A-England Tristam

A quick note to apologize for sporadic posting. I was in my dear friend's wedding last weekend, had her bachelorette party the weekend before, Mother's Day this past weekend, and am working extra late shifts at work to cover said dear friend while she's honeymooning. All leading to a very tired blogger! I'm getting to old for all of this action. :) But enough of my complaining...

I have heard and seen such beautiful things about A-England polishes, this one in particular, and I have been so frustrated because it is never in stock!

Adina, the genius behind this brand, posted on Twitter that she was taking pre-orders for the next batch of Tristam, Lady of the Lake, St George, and Dragon. These are her most popular polishes, so I took advantage. I did show restraint, though. I only bought 2!

Tristam is a deep navy polish with a scattered holo. It reminds me of the night sky on a clear night in the country when you can see all of the stars. The formula was like butter! Flowed smoothly on the nail in 2 coats and was so easily controlled that I needed no clean-up. Enjoy!

Flash was necessary to show the sparkle

Blurred to show holo sparkles

Pretty & Polished Martian Salad

The other polish that came from my last Etsy order is Martian Salad. It's a pretty, light kelly-green holo.

Pretty color, but not as strong a holo as I hoped. The formula was thin, requiring 3 coats. It dries quickly, which is a good thing because if you are too impatient, you'll get bald spots. The following is 3 coats with Seche Vite top coat.

Pretty & Polished Swing

Today I have another indie polish for you! This is Swing from Pretty & Polished. You may have seen her fabulous polish Jawbreaker somewhere in the nail blogosphere. It's pretty popular right now, and with good reason. 

Swing is a fabulously squishy red jelly with large black, white, and silver hex glitter and smaller black and white glitter. It's the first polish I've experienced in which I've had to work to get the glitter where I want. It was rather difficult as I bought a mini bottle and it isn't as easy to pull pieces out with the brush, but I think I did an okay job. I contemplated pouring some out to make it easier, but didn't want to waste. 

The photos below are with 3 coats of color and Seche Vite top coat. I love how you get a jelly sandwich look with this one polish.

Right hand

My not-often-blogged left hand!

Swing is available here, as well as some great glitters, jellies, and holos. It looks like her store is due to be restocked today or tomorrow. 

GlitterDaze Minty Mojito, Flirtini, and April Rain

I finally jumped on the Indie Polish bandwagon. Well, at least I'm just now on the Indie Polish Buying bandwagon. I do have my own Etsy shop set up (www.etsy.com/shop/PaintBoxPolish if you're interested!) but these three GlitterDaze polishes are the first I've bought. They are beautiful, aren't they? They are part of the Simply Spring Collection.

Minty Mojito first caught my eye because my friend is getting married in a few weeks, and I'm a bridesmaid. It's pretty much expected of me to have crazy nails, and this color matches her green perfectly. Plus it has green and gold sparkles. How can you go wrong? The above is 3 thin coats of color topped with Seche Vite and it dried very smooth and shiny. It also wore like iron.

Flirtini reminds me of cartoon cupcakes. You know, the ones with pink icing and sprinkles? It's such a cute polish! This photo is 3 thin coats (but I think I forgot the third on my index finger) with Seche Vite. It was still smooth, but not as smooth as Minty Mojito. Wear time wasn't quite as good either, but I got about 2 days before my first chip, which is pretty decent for the amount of hand washing I do.

The last of the polishes I got from GlitterDaze is April Rain. It's rather poetic in that I wore it on a very rainy, gross day in April. It is a beautiful blue that was not as opaque as the others. If I were to use it again, I think I would layer it over a light blue to preserve polish. The above photo is 4 coats with Seche Vite. It really didn't last that long, but I find that always happens with me when I use more than 3 coats of color.

Overall, I'm very happy with Sana's polishes. All of the Simply Spring polishes are named after cocktails, and she has thoughtfully included recipes in each polish description. :) The GlitterDaze shop is here, and her full sized polishes are $8.50 and minis are $4.50. She also sells her polishes in sets.

Ulta Little Black Dress

This is another polish that came in my package from Bestie.Ulta Little Black Dress is a deep black creme packed with irregular silver, blue, and pink/purple micro glitter. It is very dense and was opaque after one coat. It is difficult to capture the depth in this via photo, but it is beautiful! If the shimmer in China Glaze's Smoke and Ashes showed as nicely as the shimmer in LBD, I think there would be many, many happy people!

2 coats of Little Black Dress

I also wanted to note that The Swatchaholic wrote a really interesting post about the shimmer in Smoke and Ashes and why it sort of disappears on the nail after applying topcoat. She talks about the possibility that since quick dry top coats like Poshe and Seche Vite dissolve the polish a bit to meld it into one layer, the black base gets swiped over the glass flecks. Very interesting. I love chemistry! Sometimes...

Nail mail! (and I've got awesome friends)

I had a generally not fun day today and came home to a package from England in my mailbox. Tristam and Dragon arrived! I did a happy dance into the house when my son told me I had another package in the house. I literally squealed, "it's Gail's black label OPIs!" DH has decided that I must now have every color imaginable and surely I don't need more nail polish. Heh, heh.

Holy cow dear readers... I got 27 black label OPIs, 4 Sinful Colors, 2 Sally Hansens,1 China Glaze Crackle, and my A Englands. I am a happy blogger. I think I'm gonna go roll around in some polish bottles...

I haven't even begun to really sift through these

nails inc. The Boltons

This polish is one I got at Sephora during my trip to Chicago. I was eyeballing butter LONDON Knees Up at Ulta, but didn't get it. We went to Sephora and were checking out the Nail Bar and this shiny one caught my eye. It is the same deep red with a fine foil finish as Knees Up. I don't think they are dupes, but they are very close. And they nails inc. price of $9.50 is more appealing to the wallet than the $14.00 of bL.

2 coats of The Boltons in artifical light, no flash

The Boltons with flash

These photos are two coats with no top coat.