH color polish - in a rich royal purple shade - that lasted beautifully without a single chip or crack through this entire ordeal!

In my own words, of course, typed with my good left hand!

I recently bought 3 colors of Butter of London nail polish at Ulta. I loved it so much I went back and got 6 more, l loved them so much that I went back and got 12 more!
I bought them all at Ulta because they were having an amazing buy one get one free promotion! I have been longing to buy Butter for a long time, but it was very pricey so I was waiting for somebody to do this kind of introductory sale. The colors are amazing and very unusual. Many are truly unique to this company.

I read all the reviews on the Ulta website that people had written. This is what I concluded. Many of the writers don’t know how to do a decent manicure so they are not getting great results. I don’t think you can fail if you do it correctly! I did not buy Butter’s foundation or topcoat. (I do intend to soon!) I used the prep and finishing products I always have used with the many other polishes I own.

I am pretty experienced with polishes and doing my own nails and I own polish I love from the following companies: OPI, Essie, Revlon, L’Oreal, MAC, Christian Dior, Chanel, Estee Lauder, Nicole, Borghese, China Glaze, Orly and YSL. I have always bought polish from any company whose colors attracted me. FYI I get excellent manicure results with all these polishes too! I do not find the expensive ones to be a lot better than the others. I buy them for the colors! I have felt that all the companies make good products. I am sure this is because I have great manicure technique! It is really very simple. I think anyone can get professional results if they follow these steps and take their time. Drying time between each step is essential. So is thin even application. So is beginning with properly prepared clean nails. If you do all these things your manicure should last really well. Prepare to paint your nails as if you are preparing to make a great painting! I you do there is no way you cannot end up with nails that look like a work of art!

And, as I always say,”Rushing is not glamorous!” You must allow plenty of time, relax and pamper yourself!

When I was a little girl my mother had gorgeous natural nails. Every morning she redid her polish while drinking her coffee and reading a magazine or the New York Times. Reading allowed her drying time. She did her nails daily because she was a nurse and wanted them to look absolutely perfect and be very clean on the job. She was very concerned about hand sanitation. She put Christian Dior’s Creme Abricot on them every night. She had the longest, strongest, most perfectly shaped, and truly glamorous natural nails I have ever seen. She always wore red or bright polish colors: Christian Dior’s red called True True Dior or Revlon’s Cherries in the Snow were her favorites. She also liked a deep coral from Elizabeth Arden. She was so adept at painting her own nails that she could apply dark or bright red polish while leaving the white moons and tips perfectly exposed like a French manicure. She had seen this in an old Hollywood movie while she was in college and loved the look so she practiced it until she could do it herself. She never had a professional manicure. Being a nurse she was afraid of getting a fungus at a salon! She and her sister, who was my aunt, were home manicure fanatics. She kept a shoebox of nail polish colors in the refrigerator because she thought they lasted longer if cold!

Growing up in this atmosphere I was given great little girl manicures which consisted of filing and buffing and the use of clear pink polish. I was allowed to wear colored polish during the summer when school was out, but only light pink or white. They did not feel that the reds or the brights were age appropriate! When I grew up I cut loose! Many nail colors became available in every color imaginable and I had to try out a lot of them!

My Perfect Home Done Manicure Done As I Have Described Here

Here is what I do:

1) I begin with perfectly clean nude natural nails, file and shape as desired, wash hands again and dry thoroughly.

If you want to apply a strengthening product such as Grow Strong, Nail Tech II or Butter of London’s Horsepower do so on your natural nail before proceeding with the following basic manicure. Then:

2) I apply base coat ( any brand you have) and allow it to dry a few minutes.
This time I used L’Oreal Steel Stronger.

3) I apply two coats of nail color, I allow a few minutes to dry after each coat before the next step. I used Butter of London’s HRH a beautiful rich royal purple. Some colors may require three coats. I only needed two with this creamy polish.

4) I apply one coat of topcoat, and allow it to dry thoroughly.
This time I used Essie Good to Go

My manicure lasted 2 full weeks. Very unusual weeks as it turned out! The first week I had a normal life. Then, on Saturday night I turned my ankle and fell down and fractured my right hand, wrist and arm – a triple compound fracture, quite serious. The polish remained perfect through out! I was amazed!

I spent hours in the emergency room, I was examined, xrayed, sterilized with harsh hospital chemical agents, and put in a fiberglass splint and wrap. I went home until Monday when I went to see my hand surgeon who said I had 3! breaks and must have surgery immediately (the next day) and she would need to insert metal plates and pins to set the bones.

The next day, Tuesday, I checked into the hospital for surgery. My manicure was still perfect! I took nail polish remover and cotton balls with me and asked the doctor if I should remove my polish before the surgery. I thought they would want me to so they could see through my fingernails to check my circulation. But the color was so pretty and it was making me so happy I didn’t really want to take it off!

My doctor is a woman. She said, “You can leave it on! Why ruin a perfectly good manicure if you don’t absolutely have to? We can check your circulation by pressing the tips or sides of your fingers! By the way, what is that beautiful color?”

A Good View of The Color of Butter of London's HRH Purple Polish ~ I Now Consider This My Lady Violette de Courcy Signiture Purple Color & I Absolutely Love It!

I told her the name, HRH by Butter of London. She got a purple pen to match it, to sign her name to my right wrist and arm for the surgery! Only a woman doctor would do this! I was glad she was letting me keep my polish on and glad she liked the color so much!

When I came out of surgery and my anesthesia had worn off I was in a substantial cast wrap up to the elbow with only the ends of my fingers sticking out. And in a lot of pain! But my nails were sticking out of the cast at the end and looked really pretty and cheerful! And I could wiggle the ends of my fingers a little! and I could feel things with them! Yeah! What a relief!

I was amazed, honestly, that the manicure was still perfectly intact! The nurses all commented on how pretty my nails looked, too! They all wanted to know what brand and color I was wearing. Of course I told them, Butter of London HRH!

I’ve been home, recovering, for a week now. Today it was exactly 8 days actually.
I’ve had a really tough week! This afternoon I decided to change my polish because I had grown a little tired of the color and wanted to look at something else on my nails! I love the color HRH, I just want to try another one! I love purple and I felt it was time for me to try another of the Butter of London purple shades. I bought six of them and will photograph each one later so you can see what they look like on my hands.

I am able to use my left hand normally, but can only use my upper fingers on my right one. I wasn’t sure I could even do a manicure on myself! I was just terribly bored from having been confined all week! So I decided to attempt it.

I needed to remove my HRH polish. My first try was Studio -Tools acetone free nail polish remover on a cotton pad. I had a lot of trouble. I was unable to rub and apply enough pressure with my injured right hand to remove any of the polish on my left hand. This was discouraging. I thought, this polish has so much staying power it is hard to get off! Most of the time that is good! But with a broken hand, wrist and arm it was staying on too well when I finally wanted to remove it!

I was home alone with no one available to help me with this! I remembered that I had some Celine Polish-Off nail polish remover pads. I tried these. They are red pads saturated with non-acetone remover. Fortunately they worked and I was able to get the polish off by holding the pad around the nail for about a minute, then swirling it about to soften and finally remove the polish. This polish is long lasting which is what everyone wants! But when it comes time to remove it you have to have the time and patience to remove the polish – first by softening it so it dissolves the lacquer, then by carefully wiping it off. I held the red Celine Polish-Off pad against the nail for about a minute then swirled the pad around the nail to get the polish off. I had to do it really gently and carefully so I would not injure myself any further or disturb my healing process.

I got the polish off, then carefully washed my fingers which were sticking out at the end of the cast which could not be gotten wet! I used a washcloth so I could control the soap and water and where it went. I succeeded because I took my time and it worked out! I then towel dried my hands and took a rest! Everything takes so much patience and so much longer to do when you are injured! I succeeded at this because I was determined and I like a challenge!

I took a break and elevated my broken arm for awhile as I am supposed to do through out the day. Then I got up the courage to try to re-polish my nails. I was able to do my injured right hand by standing at my bathroom counter and propping it up on top of a kleenex box and using my left hand. I was actually able to do my my left hand by using the fingers only of my right hand to carefully paint them. I again used the kleenex box as a left hand support. I just took my time and rested a bit between coats which allowed my arm to recuperate and my nails to dry some!

A Close Up of the Very Royal Deep Dark Shiny Rich and Rare Looking Purple HRH Polish by Butter of London

I used a quick drying top coat from Essie this time called Good to Go because I was getting tired! I also find it works really well. I now have another beautiful perfect manicure!

I put a cuticle oil or cream on my nail beds every night. It keeps me from getting hang nails and my nails look absolutely perfect!

I am very limited by my right wrist, hand, arm injury! There are many things I can’t do for the next 8 weeks, then I will have to ease back into things and go through a lot of therapy. But, at least, I am relieved and a little happier to have found that I can paint my nails! I love painting and making art out of anything! I’m quite limited by this injury so it is good to know I have this way of expressing myself!

I have decided that I will try out lots of new colors and see how long I can grow my natural nails during my recovery time! Nail polish is a nice treat and I feel I deserve a few treats after going through all this! I see it as one of the lovely feminine arts! I am an artist and I enjoy painting my nails as a form of self expression. This injury is limiting me from making a lot of the art that I normally do so it is especially nice to have this colorful nail painting outlet at this particular time!

I am typing left handed by the way! And I keep my right hand elevated or in a sling I made out of a scarf while I do it!

Instructions for making a designer scarf into a medically functional sling and pictures on my pre-injury HRH Butter manicure are currently posted on my blog at ladyviolette.com. I cannot take a photo myself and my post-injury manicure, but I will get a friend to do so when somebody visits me and we will add it to this post!

I am so happy with the deep gorgeous purple of Butter of London’s HRH polish that I am officially making it my Lady Violette de Courcy signature purple shade of polish. I am also amazingly happy with its tough long lasting properties, no matter what happens while I am wearing it! This polish is no shrinking violet! Thus, I am officially proclaiming Butter of London’s HRH to be a fantastic formula all the way around ! In color, in durability. in fashion! It held up surprisingly well in my totally unplanned spontaneous testing experience!