Polished Casual: January 2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A-England Week! The Legends Part 3

I'm super excited to bring you the last of The Legends Collection: Bridal Veil and Order of the Garter! But don't worry, we aren't even half way through A-England Week :) so there is plenty more to come. I figured it would be a pretty good way to round up my month of blogging everyday.

Bridal Veil is up first, and while it's pretty, super pigmented, and applies wonderfully, it's kind of bleh. And I'm saying that in context of the rest of this collection. The black shade is pretty amazing, I'm not sure what it is, maybe it's more charcoal, but the base is better than straight up black. It does have holographic particles in it, but it really just gives it a pretty shimmer. I wouldn't even call this a scattered holo, even though that is what I believe it's trying to be. I think the best this about this is it's 1 coat. I wonder how butter LONDON's The Black Knight? I might have to try that soon.

A-England Bridal Veil

A-England Bridal Veil, regular indoor light

A-England Bridal Veil, regular indoor light with flash

The last of the bunch, Order of the Garter, is VERY different than the rest of The Legends, but I think that makes it even more schedule. If you haven't gone over to Fashion Polish yet to read the story of the names behind this polish, GO! Her post is fantastic, as always. It will give you some insight on why this one is different and special in the collection. Order of the Garter is an amazing bright blue polish packed full of lighter blue/turquoise glass flecks. SWOON! I was really shocked how much I liked this one. I expected to think it was pretty but not special. THIS IS SPECIAL. I promise you. Hopefully my pictures do it justice!

A-England Order of the Garter

These two are currently available for $12 each at Llarowe's website. Or you can order them directly from A-England by email. Hope you enjoyed A-England's The Legends as much as I did. Which is your favorite?

Stash Swap, Part II: Eyeko Military Polish

I'm not gonna lie, I've had this next polish on my "stash swap list" ever since Rach posted it as her Veteran's Day manicure (and completely ROCKED it!). No really, read my comment on it at the bottom! After my complete obsession with olive green polishes this past fall, I was dyyyyyyying to get my hands on it! Behold Eyeko Military Polish!

Military Polish (Yeeeeahhhh, there's no real name for this one. Argh.) is this deep olive green creme polish that leans heavily on the brown side. The formula's a little on the thick side, but I made it work with three thickish coats. The harder part was the brush and stem. The bottle is super long and skinny, so, naturally, so is the stem. And then there's a kind of short, stumpy brush on the end. The whole setup kind of reminded me of the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polishes. It's been a while since I've used one of those too, so it was just kind of like getting back on the horse. :-)

(click to enlarge)

I don't know if it's my lighting or my application or the length of my nails, but something makes this polish SUPER dark on me. Like, six shades darker than the bottle color. D'oh! Somehow it pulls lighter on Rach, so I think it looks light years better on her. I do wish it were a bit lighter on me. Just a smidge! That being said, I did feel like somewhat of a badass wearing this color. It's definitely a "kicking-ass-and-taking-names" kind of color. And it should be if it's gonna be called Military Polish, right?! ;-)

The sad news, from what I gather from Rach's post, is that Eyeko discontinued their polish line last year, AND being a European brand, these babies are gonna be super tough to get your hand on. Your best bet will probably be swaps on MUA. Bob DARNIT, Eyeko!

Finally, if you haven't seen the last installment of Rach's post on our second stash swap, Zoya Mimi, go RUN now! Mimi is definitely one of my favorites and Rach (of course) rocks it like...a rockstar. Sorry, I'm really bad with similes. It's also a really great post on some well-known fictional Mimis AND which top coats may be best (and worst) with your Zoyas! :-)

Monday, January 30, 2012

A-England Week! The Legends Part 2

Alright! Get Ready!!!!! Cause here comes Part 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First up we have Dragon, a beautiful green holo. This one is somewhere between a scattered and linear holo. It pulls the teeniest bit gold, but a lot of that holo reflects blue to balance it out. This was a surprise love for me! I only needed 1 coat! One coat! Can you believe? Just wait until you see the next 1 coater :). My only complain about Dragon is it came with a messy brush that needs to be trimmed. Oh well!

A-England Dragon

Wonky sideways pictures of A-England Dragon

Next up is my favorite of the entire collection: St. George. Words can not express how beautiful this 1 coater is. An amazing scattered teal holo. Swoon!

A-England St. George

A-England St. George under regular lighting

A-England St. George under regular lighting (lower lighting)

If you aren't immediately nuts over St. George, I may have to take your nail polish lovers card from you :) and kick you out of the club. This color is vampy, sexy, and sophisticated all in one. The formula on it is the best of the bunch. Just perfect. :) Get this one, you won't regret it.

Both of these are currently sold out on Llarowe's website but you can still get them straight from England with free shipping if you email A-England! These run about $12 each and are WELL worth it. Happy Shopping!!!!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

A-England Week! The Legends Part 1

Yeah, so in a moment of monetary weakness, I hauled A-England. And I mean hauled. I ordered the entire Legends collection plus some more of the Mythicals. So I'll have to take the polish purchasing very easy for quite sometime. At least until the OPI Holland collection comes out :).

So today I'm going to show you the first 3 Legends: Princess Tears, Princess Sabra, and Ascalon. These are the lightest of the group so I thought they'd make a good post together. Fashion Polish has a wonderful post telling the story of The Legends and how they all fit together!

Princess Tears is up first, and is a really lovely lavender holographic polish. It's pretty much always lavender, but if you catch it in the right light it looks silver because it's so pale. The holo is really pretty and delicate in this one. You can always see it, but it's not super strong. This is actually a perfect holo for work! I am wearing it to work tomorrow!!! Here are a million pictures of Princess Tears (2 coats).

A-England Princess Tears

A-England Princess Tears, outside, low indirect light with flash

A-England Princess Tears, outside, low indirect light

A-England Princess Tears

Next up is Princess Sabra, which is a polish I wouldn't have normally gotten. But you can't very well get 6 out of 7 on this collection. I do like it more than I thought, but not sure how often I will reach for this one. Princess Sabra is a gold holo that leans a little on the yellow-green side. I needed 2 coats on this one. She's an interesting one and the holo is really strong. Check her out, what do you think?

A-England Princess Sabra

Finally we have Ascalon, a steel grey. This one is more of a scattered holo than a linear, but not less gorgeous. This is 2 coats, but if I had been more careful I could have done one. The color on this one is so rich and sophisticated. In the pictures I feel like it pulls a little purple, but it's just to holo particles playing tricks :). A lot of other bloggers think this is a duo or multi chrome. I just didn't see that in real life, but I had limited lighting sources when swatching this one. Once I wear this as a full mani in the future I'll take more pictures.

A-England Ascalon

The A-England Legends collection was literally just released and can be bought from Llarowe's website for $12 each. They aren't up on the A-England website yet, but you can email them to order with free shipping to the US. You do pay 9 GBP for each one though. So far I highly recommend this collection and I know it's only going to get better. The formula is great (as long as you don't use it with Barielle's treatment system) and the colors are unique and beautiful! If you haven't jumped on the A-England band wagon yet I suggest you do today :).

Saturday, January 28, 2012

OPI Super Bass Shatter

Dude - I read SUCH good reviews of OPI's Super Bass, their newest shatter that's a gorgeous purple jelly with shimmer in it. It's a pretty pinkish purple though, leaning on fuchsia. Anyway, seeing everyone's pictures, it cracked really really well. Mine didn't! I'm not willing to give up on it yet. I'm thinking that either the thickness of my coat is off or maybe because by base (OPI's Metallic 4 Life) wasn't flat and smooth. The color and the shimmer is just awesome though, I really love this shatter. Reminds me a lot of the Turquoise Shatter I loved so much. I also LOVE that it is a jelly. Especially over Metallic 4 Life, you cant still see the glitter underneath and makes for a really interesting texture rich manicure. One thing to note is that Super Bass dries VERY matte and kind of white-ish (at least over my current mani). Once you put on top coat it goes back to shiny goodness.

OPI Super Bass Shatter over Metallic 4 Life

In my opinion, Super Bass is a must have, even if you are over the whole Shatter movement :). You can get it at Ulta or online e-tailers for $8.50.

Friday, January 27, 2012

OPI Metallic 4 Life

So the last time I was at my salon the had the Nicki Minaj OPI collection polishes. I new I wanted the two glitters and the shatter, but I was pretty undecided about the cremes. I had Fly in my hands and kept putting it back, picking it up, putting it back. I'm glad I passed now that I have Slapper.

For my first polish from the ones I picked, I decided on Metallic 4 Life. This reminds me a lot of Deborah Lippmann's Bad Romance, except with silver glitter instead of fuchsia. Metallic 4 Life is a black jelly base with lots of silver glitter, in a variety of shapes and sizes. It is mostly small glitter, but there are some larger hexagons in there. This went on pretty easy for a jelly glitter, but I did need 3 coats. And I still have bald spots! I didn't care because I plan to top this with the Super Bass Shatter tomorrow. I think this one just needs undies!

OPI Metallic 4 Life

This would be a fantastic polish for a night out! It just screams martinis and dancing to me. These pictures again, aren't great. I think I'm going to give up on the SLR for glitters! OPI's Metallic 4 Life can be bought at Ulta or online for $8.50. Do you have to have this one? No, but I like it anyhow. I'd say pick it up if you don't have anything like it.

Stash Swap, Part II: Orly La Playa

Yup, you read that right! The time was right for Rach from stuff i (s)watched and I to do another stash swap! Man, time flies! Can't believe it's already been almost six months since the last one! (If you missed the last go-around, you can check out my posts on OPI Conquistadorable Color, American Apparel Butter, and BB Couture Moon Over Manhattan and her posts on Butter London Wallis, OPI Russian Navy, and China Glaze VII.) Rach and I figured out that this was a great way for us to try out some polishes we've had our eyes on or that may be out of our usual comfort zone, without having to dump the cash on them. The last stash swap was so fun, and I was super excited for Part II!

The first polish of Rach's that I decided to try out was Orly La Playa, a navy blue creme. If you've been with us for a while, you may remember the debacle that was Rescue Beauty Lounge Dead Calm. I wanted to love that polish, but it just wasn't for me. I still needed a good navy creme in my stash, but I've been a little frightened to try any new ones. Thankfully, La Playa applied (and cleaned up) much easier than Dead Calm, so we were moving in the right direction already. I seem to have a hard time applying Orly polishes sometimes. It's like I can't really get the polish to MOVE on my nail. That being said, it wasn't too hard to work with, and two easy coats later I was set. So, is La Playa my perfect navy creme?

(click to enlarge)

YES, YES, YES, and no. The color is to die for. It's a bit brighter than Dead Calm, but I liked that. It's vibrant, but definitely still dark enough to be a navy blue in all lighting. Never black, though. I was DYING to add a copper glitter or shimmer, but alas, I don't own one. D'oh! I was SO ready to chalk this one up as a total win. But then...it chipped. And chipped. And chipped. It chipped so much in less than 24 hours. Rach, I loved me some La Playa, but boy, it did not love me. HUGE sad.

I did recently change my base coat/top coat combination, but as I mentioned in my last post, I've used it before and since this manicure with no problems. Maybe it just doesn't jive with Orly polishes? I have no idea, but I'm not quite ready to give up on La Playa just yet. I think I'll have to snag a bottle for myself, and find a combo that will work for it. Yeah, I loved it that much.

I'm not sure if La Playa is in the core collection or not (anyone know for sure?), but it is available for a mere $4.25 on www.nailsupplies.us, if you're interested in it for yourself! It really is gorgeous!

Also! Be sure to check out Rach's stash swap posts on Butter London Victoriana and China Glaze Swing, Baby (both of which look completely amazing on her!). :-D

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Speciallità Hits no Olimpo Dionisio

Holo Love Number 2!!!!!!! (See number 1 here) I have to admit, Apolo is really the best, but Dionisio is pretty amazing. It's a beautiful grape holo. The formula is a little thick, but still easy enough to work with. Apolo is better formula wise. It's definitely worth the small amount of extra effort needed. And I do mean small. I ended up using 3 coats here, but I probably only needed 2. They were all very thin coats and they dried pretty fast. Top it all of with OPI DS Top Coat and you get this holo-goodness. I tried really hard to capture this when it wasn't shining in all it's glory so you could see the base color but the holo just didn't want to hide. I kind of went crazy with the pictures....

Speciallità Hits no Olimpo Dionisio

If you haven't gotten any of these Hits yet, you really need to. They are small but mighty! Get them for $10 from L larowe or you can order these direct from Brazil for pretty cheap, around $5 each (not including shipping though).