A England Incense Burner

Oh man, I haven't posted an A England polish on the blog in, well, a really freaking long time. Which is not because there aren't awesome A England polishes coming out (there are), it's because I'm letting ones that I have languish and I haven't been keeping up with all the releases (what do you mean I can't have all the polish?!) so A England has been a brand that has fallen by the wayside. Which is a real shame, because I always love the collections Adina dreams up and they are always gorgeous and have such an interesting story behind them. When Llarowe decided to close up shop as a stockist and focus on her own polish line, I managed to snag a (newish) A England polish, Incense Burner, which was released as part of the Rossetti's Goddess collection. Incense Burner is described as "velvety, mysterious and hypnotic dark plum with the chromatic diversity of brown, green, mauve reflections of an antique bronze vessel."

As with most A England polishes, Incense Burner was super easy to work with. Nicely pigment, smooth easy formula-- pretty much applies itself, no issues! Because I work this a long time ago (thank again, laptop crash), I don't remember how many coats I wore, but it was probably two, given how nice the formula is.

I took some photos with my iPhone to try and capture the shift and shimmer (yes, this is the same polish!):

I really need to work on my photography skills (though my photography windows are severely limited due to mainly changing polish at night) because Incense Burner is a pretty complex polish and my photos do not do it justice at all, at least in terms of capturing the green shimmer that lurks there! I am super happy I snagged this polish, as with any A England, because they are always impeccable and unique and I'm very happy with Incense Burner!

Seahawks Sunday: Liquid Sky Lacquer Go Hawks!

I usually don't paint my nails for the Seahawks because I tend to have my nails painted for the Husky games on Saturdays, but this week is an exception because my husband and I are attending the game tonight! So I wanted to a) paint my nails and b) get up a quickie post to show you!

This is a pretty simple mani-- I had Go Hawks! from Liquid Sky Lacquer kicking around-- it's a mini bottle that she released one of the years the Seahawks played in the Super Bowl. It's a glitter topper with blue and green hex glitter and small green microglitter in a clear base. I initially thought I might layer it over a grey base, but decided to use silver instead. The closest silver I had on hand was A England Excaliber, so there you have it! I used two coats of Excaliber and then dabbed one coat of Go Hawks! on top. I think it looks good!

Artificial light (flash):

Hope you all are having an enjoyable Sunday! Go Hawks!

May the Fourth Be With You Manicure!

Hey all! Today is May 4th, or in the pop culture lexicon: Star Wars Day! Star Wars is the second fandom I ever got into and I am still huge fan. When the newest teaser trailer for The Force Awakens was released, I spent all weekend watching it on loop. SO EXCITED!! Am I the only one thinking it would be cool if a polish brand decided to make a line of polishes based on the movie?!

Ahem, anyway.

When the pictures started coming out for the May edition of A Box, Indied and I found out that it had a Star Wars theme, I knew I had to have it. And luckily, I did manage to snag one! I will have a review up later, but I did used a couple of the polishes from the box for my manicure. I've been steadily collecting Star Wars themed polishes from various indie makers and trawled my stash to pick the perfect polishes! I settled on Lacquerlicious Path to the Dark Side, Glisten & Glow Saber This! and Different Dimension Saber That.

Path to the Dark Side is a glitter bomb with a dark blackened base with various silver, blue, and copper glitters of various sizes. I layered one coat of A England Camelot. Then, on one accent nail I used Saber This! which is shimmery blue glow in the dark polish with flakies, representing Luke's (and Obi-Wan's) light saber from the first two movies and on my other hand I used Saber That, which is a shimmery green representing Yoda's green light saber (Luke also had a green light saber in Return of the Jedi).

On my left hand, I used Glisten & Glow Saber This! as an accent nail. 

On my right hand (man, it sure is difficult to photograph your Cinderella hand), I used Different Dimension Saber That as an accent:

I had completely forgotten that Saber This and Saber That were glow in the dark so last night, when I turned off the lights and they started glowing, I was like a little kid. I even turned the light back on to charge them, haha. Now I can admire my nails in the dark! I love how this manicure turned out, with the two light saber colors standing out against the black of the Dark Side. Perfection! Glow in the dark for the two light saber polishes was definitely the right choice-- I love how they glow.

Hope everyone had a good Monday! Did you do anything to celebrate May 4th? Or any pop culture "holidays" throughout the year?

a england Camelot

Taking a break from all the Valentine themed polishes (and glitter) and bringing you something completely different tonight-- straight up black! This is a polish I've had for awhile, a england Camelot. Named after the legendary kingdom of King Arthur, this polish is a deep black onyx polish that is super shiny.

Camelot, my goodness-- it's so shiny! All the pictures below are without a top coat. Look at how shiny it is! Overall, I had an easy time using this polish and the formula was great and very pigmented. If you're good, this is definitely a one-coater. I used two because I never feel good with just one coat. But I feel like this looks gorgeous on the nail and actually does look like black onyx stone.

Artificial light:

Natural light - sun:

This is a perfect black. A little on the pricey side, yes, but it's easy to use and the formula is great. I don't know wear just black very often, but I love how shiny this is and I'm glad I have a bottle in case I need it.

Olympics!! (Oh, and a manicute too)

The XXXth Olympiad kicks off tonight in London with the Opening Ceremonies and I'm so excited! I'm a huge Olympics fan and have watched them as far back as I can remember, basically. One of my most vivid memories is watching Kristi Yamaguchi skate to gold in 1992. I even got to attend the Olympics last year in Vancouver (to watch women's figure skating) and it was incredible. I plan on being glued to my tv over the next two weeks.

For my manicure, I finally decided to do some real nail art and used the Olympic Rings as my inspiration. I painted the colors of the rings across my fingers and then used a gold striping brush to write 2012 on my four fingers. Originally, I wanted to write London on my thumb, but this proved to be too difficult for me, at least with the tools I had at my disposal. So I decided to pay tribute to the host country by painting the Union Jack on my thumb! This was my first attempt at "proper" nail art and I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out!

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - (partial/not really) sun:

Here's a close up of the Union Jack on my thumb:

I needed a lot of polishes to make this happen:

From left to right: American Apparel Downtown LA, China Glaze Starboard, a england Camelot, Cult Nails Feel Me Up, OPI Dating A Royal and then gold, white and red striping polishes from Stripe Rite and Finger Paints. Whew! On my right hand I did a patriotic manicure with American Apparel Downtown LA and Julep America.

Are you going to be watching the Olympics over the next two weeks? What are your favorite sports? Personally, I love swimming and gymnastics the most, but I will also watch diving, beach volleyball and some of the track and field events. I also like to try and watch something I haven't before-- I might try cycling this year, since I just read Gold by Chris Cleve.

a england Princess Sabra (Tristam Eyes)

After a short delay, I have an exquisite polish to show you! This is another polish from the new a england The Legend Collection-- Princess Sabra (Tristam Eyes). This polish is named after the princess from the legend of St. George and the Dragon and also for Adina's (the creator of a england) cat, Tristam. 

Princess Sabra is described as "alluringly feline golden olive bronzite, the sacrificial Princess constantly shifts with her elusive, myriad hues." With a description like that, how can I argue? Golden olive bronzite... and sheer prefection. Princess Sabra is a scattered holographic polish and it is truly stunning, especially in sunlight. I'm glad that the sun has been out in Seattle recently so I could capture how pretty this polish is in real life. The formula on was perfect-- this went on smoothly in two coats and I had no issues whatsoever. 

So... onto the pictures!!  

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - sun:

Bottle shot:

I got a ton of compliments on this polish, which is always nice. I love Princess Sabra. The color is so unusual-- I definitely think of hazel eyes, due to the green/yellow shift in the polish. I love this polish! The color is unusual but not too in your face. It's a really unique polish and superb in every way, like all a england polishes.

a england Dragon

And here's my St. Patrick's Day manicure (it's still before midnight on PST)! No amazing nail art or anything, but I did pick out a pretty amazing polish to wear in general. This is Dragon, one of the polishes from the new Legend Collection from a england. In this collection, Adina (the creator of a england), was inspired by the legend of St. George and the Dragon and created a collection of seven polishes based on this theme. I have five of the seven polishes and have already worn one (which you'll see soon), so Dragon is the first one you're seeing here.

This was my first exposure to St. George and the Dragon when I was a child:

(Image from Amazon)

Has anyone else read this book? If not, I highly recommend it. Obviously, this is a children's book, but the illustrations are gorgeous. I don't think it follows the legend exactly, at least as Adina has recounted it in her polishes-- the princess in the book is named Una, not Sabra, for one; but I think in general the story remains the same. 

The descriptions for the all the polishes were provided by Eugenia Ragas of ommorphia beauty bar. Dragon is described thusly: "Like sunlight glinting off his iridescent mossy green scales, the fearsome Dragon lays basking arrogantly, awaiting his due." Given that Dragon is a holographic polish, this is a pretty apt description, and you'll be able to see this in my photos below, I hope! The formula on Dragon was excellent, though I would recommend not overloading your brush because you can end up with pigment streaks. Dragon is pretty much a one coater, but I used two to make sure I had complete coverage.

Luckily there was some sun today (after a really weird snow shower in parts of Seattle this morning), so I have a ton of pictures of Dragon in the sunlight because it's so so pretty!

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light - shade:

You lose the holo effect in the shade, but Dragon is still a great shade of green.

Natural light - sun:

This is a stunning polish, isn't it?  Even though this isn't a coveted linear holo, the scattered holo effect is gorgeous and wonderful. I love the rainbow of colors that show up in the green base. To me, I am reminded of a lizard's skin, which is probably the idea. I mean, what else can I say? This polish is awesome and beautiful.

My first real exposure to dragons was through the late, great Anne McCaffrey and her Dragonriders of Pern series. I wanted to show you this beautiful piece of artwork by Michael Whelan because his artwork was an intimate influence in how I imagined dragons and this particular piece (from the cover of Dragonflight) seems to be capture by this polish, even though that wasn't the intention:

(Image from www.pern.nl)

While obviously not the same, Dragon brought this image to mind when I was starting to write this post and I love that, because these books have a special place in my heart.

Dragon is currently for sale for £9 on the a england website or for $12 from Llarowe (though it is currently sold out there).

A England Perceval

Tonight I have a beautiful a-england polish for you-- Perceval! This was actually one of the first a-england polishes I ever purchased, and so perhaps it is fitting that on the day I complete my Mythicals collection that I have this polish to show you! It's a crying shame that it took me so long to get around to swatching it.

Perceval is seriously, drop-dead gorgeous. The a-england website describes it as a "splendid and resplendent red"-- which does not nearly go far enough to describe how awesome Perceval is. I would describe it was a lit-from-within glowy metallic red polish. It's beautiful. I love how this polish looks like it glows. According to the a-england site and Arthurian legend, Perceval is the guileless knight-- "the elect one to witness the Grail for the first time and one of the heroes of its quest. A simple, innocent man, alone in the world who accidentally meets a group of the King's knights and decides to become one of them." At first, I thought red was an interesting choice for such a man, but according to legend (and Wikipedia), Perceval kills a bad knight and takes his vermilion armor... vermilion, of course, being a shade of red, which makes the color of this polish spot on!

Perceval had a great formula and applied really smoothly. Two coats make it perfectly opaque and it dried fairly quickly. It was shiny and glowy even without a top coat, but here I am wearing the a-england top coat, the Shield over Perceval.

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

The first picture makes Perceval look more tomato red-- it most definitely is not! The second picture is definitely more color accurate.

Natural light - shade:

Perceval is the shimmery red to end all reds. Run out and get a bottle right now! This is a fabulous polish!

And, last but not least... I completed my a-england Mythicals collection today, receiving the last three polishes I needed, thanks to the anniversary sale earlier this month!

Additionally... I also got four polishes from the new Legends collection!!

So I have lots of great polishes to show you guys! I can't wait!

NOTD: Winter Wonderland Manicure

So, quite unusually Seattle has been "hammered" by a snow storm over the last few days. While Seattle does get snow from time to time, it doesn't happen often and we don't have a lot of experience dealing with it. Even though snow is a huge pain in the butt when you become an adult, I still love it! The snow makes everything so pretty and love how quiet the world seems when it snows!

This is my world in the snow! I love it! Even though getting around the city is a pain, somehow I can't feel too angry because the seven year old inside of me loves the snow so much.

Now... onto my manicure! On a whim tonight I decided to do a snow inspired manicure.  I pulled out Kristen from Zoya's recent Feel Collection and decided on an accent nail using a-england Morgan Le Fay. I will do full posts on both these in the future-- Kristen is a blue leaning grey creme polish and Morgan Le Fay is an icy silver shimmer. These polishes just called out winter to me.

Sorry I was only able to capture this under a couple of lighting conditions because I wanted to post it tonight (and I started the manicure at about 7pm PST). You can see Kristen shift between looking more blue or more grey depending on the light.
Artificial light with flash:

Natural light:

I love this combination! Really pretty... soft but the shimmer gives it a little edge-- in addition to being really pretty. Happy winter, everyone! Stay safe and warm and dry out there!