Colors by Llarowe - Come Dance the Hora

Hello!

I'm still alive and I'm about 5 weeks away from my thesis being due so unfortunately I'm going to be all over the place for a little longer. Anywho, I have a quick post of a polish that I adore from Colors by Llarowe - 'Come Dance the Hora'.

'Come Dance the Hora' is a silver linear holo polish with various sizes of royal blue hex glitters. It is GORGEOUS! There's nothing really subtle about this polish, but I think the blue glitters in there just off-set the silver holo perfectly.


This polish is really buildable on its own, but a few coats might be needed. I think I used 3 here and you can see that's enough.


Colors by Llarowe polishes are available from Llarowe (obviously), but it is also available on Harlow & Co. These babies sell out seriously fast though! Luckily Leah Ann does pre-orders reasonably often though. Keep an eye on Llarowe's Twitter andFacebook pages for details on restocks etc.

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.

2 Year Blogiversary Mani

Hi hi!

As you know (if you saw my last post), my 2 year blogiversary has just been. I posted that day, but I hadn't had time to do anything particular on my nails at that point. I wanted to do a little 2 year anny mani for it, so that's what I am posting today. First up though, I just want to thank all you lovely people again for reading my blog, and commenting etc, and also thanks to the truly wonderful friends that I've made along the way. This blog is my little escape from studies and work and all those things and it is made just that much better by the interaction that I have with fantastic people from all over the world.

I really love how this mani came out. It is using a whole lot of products that I love which is perfect for this 2 year anny mani :) On my index and pinky fingers I used 1 coat of a-england 'Camelot' followed by 2 coats of Emily de Molly 'Dark Forces'. On my middle and ring fingers, I used 2 coats of Cult Nails 'Fetish'. My ring finger has a stud design using studs from Born Pretty Store. My middle finger is stamped with a-england 'Encore Margot' from the Ballerina collection and MoYou plate 05 from the Pro collection.

I won't get into formulas etc as most of these polishes have been reviewed previously on my blog - long story short, all of these polishes are wonderfully opaque, easy to use and they also wear remarkably well (even without top coat on 2 of my fingers).

Make sure you check out all the links to the stores of everything I used as they all make brilliant polish, plates and accessories!

Thanks again lovely readers xx

Encore Margot - a-england (& MoYou stamping)

Good evening! I have another a-england to show you tonight. This is another new beauty from the Ballerina Collection released recently - 'Encore Margot'.

This is a beautiful polish. It's a silver holo, yes, but it seems somehow more wearable than other silver polishes I own, somehow more delicate? It is quite a pure, white-ish silver, but it picks up all the beautiful colours in the holo effect.

As with the other 2 polishes from this collection I have shown you ('Her Rose Adagio' and 'Dancing With Nureyev'), I did a little stamping on it. It is very hard to tell, but I used both the previously mentioned polishes to make a subtle saran wrap mani underneath the stamping. It was a little more obvious in real life, but mainly just gave just slight changes in hue to the base colour in little patches. For the stamp I used MoYou plate 01 from the Artist Collection and my trusty bottle of a-england 'Camelot'.


The formula of 'Encore Margot' was, as usual, easy peasy to work with. I barely needed a second coat for full opacity and this one didn't pull at all or anything like that. Fast drying too.

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.

Excalibur - Version 2.0 - a-england

Hello!

I have the final polish from a-england's most recent releases to show you this evening. Tonight's polish is 'Excalibur' (version 2.0)...

'Excalibur' (2.0) is a silver foil, but there is certainly a lot of complexity. 'Excalibur' is packed full of bronzey gold particles to give it an almost gilded look. It gives it a slight antique look to me. These photos show 'Excalibur' without top coat.

I decided to do a bit of stamping over 'Excalibur' and this is the final product. I kept the stamping in the family, so to speak, and used a-england 'Bridal Veil' and 'Perceval' to stamp with and LeaLac XL-B stamping plate. Just to finish everything off, I added a couple of studs to each finger.


'Excalibur' was really easy to apply. I used 2 coats here for full opacity. As mentioned, the top photos show 'Excalibur' without top coat and if you were wearing it on its own, I'd certainly recommend top coat (as usual). I really enjoyed the final look and it got a fair few mentions, though people kept asking me if they were stickers ;)

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.

Kiwi Olympic Nails

It had to happen. I had to jump on the bandwagon and do some olympic nails at some point right? Well the other night, I was feeling patriotic and I had been called off work so I decided it was time I showed some support via my nails. I wanted to do something silver fern inspired and I was going to just draw some silver ferns on but I tried a few things and this is what I ended up with...

So my pinky finger is silver fern inspired if you use your imagination :) and the others... Well they just sort of happened. I used a-england 'Camelot' and 'Excalibur' and these polishes are truly brilliant. Both one coaters (even I left it at one coat - unheard of). The base colour on each nail is just a single coat of perfectly formulated polish.

For the gradients, I mostly followed Sammy's tutorial and on my middle finger, I just brushed a tiny bit of Dollish Polish '3 Best Friends That Anyone Could Have' to give just a wee dash of colour. On my ring finger, I stuck some Born Pretty Store loose glitter (aka "glequins") on. I made my pinky finger matte with Essie's 'Matte About You' and then stamped (using 'Excalibur') with BM210.

I love the spartkle that '3 Best Friends That Anyone Could Have' gives the gradient and the microglitter in it just seems to carry on the gradient perfectly.



I have loved wearing these nails, they're a bit of fun. Also With the Kiwi's having won three golds in the rowing in the last 2 days, I feel even more patriotic then ever :) Not bad for our little country, I am one proud Kiwi (of all our athletes actually!). Back to the nails... I've already said how brilliant the formula was on 'Excalibur' and 'Camelot'. As far as black polish goes, I don't think it gets much better than 'Camelot' and 'Excalibur' is the perfect silver and stamps like a dream.
Well that's all from me, I need to get in a bit more study before I go back to watching the olympics. Hope you're all enjoying watching the Olympics too. Don't know about you, but I get so inspired when I see all these amazing people doing such amazing things.

As usual, a-england is available from their website and remember they have free worldwide shipping :D

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 :)

Road House Blues - OPI and another go at stamping!

Oh no! I'm not a happy chappy right now! This often comes as a surprise, even to people who know me really well, but I have a massive love for Formula 1, especially all things Sebastian Vettel. Well, I have just watched him retire from the Valencia Grand Prix and let's just say I am one grumpy lady!

Anyway, on to happier thoughts... Today I've got a simple mani that I have actually loved wearing for the last couple of days.

This is 'Road House Blues' from last years Touring America collection by OPI. 'Road House Blues' is a gorgeous dark indigo crème polish. I love any polish that is at all navy-like and this is certainly one of my favourite crèmes in my whole collection.

You can see in this photo that this polish is certainly not the type that just looks black. I love how inky this colour is. In any sort of bright-ish light, this polish appears very blue.

I decided I wanted to have another little go at stamping but I didn't want to entirely cover up 'Road House Blues', so I thought I'd try the double feature nails that I've seen around a bit lately. I used China Glaze 'Sci-Fi' for the stamping with plate BM 208 (both images are on this plate). I actually just got 'Sci-Fi' recently from Nail Polish Anon's blog sale and it's perfect for stamping, so thanks Michaela!



'Road House Blues' was easy to apply. Two simple coats with no problems at all. As I mentioned earlier 'Sci-Fi' was great for stamping and I like that it's got that purpley tinge to it, giving it a bit of difference from a plain silver polish. I did get pretty impatient and top coated way to quickly so I did smudge everything a bit, but it's really not very noticeable in real life. Overall, I really like how this turned out and I love the double feature. I think I'll definitely be sporting this sort of mani again in the near future.


One more quick thing, I have been awarded an Appreciation Award from the lovely Kelsie from Kelsie's Nail Files! Thank you so much Kelsie!

To be honest, I have no idea what to do with this. I think I'm supposed to pass it on, but I don't think I can choose only a few blogs from the ones that I follow. Basically I love and appreciate every single blog that I follow so that's my choice! I know it's a bit of a cop-out but that's just the truth! Thanks again Kelsie :)

Designer... De Better! - OPI

I have been braving the glitters a lot lately, I must say, even though I so desperately dread their removal (thank goodness for the old tin-foil trick!). Today I have a pretty full-on foil for you all from OPI's recent holiday collection - The Muppets Collection. This is 'Designer... De Better!'

I've never worn a silver foil before because I feel they can be a little obnoxious (plus I feel as though I should be donning a silver foil space suit to match), but 'Designer... De Better!' has a little secret weapon to make it slightly more approachable in the form of its copper particles. In bright full sunlight (see the right side of my nails), this polish becomes mirror like and oh-so-shiny...

... Head into some shade and the copper/orange colour really takes the stage, giving this the look of an entirely different polish.

The usual close-up action so you can see those great little copper pieces that mean that I was brave enough to wear (and enjoy wearing) this polish. The main silvery colour of this polish is actually slightly leaning to a creamy silver which seems to add to the appeal.


Absolutely easy application. I did use three coats but I'm not convinced that I actually needed the last one. Removal was, as expected, an absolute bugger. For anyone reading this blog who doesn't know about the tin-foil method of removal... You soak a cotton pad in remover and wrap it around your nail, wrap some tin-foil around the cotton pad and forget about it for a couple of minutes. I actually usually wrap around two or three fingers together with one pad and foil, leaving me with little crab pincers for a while :) After a bit, put a little pressure on your nail through the foil and pull it off the nail (wiping along the nail as it comes off) and ta-da... Most of the polish should have come off in one go. This way of removing glitter polishes is the only reason I dare to use them. One thing... the remover will leave your skin pretty dry after so make sure you give your cuticles some extra TLC. One more tip... If you are doing any clean up of this polish after painting your nails, beware! The glitter will go EVERYWHERE!! I used Essie 'Millionails' as the base coat and again I opted for the slightly thicker Sally Hansen 'Insta-Dri' as the top coat to try to avoid a funny texture.