a-england - Excalibur Renaissance

Press Sample

Hi!!

I've finished exams! YAHOOO. Although I am not having a break, it is nice to be back in the lab and be able to come home in the evening and relax a bit (and do my nails). I have an a-england to show you today which will most likely be a bit of an old friendly face despite this being a new release. Excalibur was originally retired and revamped (you can see that version here), but recently 'Excalibur Renaissance' was released.

'Excalibur Renaissance' is a gorgeous platinum/silver metallic foil polish. This is quite a striking polish when worn as a full mani. It seriously catches the light in the most eye-catching way. Gorgeous. This is very similar to the original 'Excalibur', but to my eye the shimmer is a little finer. I think that makes this polish a little smoother and less brush strokey than the original.

My favourite way to use 'Excalibur' has always been as a stamping polish as it's so darn opaque. 'Excalibur Renaissance' lived perfectly up to my expectations and stamped just as easily as its predecessor. Here, I have stamped using 'Excalibur Renaissance' and MoYou plate 01 from the Artist Collection - underneath is OPI 'Manicurist of Seville'.


Overall, this polish was up to the usual high a-england standard as far as formula goes. Opacity is ridiculously good with one coat being super opaque. The only thing is that a little care needs to be taken  to minimise brush strokes, but it's not too bad.

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. 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.

Dorian Gray - a-england

It's Gothic Beauties installment number 3 tonight and this time I have 'Dorian Gray'. I think I'll mainly let the pictures do the talking...

This is quite different from the other polishes in this collection, but still seems to fit perfectly. 'Dorian Gray' is a pewter grey colour that has a ton of shimmer in it giving it a somewhat metallic look.

'Dorian Gray' can be a bit of a chameleon and like a lot of a-england polishes, the shimmer is not simply one colour. Apart from the silver/pewter colour, I can see coppery gold shimmer predominantly and though it's not particularly obvious on the nail, it gives the polish a real depth (you can catch a glimpse of it on my pinky finger).

In keeping with the rest of the collection, 'Dorian Gray' has its blackened side too. I love this veiled look of 'Dorian Gray', I feel as though it gives it a real sense of mystery, as though there's something more to this polish that you can't quite put your finger on.


The formula of 'Dorian Gray' was also in line with the other Gothic Beauties - in other words it was really opaque and 2 thin, easy coats gave perfect coverage. I was originally a bit worried that it may appear brush-strokey, but this wasn't at all the case. This isn't my favourite polish of the collection, but that is absolutely not to say that I don't like it. In fact, I really do like 'Dorian Gray' a lot, I just happen to like the others more (I love a collection where I still adore my least favourite of the bunch). If the other Gothic Beauties seem a bit dark for you, then this is definitely the one to look at getting as it is dark enough to still have the gothic feel to it without ever appearing anywhere near black.

a-england polishes are available from a range of places online now, I have always ordered mine from the a-england site.

If you haven't seen them, have a look at 'Lady of Shalott' and 'Jane Eyre' too.

This product was provided for review. This is my personal, unbiased opinion.
For more information, see my disclosure policy.

First Water Marbling Attempt!

Today I have for you my very first attempt at a water marble mani! I've always looked at pictures and tutorials for water marbling and thought that I'd love to give it a go some time, but I was never brave enough. Well, yesterday I plucked up the courage to give it a good go. It took a fair while but I have to say I'm pretty happy with how it came out considering it was my first go... To the pics...

Here it is! I used three of my gorgeous a-england polishes - 'Saint George', 'Excalibur' and 'Avalon' - and OPI 'No Room For The Blues'.

I came up with this colour combo in the middle of the night the other night and I think it was pretty cool. I want to try a bit more subtle water marble in the near future, but I do love how this one looked. 'Excalibur' tended to spread further than the others so that's why the silver is a bit more prominent in 2 of my fingers.

 

You can see what I mean about the silver spreading in these photos (plus I just love the look of the bullseye! So pretty). A handy tip I picked up from LTHP was to use a smaller glass so that you can get a tighter bullseye with less polish, though in saying that I didn't actually end up doing a tight bullseye at all.

There's a couple of kinks that definitely need to be ironed out. I'm not 100% sure why, but I got a few bubbles. I have actually since found a pretty awesome little tips and tricks post from Lacquerish that may explain this little problem. Like I said earlier, I am definitely going to be giving this technique another go soon, hopefully with a bit more finesse thanks to the things I've learned! It was so much fun, albeit very messy!

These are the designs on my thumbs. I didn't really get fantastic pictures of them, but you can certainly get the idea. My thumbs ended up being some of my favourites! Both of my thumbs some how came out with perfect little french tips in silver on my right thumb (see the left side of the top pic) and in purple in my left thumb (the right side of the bottom picture) - please excuse the tip wear, I got called into work last night and they got a bit thrashed!

Just because this is a post about my first marbling attempt, I thought I'd better pop in a photo of the actual first finger. This is on my left hand (hence it not being in the other photos) but it's kind of cool. Very different to the more flower sort of designs on most of my right fingers.

So what do you guys think? I had so much fun doing this mani and I can't wait to try some other exciting techniques. Anyone with any tips or suggestions about how to avoid pesky water bubbles, please let me know in the comments section! One other small problem I had was with top coat. Every single one of my top coats except one, Essie's 'Good To Go', made the polishes go all blended and cloudy. Particularly 'Saint George' would tend to mix with both 'Excalibur' and 'No Room For The Blues'. Curious, but luckily I tried my other top coats on my left hand fingers and thumb before doing anything on my right fingers :)

Per Suede Me - Nicole By OPI

I have another one of Mum's polishes to show you all today. Another slightly less heard of polish from Nicole by OPI. This is 'Per Suede Me'.

'Per Suede Me' is a metallic grey/purple polish. It's a real chameleon! The colour ranges from looking quite silvery through a dark grey to purple. I didn't think I'd like this one as much as I do.

In bright sunlight, 'Per Suede Me' gives off a silvery/grey metallic look. It's still dark enough that it's very wearable though.

Yes, this is the same polish! This is 'Per Suede me' indoors in indirect sunlight. Everything becomes deeper and darker and gives a real purple look to the grey. The cooler tones really become the focus. This is how I like 'Per Suede Me' best.

In this close-up, you can see just how densely packed the tiny little sparkly particles are. There seems to be a whole rainbow in there! Isn't it amazing?


This was such a pleasant surprise for me. I'm not a huge lover of metallic looking polishes generally, but if I found more like 'Per Suede Me', I may well just change my mind! I was also pleasantly surprised by the application of this beauty. I thought brush strokes might be an issue, but that wasn't really the case at all. I did 3 coats and I think it needed it, as with 2 coats you could see just the smallest sign of VNL. Plus the third coat gave this polish a bit more depth and it all came alive that little bit more with that little extra opacity.