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? 😉 

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? 😉 

Go Rangers!

My alma mater (lol, high school) is here at my university because we host an academic competition, so they’re here to participate. Currently I think they are winning 7 to 2, and will play in the national section tomorrow. Our colors are royal blue and white, so I painted Sally Hansen Insta-Dri In Co-bolt Blue, which is gorgeous! Over it is China Glaze White Lightning crackle.

Go Rangers!

My alma mater (lol, high school) is here at my university because we host an academic competition, so they’re here to participate. Currently I think they are winning 7 to 2, and will play in the national section tomorrow. Our colors are royal blue and white, so I painted Sally Hansen Insta-Dri In Co-bolt Blue, which is gorgeous! Over it is China Glaze White Lightning crackle.

Topaz Butterflies

 Started with Wet n Wild Blue Moon, and the color isn’t accurate in this photo… Not sure why.

Stamped over with Sally Hansen Chrome in Topaz, the WnW color is more accurate in here, definitely.

I’ve been thinking about my Mom a lot lately (Not like I don’t, but you know.) and she, my grandmother, and I always believed that butterflies symbolized messages from the deceased. I’ve missed Mom a lot this week, and so I decided to choose the butterfly image because it’s too cold for them to visit me here in DC 🙂

Topaz Butterflies

 Started with Wet n Wild Blue Moon, and the color isn’t accurate in this photo… Not sure why.

Stamped over with Sally Hansen Chrome in Topaz, the WnW color is more accurate in here, definitely.

I’ve been thinking about my Mom a lot lately (Not like I don’t, but you know.) and she, my grandmother, and I always believed that butterflies symbolized messages from the deceased. I’ve missed Mom a lot this week, and so I decided to choose the butterfly image because it’s too cold for them to visit me here in DC 🙂

Cat eyes

I originally wanted to do all nails different shades of blue, for the upcoming Blue Monday… or whatever. Then I felt it was too blah, and wanted black on it. But I feel like I’ve done too much polka dots– that’s kind of my default pattern. So I did a stripe down my nails, I was thinking of race tracks.. When I looked at it I realized, rather creepily, that they looked like eyes. After a few minutes of admiring it, I decided I needed more bling. So I broke out Claire’s glitter striping polish and voila.

That’s my creative process folks 😉
Black striping for all of the nails is Wet N Wild Black Creme– great polish. Full, black (not brownish black) coverage in one layer.  All the other polishes are China Glaze colors.

Left hand, from the Pinky to Thumb: Bermuda Breakaway; For Audrey; Sexy in the City; Sea Spray; Calypso Blue.
Calypso Blue is a very dark midnight blue, I’d say it’s a true midnight blue. I added the black stripe and realized I had a very hard time distinguishing the dark blue/black so that’s how the glitter stripe idea was born 😉 The difference is there however, Calypso Blue has the blue base, it’s not a black based blue.

Right hand, from the Pinky to Thumb: Caribbean Blue; Midnight Mission; Bahamian Escape; Rodeo Fanatic; Shower Together.

I was concerned that Midnight Mission and Rodeo Fanatic looked similar in the first photo, so here’s a closeup and a comparison. You can see they are not similar at all.

I got in a discussion with Nick about For Audrey and Sea Spray– He was convinced they looked exactly the same. A quick poll of my three roommates proved otherwise. As you can see Sea Spray is a grey based light blue, while For Audrey has much more green in it. I’m not sure why I willingly spend 10 minutes arguing with a color blind guy but there you have my Sunday.

Cat eyes

I originally wanted to do all nails different shades of blue, for the upcoming Blue Monday… or whatever. Then I felt it was too blah, and wanted black on it. But I feel like I’ve done too much polka dots– that’s kind of my default pattern. So I did a stripe down my nails, I was thinking of race tracks.. When I looked at it I realized, rather creepily, that they looked like eyes. After a few minutes of admiring it, I decided I needed more bling. So I broke out Claire’s glitter striping polish and voila.

That’s my creative process folks 😉
Black striping for all of the nails is Wet N Wild Black Creme– great polish. Full, black (not brownish black) coverage in one layer.  All the other polishes are China Glaze colors.

Left hand, from the Pinky to Thumb: Bermuda Breakaway; For Audrey; Sexy in the City; Sea Spray; Calypso Blue.
Calypso Blue is a very dark midnight blue, I’d say it’s a true midnight blue. I added the black stripe and realized I had a very hard time distinguishing the dark blue/black so that’s how the glitter stripe idea was born 😉 The difference is there however, Calypso Blue has the blue base, it’s not a black based blue.

Right hand, from the Pinky to Thumb: Caribbean Blue; Midnight Mission; Bahamian Escape; Rodeo Fanatic; Shower Together.

I was concerned that Midnight Mission and Rodeo Fanatic looked similar in the first photo, so here’s a closeup and a comparison. You can see they are not similar at all.

I got in a discussion with Nick about For Audrey and Sea Spray– He was convinced they looked exactly the same. A quick poll of my three roommates proved otherwise. As you can see Sea Spray is a grey based light blue, while For Audrey has much more green in it. I’m not sure why I willingly spend 10 minutes arguing with a color blind guy but there you have my Sunday.

Dots

It’s kind of hard to see, but I blame my photographer (my fiance). 😀
It’s a silver shimmer on the light side, and dark purple shimmer on the other, and there are three silver dots on the purple half, using a toothpick. Let me just say I don’t recommend doing this in a car. And that I need a better topcoat. I took a nap and the design went to hell– there was clothing dents and some dots came right off. Kind of mad about that. It was hard to do!

This is a tad better pic, of the color. I think the reflection of the dark purple shimmer is causing the silver to look lilac– trust me it’s your standard shimmery silver.

Dots

It’s kind of hard to see, but I blame my photographer (my fiance). 😀
It’s a silver shimmer on the light side, and dark purple shimmer on the other, and there are three silver dots on the purple half, using a toothpick. Let me just say I don’t recommend doing this in a car. And that I need a better topcoat. I took a nap and the design went to hell– there was clothing dents and some dots came right off. Kind of mad about that. It was hard to do!

This is a tad better pic, of the color. I think the reflection of the dark purple shimmer is causing the silver to look lilac– trust me it’s your standard shimmery silver.