A-England Mythicals Review (Elaine, Galahad, Lancelot, Tristam)

About A-England

A-England is an indie nail polish brand created by a lovely lady called Adina Bodana and based in London, England. The concept behind the brand is great - beautiful, quality polishes to 'crown your hands and feet'. 

The Mythicals collection is a range of regal colours with majestic names taken from the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (wiki). I love this touch, it really gives a whole new level of authenticity to the brand and truly shows the love that's been poured in to creating the collection.

Swatches clockwise from top left: Elaine*, Galahad*, Lancelot*, Tristam*.

Elaine
Swatches here
Elaine is the ultimate Royal Purple. Application is flawless in two coats and it's so shiny, even without a top coat! Elaine and Galahad have very similar formulas - they're so creamy which makes them very easy to apply.


Galahad
Swatches here
Turquoise is my absolute favourite colour to wear on my nails and Galahad fits the bill perfectly. Again, it's a two coater - the formula is creamy and applies like a dream.


Lancelot
Swatches here
You can just about tell from the swatches that Lancelot is a red tinged black shade. Super vampy and a heart-breaker, just like it's namesake. My only qual with this shade is that it chips much quicker than the others - after about 2 days tip wear was quite visible. It's still a reasonably long lasting polish but the other shades lasted longer before they started chipping on the tips.


Tristam
Swatches here
Aaah Tristam. This is truly a beautiful polish. In shade or under artificial light, it's a pretty, glass flecked Indigo shade but in sunlight, the holographic effect is revealed and it sparkles every colour of the rainbow. This is going to be gracing my toes a lot in the summer months!


You can buy The Mythicals Collection from a-england.co.uk with free worldwide shipping.

A-England on Twitter
A-England on Facebook

*items were sent for consideration (see my disclosure policy for more details)


Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

Feeling all Warm & Fozzie with OPI

OPI's  Muppets Collection is one I was so excited about and I am not at all disappointed!

This manicure is OPI Warm & Fozzie with accent finger and tips in OPI Nevermore from the Go Goth 2010 Halloween set.



Browns do not work on me but this I can manage.



OPI description is : Warm
& Fozzie A feel-good shade of metallic copper.

But it's so much more than that, there are flecks of rose

Honk if you love OPI - DS Original

Honk if you love OPI is from the Touring America collectionA gorgeous blackened berryI free handed some sadly misshapen v french tips and my ring finger with DS OrigionalI love blackened shades like this where you can easily in any light tell the color but it's so very deep and vampy stillI used 2 coats of Honk if you <3 OPI and one of DS OriginalVampy and holo is a favorite combo for it they

LCN Magnetic Polish fun

I was given the opportunity to try LCN Magnetic polishes and they are so fun!This is the kit I was sent...The magnets are great! One is the star and the other stripesI used Fuschia Attraction and Green Temptation and both magnetsI alternated the magnets because well I like it that wayThese polishes are straight one coat colors, no layering needed. I love that!This was my first try using these so

Born Pretty Plate M73 and White Stamping Polish Review

As you may have noticed, or read here before, I never use Special polishes for stamping. This is partly because of the price tag but mostly because I have been lucky enough to find plenty of regular polishes that work well for stamping. You can see my list here, although it needs a bit of updating!

The white I use for stamping from Stargazer isn't 100% opaque so I wanted to try a special polish to get the extra oomph!

From the Born Pretty Store, I ended up ordering a white stamping polish [here] and the duplicate M73 plate [here]. 

I've written a quick post in the past with my thoughts on the BP plates [here] and everything I said still stands.

The image of the musical notes is not very well 'carved out' at all, there is next to no definition so I don't think I will be using it. But this is clear in the picture on the product page so at least you know with BP that what you see is what you get and they aren't using pictures that misrepresent their products.

I went ahead and decided to use the white polish with the swirly flower design which is the one I was most excited about and I cannot express how disappointed I was when my mani turned out like this!

My stamper hardly picked up any of the design and I'm inclined to blame it on the plate since my stamper has worked perfectly forever and the polish worked (albeit not that well, but we'll get on to that later) on the geometric design.

I don't think this white qualifies as a stamping polish. It's actually less opaque than the Stargazer White I use currently which you can see stamped here.

Konad Plate: Born Pretty M73
Base Colour: Collection 2000 - Hot Purple
Konad Colour: Born Pretty White Stamping Polish
Top Coat of NYC

So to sum up, I am disappointed with these two prodcuts from Born Pretty. If I was desperate for a white stamping polish this would probably suffice but I don't think I'll be using it. I'm going to leave it on my windowsill with the lid off for a few days to see if it works any better then. Also, the bottle is very small. I can't find exact details anywhere on the site or on the bottle but I would guess it's about 5ml.
If you are looking for a white polish for stamping, take a look at Marta's post here. She uses Sally Hansen Whirlwind white and it looks incredible, completely opaque! If anyone knows where to get this and would be willing to send it to me, please get in touch because I need it in my life!

As you can see, I only tried two of the designs from the plate. The scattered square design works great but the flower one isn't usable. It's no devastation because I only paid a few dollars for it but still, you expect your designs to come out no matter how much you pay. If the designs don't work, is it even an image plate or just a slice of metal?

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

OPI has got THE Blues

I had the urge for blue the other day so I grabbedNicole by OPI It's not me it's Blue and OPI Road house Blues from the Touring America CollectionI was feeling polk a doty so I played with contrasting dots on all my fingersI just used my smallest dotting tool and got a little randomHmmmm....My ring finger has dots of It's not me it's blue all the way up the outer side but the lighting makes it

Who doesn't love an Emerald Isle

This is another beautiful Best Nail Treatments colorEmerald Isle is a gorgeous Emerald green slightly blackened background with a teal shimmerIn the bottle it looks like a deep teal but on the nail you can see more of the EmeraldThis is 2 coats in lightbox lightingI love the formula, it's so easy to work with and so far non of the colors I've used (including this one) stained my hands or nails. I

Vieux Carre OPI - A French Quarter for your thoughts

Vieux Carre  is creole, it means the old quarter (referring to the French Quarter)Hubby being a NOLA boy reacted to the color with "why is it gray". lolIf you've ever been to New Orleans Louisiana then you know whyhe found it odd, all of New Orleans is so full of color it's almost too much, but not.I think it's intended more to be the beautiful old stone work buildings and the famous cemeteries

Best Nail Treatment - Review and swatches

I was contacted a while back by Lynn, the lovely owner of  BNTabout trying her line of nail products and after my drooling and wavering due to the beautiful selection of nail colors I finally picked a couple and I have been testing these in a serious way!You can check out the shades hereLeft to right: Air Cure system Base coat, Grape Crush, French Twist and Air Cure System fast dry Top CoatNow I

Fotolia stock picture fun

I had the opportunity to try fotolia and I wanted to share my thoughts with you.At first I thought I really wouldn't use "stock photos" but figured I wouldgo look around and at least see what it was all about. Now call me hooked!
Now for BNP&LG I obviously use my own pictures and the same for Evil Shades, but after checking outfotolia I found a great use that I hadn't thought of....Banners,

China Glaze Metallic Crackle Glaze Skittles

I thought crackle skittles would be fun on my new mini nailsThe China Glaze Metallic Crackles are such fun colorsRight to left, top to bottom: Latticed Lilac, Haute Metal (My favorite), Cracked medallion, Platinum Pieces and Tarnished goldTarnished gold up closeI did this a little thicker to get wider cracksThese give a lighter application so you can do a subtle crackle finish or apply thicker

China Glaze Metallic Crackle glaze- Oxidized Aqua

China Glaze new Metallic Crackle collection is 6 shades of metallic crackle fun!Oxidized Aqua is well, a metallic aqua. :o)The metallic look of this crackle gives it cool effect....aged almostIt dries quickly and you can make a finer cracked look by using a thin coat or wider, heavier cracks by using a thicker coatI like it without top coat but if you want a smoother shiny finish top oat works

Making Lem-on aid!

OK the titles lame but the polish is hot!Color Club Get your Lem-on from the Wicked Sweet collection (Lemon scented nom)This is 3 coats of neon perfection!The subtle green shift from the green shimmer makes this color fantabulous!I added some cute little Skully kitty Angels and Devils to me this up a bitAnd one lone buggerfly because my pinkie nail is way too narrow for most nail decalsThis

Zoya Sunshine & Summertime - Tanzy

I had a wild need for orange nails so what other choice did I have...Tanzy is an orange gold metallic duotone3 coats to my opaque happy placeI added a little pink and gold leopard spot decal by request of my youngestI love the application on these, it's closer to a glass fleck in application so very easy to work withYes I filed my nails a little....it's summer and I'm busy so this is an easy

Neon, skulls and crackle

I needed a fun manicure after all the stress so...Color Club The Lime Starts here to the rescueThen I used my SmArt nails skull & crossbones stencils with China Glaze Broken Hearted CrackleThe skulls did not quite work as well as I'd hoped with the crackle but I still like itThis is 3 coats of The Lime Starts here and it smells so yumThe scent isn't overpowering but enough that when you scratch

OPI Shattered my Holo!

What do you do when you can't decide? I do both!OPI DS Original with OPI Navy Shatter tipsWe had no sun but look how DS Original still rainbows it up in a light boxThis is 3 coats of DS Original (It's sheer but worth the little extra)and 1 coat of Navy Shatter with Seche Vite top coatOPI you can shatter my holo any day!I love the holo peeking through the navy blue cracksGo ahead....drool, I did!

BB Couture Glampyre

You want a sexy, vampy color...BB Couture Glampyre is all that and then some!A deep blackened bronze Try not to drool on your keyboardThis is 2 coats, no top coatI think this is a very versatile shade and BB Couture has a great formula that I have yet to have any issue with. You want Glampyre? Kim at OverallBeauty has your BB needs covered and she is the sweetest lady you'll have know. I would

Color Club Wicked Sweet - Temptress

I did a bright fun manicure with Raspberry Rush (Wicked Sweet collection)and Ultra - Astral (Temptress collection)This is 3 coats of Raspberry Rush and 2 coats of Ultra- Astral on my ring finger with one coat of Starry Temptress.Raspberry Rush is a gorgeous almost jelly neon fuchsia Ultra Astral is Neon fuchsia with holo glitter that unfortunately disappears into the polish on the nail, which is

Shattered Mermaid's Tears

This combo just screamed out to me!OPI Turquoise Shatter, from the Blue Shatters collection, and Mermaid's Tears, from The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides collection.I am loving both collections so much!I used 2 coats of Mermaid's Tears, 1 coat of seche Vite, then one coat of Turquoise Shatter and 1 more coat of SV.I had to leave at least one nail showing mostly Mermaid's

Quick Born Pretty Plates Review

When I saw that Born Pretty Store were selling Konad replicas for $1.55 each I knew I had to buy a few. I've been lusting after M78 and M79 for so long but my budget never seems to stretch to Konad plates these days. So I bought 4 new plates from Born Pretty for about the same price as one genuine Konad plate and I didn't pay any shipping which is what always puts me off buying Konads.

I got M76, M78, M79 and M57. I already have Konad M57 but I thought I would buy Born Pretty's version too so that I could compare them and I'm glad I did.

I scanned in all the plates I bought along with M57 so all the images are relative sizes for side-by-side comparison.

I was disappointed with BP's M57, the designs are so small! It would be a push to get them to cover my ring finger. Compared to Konad's 15.5x12mm, the all over designs on the Born Pretty plate are only 12.5x10mm (no infographic this time, sorry!)

But. I can't complain because the image on the product page clearly shows that the designs are quite small. I was so excited when I was buying the plates that I didn't spend much time checking the pictures!

I'm really pleased with the other three plates. The patterns on M78 and M79 are the same size as the Konads which definitely redeemed the plates in my eyes as these were the ones I was most looking forward to.

The designs are really well cut and good sizes so I think I'm going to be getting a lot of use out of them.

L-R: Konad M57, BP M57, BP M76, BP M78, BP M79.

You can buy these plates here. They're back to the regular price of $2.99 each now but that's still a steal compared to Konads and the shipping's completely free. Just steer clear of M57 unless you have tiny nails!
These products were purchased by me.