A England Gothic Beauties Collection : Ophelia (swatches, review, and some Subtle Stamping)

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
Th' expectation and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down!
-Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

Ophelia is a character in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare.  She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius and potential wife of Hamlet. As one of the few female characters in the play, she is used as a contrasting plot device to Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. She is deeply in love with Hamlet, and as he spirals into madness, goes mad herself, killing herself by drowning.

A England's Ophelia is just as dark and beautiful as the character herself. A shimmering purple in a blackened base, Ophelia captures the dark beauty of her namesake perfectly. In most light, Ophelia looks like the deepest, almost black, purple. But when the light hits this girl just right, the purple comes to life, morphing the polish into a sparkling Gothic Beauty.

Pictures do not do this polish justice, this is most definitely a must see for yourself stunner.  My camera just couldn't capture Ophelia's complexity, so I've included a Macro shot at the bottom.

Just beautiful. This polish really makes me wish I had a DSLR! Soon...very soon.

Ophelia is one of my favorites from the Gothic Beauties Collection. In the bottle, Ophelia glows with purple shimmer. On the nail this shimmer is more subdued, leaning toward a blackened purple (certainly she is the darkest color in this collection). As a lover of black polish in all its forms, this is perfection for me. Black with a hint of color? Yes please! It seems that much more mysterious and beautiful to me.  I wore Ophelia on her own for a day, and then added some subtle stamping with Illamasqua Baptiste.

I love the combination of Baptiste with Ophelia. It's very subtle, but IRL you can see a purple glow on the nail that has attracted the attention of most people I've encountered while wearing this. I love the Gothic Beauties alone, but they also make really awesome base colors for stamping. I used Red Angle plate RA-112, the flowery image, since I wanted to stamp but didn't want to cover too much of Ophelia.

Formula:
Ophelia has A England's thick but dreamy formula - buttery, silky, smooth. Thicker than other polishes, yet not gloppy or goopy.

Application:
Due to her thick formula, Ophelia glides onto the nail like liquid silk. No dragging, streaking, balding or glopping here. This polish stays where you put it, requiring little to no clean-up, and no staining left behind. Every swipe of my brush was perfection, and even wrapping my tips was a joy.  Ophelia is a true one coater, however I'm wearing 2 coats for depth.

My only issue was with my top coat, the infamous Seche Vite. As much as I love SV, I've been having issues with bubbling with most of my Indie polish lately, most likely due to their 3 free formula and SV's inability to play nice with those. I simply cannot wait until my bottles of The Knight and The Shield arrive!

The bottom line here is: there is NOTHING like an A England polish. Adina has created the best polish out there, hand down. I am so spoiled by them that I compare every other polish I use to them, and am starting to notice that what I used to think was an excellent formula pales in comparison. I simply cannot wait to see what Adina comes up with next!

You can purchase A England polish at A England's website. They retail for 9GBP (approx $14.00) and ship for free Worldwide.

Do you have a fave A England polish?

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber