a-england – Incense Burner

Hello!!

I have a little post today of one of the 4 new a-england polishes. The new collection is called Rosetti's Goddess and every one of the polishes is so very gorgeous! To start with, I have 'Incense Burner'. This is the darkest of the bunch – perfect for the winter weather here in Auckland at the moment.

This is how 'Incense Burner' appears in most lighting conditions. It is such a beautiful red toned brown. I love this sort of blackened brown colour – I think it's so easy to wear and looks good on anyone and everyone. The red undertones gives this a real rich feeling.

Just to be perfectly clear, this shimmer is not always obvious, but at weird angles of light this polish comes alive!! The shimmer in this shifts from red right through to a golden olive green. It is marvellous when you happen to catch sight of it and such a surprise. What a beauty!


As always, this had the formula we have all come to expect and love from a-england. It was very close to needing only 1 coat, but I have done 2 in these photos to ensure I get the full rich opacity of colour.

a-england polishes can be purchased from a lot of places around the world. You can only order direct from them if you are in the UK, but be sure to check out their list of worldwide distributors to find a place close to where you live. You can also follow a-england on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to keep up with the latest news from them.

This product was provided for review. This is my personal, unbiased opinion.

For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Briarwood - a-england

Holy moly! I put this polish on last night and couldn't wait to post it, so I quickly cropped the photos tonight and it has jumped to the front of the post queue. This is a-england 'Briarwood' from the recent 'Burne-Jones Dream' collection.

I knew from the minute I saw the collection that this one would be my favourite and I was not wrong. This polish is simply beautiful, I cannot even begin to explain... So, just look at the pictures of this brooding beauty (which don't capture anywhere near the full glory by the way).

What I didn't expect was the beautiful rusty brown colour that predominates. In the bottle I thought it would be much redder most of the time, but add the curve of a nail and the red is what catches the light amongst the rich mahogany colour. As you can probably guess, I am also in love with the blackened edges that occur (I always love that) and the holo makes it even more beautiful, really bringing out this luxurious polish.


And the icing on the velvety chocolate mud cake... 1 coat for full opacity! ONE! I used a second coat to make my cuticle edge neater, but as far as opacity goes it was entirely redundant. Adina, you are a woman after my heart with this beauty!

a-england polishes can be purchased from a lot of places around the world. Unfortunately, you can only order direct from them if you are in the UK, but be sure to check out their list of worldwide distributors to find a place close to where you live.

This product was provided for review. This is my personal, unbiased opinion.

For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Vampire's Dessert - Enchanted Polish

I am officially drowning in uni work and being sick still is simply not helping matters. One thing that is helping matters is the polish I am showing you today... If you follow me on Instagram you will already have seen my love for this polish (on more than one occasion). This is Enchanted Polish 'Vampire's Dessert'...

In my best Chandler Bing voice, "could this BE any more perfect?". 'Vampire's Dessert' is a gorgeous blackened chocolate/mahogany colour with linear scattered holo (does that make sense to anyone else? Scattered but linear?). In the light, you see these amazing flashes of rich colour that is sometimes a luscious red/brown (see top photo) and sometimes a more coppery brown. It is named perfectly as the two things I think of with this polish is chocolate and drying blood (not in a weird yuck way).

The formula. Well seeing as how this is a polish that I think all other vampy polishes dream of being... it's formula had to be outstanding right? Yep. Two coats that were super pigmented and applied like... melted chocolate :)

I purchased 'Vampire's Dessert' from Harlow and Co. (don't forget they do free shipping everywhere with purchases over $50 USD!!). Echanted Polish is also available from Llarowe and Mei Mei's Signatures as well as Enchanted Polish Big Cartel shop. I have actually just checked and this polish doesn't seem to be listed anywhere. But keep your eyes out on Facebook etc. Hopefully it will make a comeback and soon!

Essie - Shine Of The Times and OPI - Over The Taupe

I got my first flakie! I'm so excited about this polish! I've have been dreaming of owning Essie 'Shine Of The Times' since it first was blogged about last year, but unfortunately New Zealand doesn't really get much in the way of new collections by Essie. I've been keeping an eye out online for this pretty polish and it has never been in stock until Wednesday when I saw that Candy Girl (candygirl.co.nz - a Christchurch based online shop) had it back in stock! I ordered it straight away and it was in my letterbox yesterday morning (the very next day)! :)

I used OPI 'Over The Taupe' as my base colour underneath 'Shine Of The Times'...

'Over The Taupe' is a brown/taupe crème by OPI. The best way I can describe this colour is "mousey". It's such a soft and gentle colour.

I love this colour. It's a perfect work colour - subtle but something a little different. I love the way that it's essentially a brown nail polish but that in some lights it looks as though there is some grey in there and even at times a bit of a purple hue.



Now onto the wonder that is Essie's 'Shine Of The Times'...

This is from the 'Luxeffects' Collection released late last year. As I earlier mentioned, this is a flakie top coat.

The flakes in this polish are multi-chromatic and depending on the light, they range from looking red to  orange to gold to yellow to green. Like all of autumn in a single bottle of polish.

In this photo you can see more of the yellows and greens that shine through in this top coat when the light hits it at a more extreme angle.

From a more front on angle the reds and golds shine through. It's like a reflection of a bonfire burning on my nails.

You can really see the irregular beauty of the flakie pieces. Interestingly at some angles it looks as though there's nothing extra on your nails then you move just the tiniest bit and this fiery light suddenly bursts out to catch your eye.

Final macro pic just because I can't get enough of this polish!!


Now to the formulas of these polishes...
'Over The Taupe' is not my favourite polish to apply. Lucky I like the colour so much that it seems to make up for it. This polish is reasonably thin and is very difficult to make the colour even on the nail. It is a 2 coater if I take extra care during application, otherwise it is generally a careful 3 coater in order to get nice even coverage. The above swatches of 'Over The Taupe' are 2 coats using Essie 'Millionails' as my base coat and no top coat. Even though there's no top coat, you can see the beautiful gloss that results from this polish.
'Shine Of The Times' is rather thick and I thought it was going to be difficult to make it spread evenly. But... turns out it was really nice and easy to apply. It sort of just glided over the nail without much thought. On top of 'Shine Of The Times' I used a-England's 'The Shield' top coat and I'm super pleased to say that I have not one single chip after work last night. I was behind the bar last night which means scrubbing coffee machine, hands constantly in water and cleaning products and meths etc! Walking out with zero tip wear hardly ever happens after a Friday night.

Hope you enjoyed sharing my excitement about my first flakie! :)