The Lance

Yes, two posts right in a row, but these polishes all deserve their own!  I've been on vacation this past week, which meant that I got to keep a-england's Ascalon on my nails all week with barely any chipping!  It was actually hard to take it off to put on St. George.

Last week I went to see Wicked!  First time actually seeing it, though I know the soundtrack backward and forward.  It was so amazing!  It was also a chance to get all gussied up in a fancy dress and fun makeup... and great nail polish!  My dress was white with black stockings, boots, and belt, so Ascalon went perfectly!

I shall now stop talking and let the pictures speak for themselves, other than to say to ignore the state of my cuticles.  Someone's been slacking on their care lately.

And my a-england collection so far:

The Saint

It seems like every a-england polish I put on makes me love the brand more and more!  I'm sure my roommates and co-workers are tired of me running up to them, shoving my fingers in their faces, and demanding they ooh and aah about my polish. :D

Ah, yes.  Everyone has swatches of this, but I don't care! Covered in one coat, looks amazing in the sun.  I was having trouble getting pictures that really do it justice, but at least you can see the holographic effect on some of the nails.

This polish had better never become discontinued or I might cry.  I at least want some warning if it does so I can order a whole bunch and never run out!

The princess is in!

When the sale hit, I finally caved and ordered three of Adina's beautiful polishes... then, when the pre-order for Dragon and St. George went up, I ordered those, too!  I'm addicted!

First on the docket is Princess Sabra, a.k.a. Tristam Eyes. It looks like an olive-y taupe indoors, but as soon as the light hits it up close it flares into life.

As everyone else who has swatched these polishes has noted, the formula is wonderful. My brush did have an untrimmed hair sticking out, but it took all of three seconds to find scissors and trim it to the proper length.  I did two coats on this hand in all the pictures; with three coats, the green comes out even more.

The holo is mesmerizing in the sunlight!  Even under light inside you can see the rainbow shifting over your nail.

It's so fantastic even in shade!

Seriously, I am a fan of a-england for life.  I want to try on the other two I have while waiting for Dragon and St. George to arrive, but I can't bear to take Princess Sabra off!

Double Mani Catch-Up!

I'm getting a little behind on the posting! For some reason uploading the pictures seems like more of a hassle than actually doing the manicures in the first place!  Long-ish post here and then I'll do another tomorrow with one of my new a-england beauties!

First up is... China Glaze Liquid Crystal!

If Ray-diant is like a crushed gold ring, Liquid Crystal is like a silver sapphire ring crushed up and sprinkled on my fingers.  Above is three coats by itself.  I feel like the polish is thick and I'll go through it fast, but the sparkle alone is worth it.  Work has been stressful, but looking at this polish makes me happy and I feel like the richest girl on the block! :D

And finally... O.P.I. It's My Year.

So I finally decided to give in and get a bottle of Seche Vite (LOVE IT, by the way--makes my nails feel so smooth that I keep petting them!) at Target, looked up two shelves, and spotted It's My Year.  It took all of about a half second for the bottle to be in my hand.  Just the night before I'd been combing the interwebz for a dusky rose polish with gold and given up without finding one that I liked, and then here it was a few hours later right in front of me!  Funny how that works!

In the bottle it's one of those I could just spin round and round forever watching the light play off the sparkles.  Looks great on the nail too, though my camera picks up a bit more purple that it appeared in person. The last picture is probably the most representative of what I see in person.

Bonus pic of my Ulta haul:

That store is dangerous!  I went in just to get a bottle of Butter London West End Wonderland for my mother, who saw it last time we were in and said she'd like it for Mother's Day.  After wandering around the store and deciding to buy one Zoya and some Rimmel eye shadow, I made it to the BL display... and promptly grabbed Knackered, Tart With a Heart, and The Black Knight.  THEN I decided that I just HAD to splurge and get the Too Faced palette that I'd been drooling over the last time I was at the store.  I'm off to see Wicked next week with my mother, and I have a fancy dress, so I needed fancy makeup to go with!  Right?  Right?

I was really surprised to not love Knackered when I put it on, at least alone.  I've been drooling over the swatches and I adore it in the bottle, but when I put it on it just wasn't working.  It took four coats to get it the way I wanted it (no pictures since it was evening when I did it), though it went on nicely.  I just need something a little more... bold on my nails.  Something that draws my gaze when I see it out of the corner of my eye.  I may not have liked it on me by itself, but you'd have to pry it out of my cold dead hands--it's going to look great layered over other things.  I don't regret the purchase at all.

Three-In-One!

Lately I've been changing polish like... like... a person who changes polish fast, so today there are three to show!

First is one of the new China Glaze Prismatics called Ray-Diant.

Just one indoor picture, unfortunately.  I was going to try and get some outdoor pics but it chipped and I felt like changing it instead of patching it up for another day.  This is two coats over two of CG Foie Gras.  It felt like there were crushed diamonds on my fingers all day!

Next up is one of my favorite polishes, China Glaze Riveting.  As amazing as it is on its own, I couldn't resist adding a little bit of extra sparkle, so on went Wet n Wild The Gold & The Beautiful.  It's always hard to capture just how glowy it is.  I am absolutely going to have to order another bottle of this soon, just so I know I won't be running out for a long time!

And finally, the mani from last night I have dubbed Mermaid Skin.  I knew I wanted to do something with Zoya Maisie since I bought it at Ulta and a mermaid mani was the obvious choice!  The base is two coats of Essence Choose Me! with one of Maisie on top.  The Maisie blends in a lot, but when it catches the light just right it looks like scales.

That's all for now!  Expect complete spazzing when my a-england order shows up... and I ordered St. George and Dragon too, so they should be here in a couple of weeks.  Can't wait! :D

I may never have Fantasy Fire, but at least I have glitter!

First off, went to Wal-Mart for a fruit plate to take to work... and walked out with $35 worth of nail polish.  It's probably a good thing people are such slobs and had destroyed most of the displays or I'm sure I would have bought more!

Fantasy Fire was one of the first polishes I saw when I was getting into polish (I act like it was so long ago, but it's less than a month!) but I didn't realize how rare it was until I actually tried to hunt it down to buy it.   Yowza!  I love love love the way the polish works, but I don't think I'll ever need it enough to pay that much for such a small bottle.  So, I did the next best thing: layers of glitter to remind me of it!

It's obviously not supposed to look just like it, but I really like the result!  It looks so static in the pictures, but whenever I move my fingers the colors of the flashing sparkles is constantly shifting red to gold to purple to blue.  I could have benefited from being a little more careful with the red layer, but live and learn!

The base is Celestial by Pure Ice.  It covered fairly well with one coat, though it bubbled a bit.  Probably my fault since I'm still getting the hang of doing "real" manicures on myself, but I wasn't concerned since the glitter would cover it no sweat.  

On top of the Celestial I put one generous coat each of Milani Red Sparkle, Milani Twinkle, and Essie As Gold As It Gets.  The Essie was an afterthought this morning literally two minutes before I dashed off to work, but I'm so glad I added it!  There are some gold sparkles in the Red Sparkle, but As Gold As It Gets looks so wonderful when the light hits it just right.

The pictures with the bottle are inside under a desk lamp and the two without are out in the sun.

Look at the way that picture came out! The glitter is coming aliiiiiiive!

I banged my hands around all day today at work as usual and it did start to chip already, but so far was easy to patch.  Definitely a manicure I'll do again! 

Easter Approaches!

So even though I don't normally do things like this, I reelcently signed up for the Julep Maven program! The penny deal really was too good to pass up!

I got Boho Chic (think that's what it's called) as my style, but for the first box I had to go for the one with gold glitter Polish. The other one was a bit more orange than I was expecting, but I still wanted to do something with it, so I attempted a gradient manicure!

Cleanup was a nightmare and I can see a hundred mistakes, but oh well. I initially did this over a white base and started stamping over it, but after not really loving the result and completely messing up one finger I took it all off and started again. This time I used Revlon Silver Dollar as a base, along with the Julep Polish and two L.A. Colors polishes I got at Dollar Tree. I do really need to get some pure acetone, though.

Two Glitter Manis!

Two different manicures to show today!  Please excuse the poor pictures--I usually paint my nails at night and then snap the pictures in my car before dashing off to work.  There's a reason my skin is so pale: I almost never get out in the sun except for a minute here and there. :P

So! First up is the black and gold.

The base polish is Dark Navy by e.l.f. with e.l.f.;s matte top coat on that.  The color is a really dark blue, almost black, though it just looks black with the matte coat.  Then I sponged Essie's As Gold As It Gets onto the ends.  I liked the manicure the first day, but by the second day that matte had started absorbing oils from lotion and my skin and the like and wasn't as nice as the first day.  Ah, well!

Took that off the next night and tried something new!

Base is one coat of Sally Hansen's Royal Romance with their Rockstar Pink over that. I love Rockstar Pink!  It's super packed with glitter and I love that there are blue sparkles in there as well.  The manicure is simply a blast to look at!

Now if only my package from a england would arrive... ;)

China Glaze Riveting & Essie Shine of the Times

Welllll, after a completely botched manicure that looked pretty but peeled right off, I decided to break out a color I've been meaning to try: one of the Hunger Games polishes, Riveting.  And riveting it is!

The pictures are with Shine of the Times on top.  Riveting is one of my favorite colors, though I've been having some serious problems with it bubbling no matter how long I wait between coats or how careful I am during the application.  But Shine of the Times adds a slight texture and hides the bubbles nicely.  Perfect!