A bit o' stamping with a-england and Cult Nails...

So I know I hardly ever do nail art on here and really I'd love to do more, but I'm just not so good at it! I know, I know practice makes perfect, so after exams I'm going to try my hand (lol sorry!) at a bunch of different techniques.

Anyway on to the post... What better way to procrastinate from studying than to do some stamping. I'm quite a rookie so this is quite a scary endeavor! And as I show you guys my dominant hand (my right one), it's particularly scary. You all see the work of my VERY unco left hand in my pics :)

I started off with the fabulous 'Elaine' from a-england's The Mythicals collection. 'Elaine' is a gorgeous dark purple that is one of the glorious darks that never becomes too dark so as to appear black. It keeps it's purple tones perfectly!

'Elaine' is a sort of aubergine purple. These two photos show 'Elaine' with no top coat! Yes, she is naturally this shiny. LOVE!

Next up I used another of a-england's beauties 'Princess Tears' to stamp an image from Bundle Monster's plate BM04. I've seen a few people using 'Princess Tears' for stamping recently and I loved the subtle beauty of it, so I thought I'd give it a go. It was very easy to stamp with, giving me no problems at all!

I love how the holo in 'Princess Tears' still manages to shimmer away. So pretty. By the way, if you want to see 'Princess Tears' on her own, have a look here.

A bit of a close up on the design. I've never used this design on myself before, but I tried it out on my Mum back at christmas time when I first got the stamping plates.

Seeing as how I apparently can't leave well enough alone, I just had to apply this beauty that arrived in my mail box that morning...

This is Cult Nails 'Seduction' and it's my first taste of the Cult!! I got Cult Nails base and top coats (more about them at the end) and I couldn't resist getting this too. I think there are going to be MANY more Cult Nails polishes joining my stash in the not so distant future. Anyway... 'Seduction' has a purpley-blue jelly base with a whole lot of gorgeous flakies. They shine so many different colours! Red, orange, copper...

... Green, yellow, blue...

And all at the same time! I love 'Seduction'! It's got just enough pieces to give good coverage without over-powering. I just want to mention that I'm almost entirely blaming loving Marta of Chit Chat Nails who has made me want Cult Nails polishes for a long time and finally I couldn't stand seeing her amazing swatches of them for another moment without trying them for myself. So thanks Marta!

Right, to the formulas... 'Elaine' was nothing short of perfection. Almost opaque at one coat so that the second coat provided perfect coverage and HIGH shine! 'Seduction' was also a pleasure. I used one simple coat and it was easy to get enough flakies and they spread really easily too. I used the other newbies to my stash for this too. I used Cult Nails 'Get It On' base coat and 'Wicked Fast' top coat. I've seen so much hype about these online lately and so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Well let me just say that I took this manicure off this afternoon (about an hour ago) and it had been on for 7 days! I had no chips and barely any tip-wear! I have to say this is probably partly due to the AMAZING wear time that a-england polishes have, but I have given my nails a bit of a thrashing this past week too! I have since put on my next mani with Cult Nails base and top coats and we'll see how it goes this time, but after this first go... I can see why all the raving!

a-england polishes are available for £9 with free worldwide shipping from their website and Cult Nails polishes are available from their website for $10USD. Both are also available from a bunch of e-tailers.

Fast Track - China Glaze

I've got for you all today a beauty that I know has been on pretty much every blog already, but I figure the hype has settled a bit now, so I may as well throw my piece in too. This is China Glaze's 'Fast Track' from The Hunger Games 'Capitol Colors' released just recently.

From the very first moment I saw the previews of this collection on all the blogs, this was by far the colour that I was most excited about (weird I know). I love neutral shades and the gold in this just made my heart skip a beat every time it popped onto my screen! When this beauty arrived at my door, it was even better in real life! I LOVE this polish!!!

'Fast Track' reminds me of those suede couches where if you brush the fabric one way it changes colour. I used to love visiting people with these couches and making all sorts of pretty patterns! The simple things in life ay?! Anyway 'Fast Track' is a gorgeous soft beige colour with that kind of glitter/flake/glass fleck that I love!

In lower indoor ambient light, the polish deepens slightly and somehow the gold becomes more apparent! Now this polish reminds me of cashmere. 'Fast Track' represents District 6 (transportation), but it makes me think of District 8 (textiles) lots! Best thing about this polish... the gold never becomes lost!

I love this type of finish but I just don't know how to describe it! And I also love that 'Fast Track' is jam-packed with these little glass flecks/flakes/glitters.

The formula on this polish was also perfect! I used two coats on my left hand and it was opaque to the naked eye, but I did a third coat on my right hand for photo purposes as the macro settings on my camera love to make polish look like it's less opaque! Overall we have a major winner! I used a-england's 'The Knight' as my base coat and Essie 'Good To Go' on top.

Kiwi's, this polish is available on Candy Girl for $14.95.

Khloé Had A Little Lam-Lam - Nicole by OPI & Heart Of Glass - Dollish Polish

I have been dying to try this Nicole by OPI polish since I got it so long ago but for some reason I didn't until now. This is 'Khloé Had A Little Lam-Lam', one of the Kardashian Kolors released in 2011.

First up, apologies for the sorry state of my cuticles! I didn't realise they were so bad until I was going through these photos for this post! Anyway... 'Khloé Had A Little Lam-Lam' is A-MA-ZING!!! This is without top coat and look how shiny! It's a gorgeous blackened tealy colour and oh boy do I just love it!

It can actually look quite green-y blue in certain lighting. The top photo shows the blackened side of it with this photo showing a bit more of the ocean blue/green. How the bottle looks in this photo is about as blue as it gets on the nail.



After I put this polish on, I wasn't satisfied and I had not long since received two more Dollish Polishes. I had seen 'Heart of Glass' on Nail Polish Anon over navy and knew more than ever that I needed that polish. So here I was with my new bottle of 'Heart of Glass' thinking I might have to go ahead and try it over 'Khloé Had A Little Lam-Lam', seeing as it looked so perfect over navy on Michaela. By the way, if any of you haven't been over to Michaela's blog, you may want to get onto that :) She's a fellow kiwi blogger and her blog is awesome. She is possibly the most to blame for my new-found indie polish love!

It was such crappy weather the day I put this on and I took literally hundreds of photos trying to get even one that resembled just how freaking gorgeous this really was, but I didn't get any! You will have to take my word for it when I say this is a holographic glitter dream come true and even better in real life!

Isn't it perfect! And another reason why I love this, I have never really jumped on the whole bar glitter bandwagon as they make me think of something that I'm not going to get into here :p But I have to say the little bars in this are just right and I wouldn't have it any other way!

I just had to add in this macro. Don't you love the quirks that come with glitter polishes! Like that bunch of bar glitter where the cuts haven't separated them fully. It kept catching my eye :)

So there you have it, another post of polishes that I love! I promise I am capable of feeling other emotions, just not very often when it comes to polishes. It has become something of a challenge to me to find a polish that I put on and can truly say that I hate.

The formulas on both these polishes were also the stuff that dreams are made of! 'Khloé Had A Little Lam-Lam' was so close to being a one coater and anyone with a steadier hand than me (not hard) could certainly make one coat work, I think. It's pretty thick but in the best way. Something else that I loved is that it was super forgiving. I was in such a hurry to get this polish on that I whacked it straight onto my strengthener without any base coat. The Essie strengtheners that I use have tended to make polish pull and do all sorts of weird stuff but this polish didn't care about any of that. It just spread itself onto my nails like butter on hot toast! As I said earlier, the photos up top are sans top coat and you can see just how shiny that bad boy is! 'Heart Of Glass' was also very easy! The shards did tend to settle pretty quick so make sure you give it a good mix. It was easy to get a good wash of the holo and bar glitter and all the glitters sat perfectly flat except one little piece on my thumb. I used a single coat of Essie 'Good To Go' on top.

'Khloé Had A Little Lam-Lam' is available in NZ at Farmers, Smith & Caughey and a bunch of pharmacies. 'Heart of Glass' can be purchased from Dollish Polish website, though not currently. I think Dolly is having a restock soon but unfortunately this won't be one of the polishes in this round.

Floam - Nail-Venturous

I have today, a polish that needs no introduction. Nail-Venturous 'Floam'. From the very first moment I saw this polish on blogs earlier this year, it became a bit of an obsession of mine to get my hands on it! Cut forward to May and well... the rest, as they say, is history...

So here it is, the coveted 'Floam'. It's a mixture of blue, green and yellow matte glitter. And yes, I am, like the rest of the polish world right now, completely CRAZY for these little matte pieces of happiness!

The whole time I was wearing this polish, the weather was pretty average, so I didn't manage to get a photo in full sun. The brighter the light on this beauty, the more the yellow seems to come to life. The first photo is by far the brightest and as we go through to less intense light, you'll see the blue especially take more centre-stage.

So here we have it in very overcast "sun". Not such an obnoxious polish in this sort of lighting. I have to say I loved it best in bright light so it was a colour over-load but I liked that it could tone-down a fair whack as well.

A macro to show you just what exactly makes up this polish that sends me speeding back to the good old days of my childhood in the '90's.



'Floam' is absolutely jam-packed with glitter so this is 3 coats for pretty awesome opacity. It was so super easy to apply and the glitter was quite happy to stay exactly where I put it. One thing is that this polish is THICK! It's OK though, because it didn't affect application at all. 'Floam' was also really fast-drying, so you don't have to wait a hundred years between coats to make sure the glitter doesn't pull away from your cuticles. The glitter is pretty hungry so I used two thick coats of Essie 'Good To Go' on top and it was still a little bit gritty (I don't mind this though). Anywho, I'm so glad I got 'Flaom'! I don't think I would have ever rested until it was safely in my box(es) of polish :)

I purchased 'Floam' from Ninja Polish for $9USD. It's currently out of stock but keep an eye out and if you want it, pop your name down for email notification of when it's back in stock.

Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh? & French Quarter For Your Thoughts - OPI

Hi folks!

I've got a couple of nice neutral polishes to show you today. I'm just less than two weeks out from exams so the easy to apply, easy to photograph polishes have been popping up a bit more.

The first one I have to show you is 'Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?' from OPI's recent Holland Collection.

'Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?' is a nice camel/beige neutral crème. At first when I applied this, I wasn't in love as I looked pretty ghostly white, but I got used to it and ended up loving it.

I love the elegant simplicity of these types of shades. And so work-appropriate.




Next up, 'French Quarter For Your Thoughts' also by OPI. This polish came from their Touring America collection, released for Fall 2011...

I didn't realise just how close this colour was to 'Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh' until just now I put the bottles side by side and they look the same! On the nail they are actually quite different though. 'French Quarter For Your Thoughts' is an ever so slightly yellowed grey. I always thought this was a really clean grey but it's not quite.

I only have a mini bottle of 'French Quarter For Your Thoughts' and I could not make my fingers look right so I'm just holding Essie 'Good To Go' here. In indirect light, it looks much less like 'Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh' and much more grey.



'Did You 'Ear about Van Gogh?' is fairly easy, formula-wise, as far as neutrals go. I needed 3 thin coats. It's actually fairly opaque after two coats, but the third was needed in order to smooth everything out.
As for 'French Quarter For Your Thoughts', not so fun. I think this is solely due to the fact that it's a mini bottle and, therefore, has a ridiculously small brush. I'm not super experienced with these wee brushes so I couldn't seem to load enough polish on to the brush and if I did get enough on there, the polish seemed to pool at my cuticles. The moral of the story is that I'm pretty sure for a regular bottle, 2 coats would suffice, but for my silly bottle, three was needed to get it smooth and even.
For both of these I used a-england's 'The Knight' underneath and Essie 'Good To Go' on top.

Master Chief - Dollish Polish

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and realised that I never posted this onto my blog yesterday! Oh dear! Study brain is in full swing. Well never mind, here it is now...

Today I have an absolutely gorgeous polish from indie brand Dollish Polish. I have always lusted after Dolly's beauties and just happened to check Twitter soon after she'd opened her shop one day and thought I'd see what was left. Needless to say 99% of the shop was sold out (as I came along around 30 mins after it had opened), but there was one or two things left. I managed to snaffle some mini bottles of this and that and then I saw a full-sized 'Master Chief' (part of the Gamer Series). I had never seen swatches of this or anything but I thought green = good, holo = GOOD so what could go wrong? Oh boy am I glad I got it!

'Master Chief' is an amazing muted apple green with a scattered holo effect. You can see in this photo that there's a sort of gold duochrome going on too.

The holo is so pretty and the blue hues of the holo shine through beautifully against the green.

I think this is taken in cloudy sun (does that make any sense?). The scattered holo is so pretty! You can see a tiny bit of VNL in this photo, but it wasn't really visible at all in real life.

In certain light (eg lower light like this photo), you get this awesome coppery flash. It was so hard to capture, but was actually quite noticeable in real life. You can just see a tiny bit of it happening on my pinkie finger.

Just one last pretty photo. Got a bit of the gold and copper flash mixed in here. MMMMhmmm I love this polish!


This polish was a little bit sheer to start with but it builds quite nicely. This is just three thin coats and like I said earlier, you can still see a little bit of VNL in some of the photos but that wasn't a problem in real life. 'Master Chief' was perfectly thin and spread really easily without any pulling or pooling at my cuticles.

Dollish Polish is available from here, most things are out of stock right now but I just checked and at least some of the polishes from her newest collection 'Dolly Does Polish' are available.

Princess Tears - a-england

I am just gonna cut straight to the chase today because I cannot wait another second to show you this beauty! Never mind my line of things to be posted, this had to be shown right away. This is 'Princess Tears' from a-england's 'The Legend' collection.

Each time I put on one of Adina's a-england beauties, I think to myself, it cannot be possible that there is a polish more beautiful, that I could possibly love more (think Bridal Veil)... Well, it turns out there is... 'Princess Tears' is the most jaw-droppingly beautiful polish and, right now, more loved by me than much else I can think of...

Let's start with the holo. It has a gorgeous subtle linear holo effect. I just want to be clear that when I say "subtle linear", I don't mean that it isn't obvious, because it really is in most light.

Add to that a duochrome effect and we have a winner! The duochrome was really hard to capture but it too is really quite obvious in real life. It shifts from a gorgeous pinky-lilac to a steely purple-grey. 

Here you can see a tiny bit of how the duochrome effect plays in full light, with each nail appearing slightly different. At times, the edges of the grey even appears ever so slightly green.

In slightly lower light, a lavender/silver veil is cast over this princess, softening her ever so slightly.

But by far my most favourite part of 'Princess Tears' is this surprisingly bright pink/purple flash that lights up my nails. I didn't expect this to be so vibrant and on top of that, it's not at all shy and jumps out in all lights in real life. The one thing is, that I could not for the life of me capture its true splendour. It's just one of those things that you will have to take my word for, or preferably see for yourself!

Another glimpse at the flashes of pink. It forms stripes of colour down my nails and I keep imagining that this is the streak of the princesses tears.

A quick macro and you can see that 'Princess Tears' is jam-packed with those holo particles that I love so much.

First up, I have to give a word of warning... 'Princess Tears' is super distracting and that's pretty dangerous in the last few lectures before exams. It also doesn't bode well for me focusing on studying for said exams. 

As to the formula... Once again, Adina has made a perfect colour all the more perfect by giving it a foolproof formula. I had read that this was a 3 coater and I was all prepared to do that, but no, 'Princess Tears' surprises me once more with only needing two oh-so-simple coats. I used 'The Knight' base coat and 'The Shield' on top and had zero issues with dragging or any other holo related problems one might imagine.

So the message for today... Actually there's two... If you have this pretty, don't take as long as I did to try it (in my defense, I was waiting for the perfect weather to capture all its glory) and secondly if you don't have this pretty... Get your butt over to a-england's website and order it because it's only £9 and the ever-generous Adina still has free worldwide shipping! Well, what are you waiting for?