Collection Swatch: a-england

So being the geek I am, when I found the a-england polish site I had to buy them all because OMG AWESOME NAMES. They arrived about last week (or maybe two weeks ago, okay, I’m kinda behind) and while I was staying up with Nick supervising him doing his homework, I swatched them all.

General notes before we begin:
— Most are two coaters, with the exception of Merlin, which is one-coater.
— No topcoat, only basecoat
— Formula was great with them all with a few exceptions
— I am still not exactly sure if they are deserving of their price tag, as the bottling and formula is kind of typical and their colors are not extremely unique (however beautiful).
— I am extremely, I mean EXTREMELY surprised there are no greens in this collection!! Green is a very medieval color, at least to me.

Here we go.

 Dark purple duochrome, with a slight blue flash.

 Excuse the horrid picture. Camelot is a gorgeous black, with a brown base and is an one-coater if you’re careful.

 Elaine is a very dusty purple/gray and I love it. Very muted, a nice color.

 There’s a saying among us nail bloggers– everyone needs one nice silver foil in their collection, and I can definitely say this one is mine. Not to mention the kickass name 😉

Galahad is an interesting light blue. This picture makes it look like a shade of the sky blue family but I would say it borders on being teal. Again, another favorite. 

 Guinevere is a dusty lilac creme. Pardon the hair on my ring finger– a piece of the cotton ball I used earlier.

 Holy Grail is a very nice warm gold, with a shimmer.

 This one kind of gave me trouble. A very pale sheer pink, almost a french pink. The formula was an issue and even after THREE coats there’s a visible nail line up there. The brush on this one was wonky too, and threw me off.

 Grey duochrome with a hint of … I don’t know? Green?

 Dark purple holographic goodness! I love this one too.

 Lancelot.. Good lord it’s an extremely dark plum. It’s pretty much another black. I included a picture of the first coat, so you can see its true color.

 Merlin is a silver glitter suspended in a clear jelly base. Extremely dense, what you see above is one coat.

 A sheer duochrome silver/white/pink, great for layering. Three coats above and it’s still sheer which is why I think it’s for layering on other polish (something I haven’t tried, this was swatched at the end– dammit)

 Lovely red. This is THE red, for me. Shimmery.

 Blue holographic goodness. What’s the difference between Tristam and Lady of the Lake, I asked myself? See below.

All two coaters, but you can see Lady is more pulling on purple while Tristam is on the navy side.

Thoughts? 😉 

Zoya Summertime

Here is the other half of the Zoya Summer 2011 collection, Summertime. This is a six piece collection featuring cremes.

The polish was two coater in all of the pictures. Had VNL issues with the red ones, but mainly not too terrible. Formula was stellar. I love Zoya although their price tag could go down a little bit more. 🙂

Love Areej! Such a nice take on the Pantone 2011 Color of the Year: Honeysuckle color.

 Areej, a very strong fuchsia.

This is a bit darker in real life. My camera, and the uploading process washed it out 😦

 Breezi, an interesting blue. Almost teal, almost periwinkle. I looked this color up and it seems to match Munsel Blue, according to Wikipedia’s list of color drops (the little blue square above).

Very dark fuchsia creme.

Great purple creme, this photo shows a bit too purple. It’s a lot more “pastel” (washed out) than the photo showing.

 Sooki is a very cool cherry red. It’s the perfect red creme! I don’t LOVE this because the name reminds me of that horrible Snooki from Jersey Shore and I can’t stand her. 😦

Tamsen is a much warmer red– you can see it has a lot more orange than its sister Sooki above. Dark tomato red. It leans a lot towards the orange side than Sooki, who leans towards cherry. 

Love these cremes… I could do without the two reds though. How about a green? 😉 

I also want to see Zoya name their polish after some REAL women, not these vapid beings that you see on trashy, brain-cell-slaughtering TV shows. =\

Zoya Summertime

Here is the other half of the Zoya Summer 2011 collection, Summertime. This is a six piece collection featuring cremes.

The polish was two coater in all of the pictures. Had VNL issues with the red ones, but mainly not too terrible. Formula was stellar. I love Zoya although their price tag could go down a little bit more. 🙂

Love Areej! Such a nice take on the Pantone 2011 Color of the Year: Honeysuckle color.

 Areej, a very strong fuchsia.

This is a bit darker in real life. My camera, and the uploading process washed it out 😦

 Breezi, an interesting blue. Almost teal, almost periwinkle. I looked this color up and it seems to match Munsel Blue, according to Wikipedia’s list of color drops (the little blue square above).

Very dark fuchsia creme.

Great purple creme, this photo shows a bit too purple. It’s a lot more “pastel” (washed out) than the photo showing.

 Sooki is a very cool cherry red. It’s the perfect red creme! I don’t LOVE this because the name reminds me of that horrible Snooki from Jersey Shore and I can’t stand her. 😦

Tamsen is a much warmer red– you can see it has a lot more orange than its sister Sooki above. Dark tomato red. It leans a lot towards the orange side than Sooki, who leans towards cherry. 

Love these cremes… I could do without the two reds though. How about a green? 😉 

I also want to see Zoya name their polish after some REAL women, not these vapid beings that you see on trashy, brain-cell-slaughtering TV shows. =\

Zoya Sunshine Swatches

I took part of Zoya’s BOGO promotion with their Summertime/Sunshine and Mod Mattes collection, and this one is the Sunshine collection.

General notes:

Two coats for almost all, unless otherwise specified. They all have gold flecks in them and the reds were not photographed adequately because I am a crappy photographer with a decent camera 😉 I personally love this collection, it’s wonderful for summer and definitely great for pedicures and nubby nails. I don’t really have any description for these, so I’ll just let the pictures talk. Enjoy!

Love this.

 Grape with a ton of gold fleck shimmer.  It also caught a ton of shine with my camera it was crazy. It’s my favorite too. I wonder why!

 Cherry red, more bolder than the camera allowed and of course the gold shimmer is muted way way down. I liked this one though!

 Strawberry pink with gold flecks 😉 awesome.

I love this one too. Orange with darker gold flecks.

This one is a lot more raspberry, and the camera refuses to show the gold fleck. The bottle color is accurate (without the gold shimmer), my nails are a bit muted down.

Zoya Sunshine Swatches

I took part of Zoya’s BOGO promotion with their Summertime/Sunshine and Mod Mattes collection, and this one is the Sunshine collection.

General notes:

Two coats for almost all, unless otherwise specified. They all have gold flecks in them and the reds were not photographed adequately because I am a crappy photographer with a decent camera 😉 I personally love this collection, it’s wonderful for summer and definitely great for pedicures and nubby nails. I don’t really have any description for these, so I’ll just let the pictures talk. Enjoy!

Love this.

 Grape with a ton of gold fleck shimmer.  It also caught a ton of shine with my camera it was crazy. It’s my favorite too. I wonder why!

 Cherry red, more bolder than the camera allowed and of course the gold shimmer is muted way way down. I liked this one though!

 Strawberry pink with gold flecks 😉 awesome.

I love this one too. Orange with darker gold flecks.

This one is a lot more raspberry, and the camera refuses to show the gold fleck. The bottle color is accurate (without the gold shimmer), my nails are a bit muted down.

China Glaze Crackle Collection

From left to right: Fault Line (dark  purple); Cracked Concrete (grey); Crushed Candy (light teal/blue– color is very accurate here!); Black Mesh (black); Broken hearted (pink, not as dark as shown) and White Lightning… which is white.

Quick photo of the collection. And yes, that is my work keyboard you see. It must be a really slow day here if I don’t get nagged at by the boss for the lacquer smell huh? 😛

 What did I do when I opened the package? Immediately put them on! I’ll do better swatches in a bit.

Thumb: Broken Hearted; Index finger to pinky: Cracked Concrete, Crushed Candy, Black mesh, and Fault Line.

White lightning– it did crack pretty well but my hindsight wasn’t 20/20 when I put it over Alpine Snow 😛

China Glaze Crackle Collection

From left to right: Fault Line (dark  purple); Cracked Concrete (grey); Crushed Candy (light teal/blue– color is very accurate here!); Black Mesh (black); Broken hearted (pink, not as dark as shown) and White Lightning… which is white.

Quick photo of the collection. And yes, that is my work keyboard you see. It must be a really slow day here if I don’t get nagged at by the boss for the lacquer smell huh? 😛

 What did I do when I opened the package? Immediately put them on! I’ll do better swatches in a bit.

Thumb: Broken Hearted; Index finger to pinky: Cracked Concrete, Crushed Candy, Black mesh, and Fault Line.

White lightning– it did crack pretty well but my hindsight wasn’t 20/20 when I put it over Alpine Snow 😛

OPI Texas collection

So being a Texan I had to pick up the collection and see for myself this “sorbet” finish. This is going to be a huge post with swatches and whatnot 😛

We have the sorbets here. Oh look.. Don’t two, maybe four, of them look SIMILAR already??

The … not sorbets.

FYI: The sorbet shades were dry when their pictures were taken. I do like this finish, I can imagine it would look adorable on toes and nubby fingers. With my kind of long nails (they’re not that long, but if I can’t take my contacts out easily– that’s long to me :P) I had an issue with the visible nail line– three to five coats each for the sorbets just to have some coverage!! Anyway, this finish makes you look like you have constantly wet nails– the finish is very “juicy” and like some bloggers say, between a creme and jelly. I’m not saying it’s juicy just because this finish is named sorbet, not at all…

Onto the swatches!

Guy Meets Gal-Veston. 

Ok I’ve been to Galveston and it doesn’t deserve a pretty shade like this. It’s a berry, definitely– berry with a hint of orange/pink? Grapefruit kinda shade.

Too Hot Pink to Hold ‘Em

In the bottle it appears to be a cherry red sorbet, but again, appears pink on the nail. In the line up picture up on the top, this bottle is on the far right and it’s pretty color accurate.

Big Hair Big Nails.

This color is TOTALLY a dupe for Guy Meets Gal-Veston. I’m incredibly disappointed with OPI for this– did they just not want to release 11 shades so they stuck in another bottle of the same color and slapped on a different label?? I will prove it’s dupe-ness in a second.

 Houston We Have a Purple

The color in the bottle is accurate, it’s quite grape.

Do You Think I’m Tex-y?

This is a cherry wannabe, but I found it to appear purple on the nail and it seemed to me, similar to Houston We Have a Purple up there.

 Y’all Come Back Ya Hear?

Chop job, the thumb picture is the most accurate color.

YAY an orange! It looks delicious, and I want to eat it. I’m thinking this would be adorable on the toes in the summer. I actually love this shade.

I think the problem with this sorbet finish and OPI’s insistence of releasing a “gradient” of pink to purple shades is that they all end up very similar on the nail. I think out of every one, Houston We Have a Purple and Y’all Come Back Ya Hear? are the most unique ones. The other four could look similar and nobody would ask you or comment if you wore a different color on each nail.

Now the not-sorbets:

 I Vant to be a Lone-Star

 This is the most color accurate photo I could take of this enigma. It’s cool!! It’s grey, with white and silver shimmer. In the bottle it looks blue as you can see, but appears  silvery on the nail.

San Tan-tonio

Kind of looks like poop in this photo, but on the nail it’s interesting. Not something I would pick up, but it’s dusky and reminds me of the Texan ranch I grew up on… (What ranch? Yeah right :P)

 Don’t Mess With OPI

This is a nice forest green creme, however I’m not sure how unique this is. I’m already having ideas of its twins.

Suzi Loves Cowboys

I love this brown! It’s just a brown. Not purple brown, black brown, tan-brown.

 It’s Totally Fort-Worth It

Check out that pink shimmer! It’s a grey duochrome, with pink shimmer hiding in it and in the bottle the pink definitely flashes. A lot of people like this for layering, and it’s pretty sheer. 

By the time I got to this (It was the last bottle I swatched) I was just tired of painting the whole nail and just did my thumb 😛 You can see my naked nails in the background!

Austin-tatious Turquoise

I don’t understand this name very much, but whatever. It’s a pretty color but very, very sheer. You can see I missed some spots when applying the three/four layers, and there are bald spots on my thumb. If the formula was thicker, I think I would like this color more, it’s pretty accurate of Austin. 

NOW THE DUPES…. 

I dare you to tell me which is Big Hair Big Nails and which is Guy meets Gal-Veston!! Even I couldn’t see it AT ALL in person. Give up? It’s okay, I did too.

Now that you see it, Big Hair Big Nails is “slightly” darker than Guy Meets Gal-veston but whatever!! When getting this, just pick the name you like better. They’re exactly the same, I swear.

As for Houston We Have a Purple and Do You Think I’m Tex-y? I thought they might be dupes so I checked..

Not really. Houston We Have a Purple is definitely a lot more purple than Do You Think I’m Tex-y? which is much more red. 

While I personally love the sorbet finish, I just wish they threw out a blue or a green to replace two of the four very similar colors. 😦

OPI Texas collection

So being a Texan I had to pick up the collection and see for myself this “sorbet” finish. This is going to be a huge post with swatches and whatnot 😛

We have the sorbets here. Oh look.. Don’t two, maybe four, of them look SIMILAR already??

The … not sorbets.

FYI: The sorbet shades were dry when their pictures were taken. I do like this finish, I can imagine it would look adorable on toes and nubby fingers. With my kind of long nails (they’re not that long, but if I can’t take my contacts out easily– that’s long to me :P) I had an issue with the visible nail line– three to five coats each for the sorbets just to have some coverage!! Anyway, this finish makes you look like you have constantly wet nails– the finish is very “juicy” and like some bloggers say, between a creme and jelly. I’m not saying it’s juicy just because this finish is named sorbet, not at all…

Onto the swatches!

Guy Meets Gal-Veston. 

Ok I’ve been to Galveston and it doesn’t deserve a pretty shade like this. It’s a berry, definitely– berry with a hint of orange/pink? Grapefruit kinda shade.

Too Hot Pink to Hold ‘Em

In the bottle it appears to be a cherry red sorbet, but again, appears pink on the nail. In the line up picture up on the top, this bottle is on the far right and it’s pretty color accurate.

Big Hair Big Nails.

This color is TOTALLY a dupe for Guy Meets Gal-Veston. I’m incredibly disappointed with OPI for this– did they just not want to release 11 shades so they stuck in another bottle of the same color and slapped on a different label?? I will prove it’s dupe-ness in a second.

 Houston We Have a Purple

The color in the bottle is accurate, it’s quite grape.

Do You Think I’m Tex-y?

This is a cherry wannabe, but I found it to appear purple on the nail and it seemed to me, similar to Houston We Have a Purple up there.

 Y’all Come Back Ya Hear?

Chop job, the thumb picture is the most accurate color.

YAY an orange! It looks delicious, and I want to eat it. I’m thinking this would be adorable on the toes in the summer. I actually love this shade.

I think the problem with this sorbet finish and OPI’s insistence of releasing a “gradient” of pink to purple shades is that they all end up very similar on the nail. I think out of every one, Houston We Have a Purple and Y’all Come Back Ya Hear? are the most unique ones. The other four could look similar and nobody would ask you or comment if you wore a different color on each nail.

Now the not-sorbets:

 I Vant to be a Lone-Star

 This is the most color accurate photo I could take of this enigma. It’s cool!! It’s grey, with white and silver shimmer. In the bottle it looks blue as you can see, but appears  silvery on the nail.

San Tan-tonio

Kind of looks like poop in this photo, but on the nail it’s interesting. Not something I would pick up, but it’s dusky and reminds me of the Texan ranch I grew up on… (What ranch? Yeah right :P)

 Don’t Mess With OPI

This is a nice forest green creme, however I’m not sure how unique this is. I’m already having ideas of its twins.

Suzi Loves Cowboys

I love this brown! It’s just a brown. Not purple brown, black brown, tan-brown.

 It’s Totally Fort-Worth It

Check out that pink shimmer! It’s a grey duochrome, with pink shimmer hiding in it and in the bottle the pink definitely flashes. A lot of people like this for layering, and it’s pretty sheer. 

By the time I got to this (It was the last bottle I swatched) I was just tired of painting the whole nail and just did my thumb 😛 You can see my naked nails in the background!

Austin-tatious Turquoise

I don’t understand this name very much, but whatever. It’s a pretty color but very, very sheer. You can see I missed some spots when applying the three/four layers, and there are bald spots on my thumb. If the formula was thicker, I think I would like this color more, it’s pretty accurate of Austin. 

NOW THE DUPES…. 

I dare you to tell me which is Big Hair Big Nails and which is Guy meets Gal-Veston!! Even I couldn’t see it AT ALL in person. Give up? It’s okay, I did too.

Now that you see it, Big Hair Big Nails is “slightly” darker than Guy Meets Gal-veston but whatever!! When getting this, just pick the name you like better. They’re exactly the same, I swear.

As for Houston We Have a Purple and Do You Think I’m Tex-y? I thought they might be dupes so I checked..

Not really. Houston We Have a Purple is definitely a lot more purple than Do You Think I’m Tex-y? which is much more red. 

While I personally love the sorbet finish, I just wish they threw out a blue or a green to replace two of the four very similar colors. 😦

OPI Shatter!!

Guess who came in? That’s right– the OPI Katy Perry collection! I’m so excited for this 🙂

eee~ see what’s peeking on the left? Shatter! I got so excited when it came on I plopped it immediately on an accent finger of my Harlow funky french manicure.

I was a little disappointed– it didn’t do that amazing crackle effect like I’ve seen on other blogs, but maybe it has a different effect on matte finishes? Nevertheless I soldiered on, breaking out China Glaze Custom Kicks and Snow.

 China Glaze Custom Kicks. When I photographed this at first for a personal swatch (would you ever be interested in seeing my swatches??) I thought there was something wrong with my camera, or me. This polish is actually a very strong teal green but in all of my pictures it showed up as BLUE. So when I googled for other people’s pictures I saw they had the same problem. Looks like this is just shy 🙂

Edited: Apparently my Flip takes pretty great color accurate videos? Here’s a snapshot, which is a screenshot of what the Flip thinks Custom Kicks’ true color is (and it matches it wonderfully) however blurry.

CG Snow. Pardon the messy application, Snow was very streaky and HARD to get even with.

Thoughts? I love this!! 😀 I need like, 300 bottles of this stuff. For serious.