A England Camelot - The Perfect Black Creme

Good Morning all! Happy Friday! I happen to be sick as a dog thanks to some evil virus that attacked my children this week and has now made its evil way into my body. Thankfully I can still sit upright, but I feel like I have the plague or something equally terrible.

Of course, when I am sick, I try to feel better by painting my nails. Usually I'll pick something bright or sparkly to improve my mood, but this time I chose my go to color: Black.

Now, let's talk about Black Polish for a minute. I love black nail polish. I love how it looks great on everyone, how it's dark and edgy yet chic and sexy at the same time. But I'm sure you've all noticed that despite Black being a pretty basic color, it's hard to find a really good black creme. They're either too thick or too thin, too watery or too gloppy, need to thicken up or need a ton of thinner to be usable. I've found some pretty great black cremes out there (Orly Liquid Vinyl, Finger Paints Black Expressionism - which was my go to black for a long time, and the ever popular Wet N Wild Black Creme), but I have finally found my absolutely perfect go-to Black Creme.

I recently posted about A England Perceval, which in my eyes is the perfect Red. I've actually acquired 10 A England polishes based on my experience with Perceval alone. I figured if Perceval was that amazing, Adina's other polishes had to be equally awesome. Well, I was wrong. I broke out Camelot last night, and I have to tell you...it's not amazing....it is ABSOLUTE PERFECTION!

Camelot, creatively named after King Arthur's Court, is the blackest black I have ever seen. It is so deeply pigmented that it looks like my nails are covered in polished Onyx. This kind of ultra saturated color seems standard with A England, which when combined with the quality of these polishes makes them a steal at around $10-14 depending on where you order.

This time around I ordered from Ninja Polish, and I was very impressed with their service and delivery times. A England sells for $10.50/bottle through Ninja Polish, and orders over $50 ship free. I paid an extra $5 for Priority Delivery, and received my order in 6 days. It would've been 5, but my mail person got confused and tried to deliver my polish to my neighbor, who thankfully is honest and didn't open or keep the package. I will certainly be ordering from Ninja Polish again, and if you are into Indie polish, you really should check them out.

But back to Camelot....I'm afraid my new nubs don't do it the justice it deserves, but it still looks beyond amazing. The bubbling on my ring finger (grrr!) is actually from my Seche Vite. It had issues last night. And sorry about my ultra dry skin! There is a lot of hand washing and hand sanitizer up in here! I'm glad I still have skin at this point!

Ahhhhhh....Camelot, how I love thee! There is no way to capture the depth and inkiness of this polish, but trust me, it's there.

Formula:
Camelot's formula is shockingly sweet. Thicker than other polishes, Camelot is easy to control. Despite being a thicker polish, I had no issues with the polish thickening up, becoming gloppy, or bubbling (my Seche Vite was the bubbler!) . It is lovely and buttery smooth.  No strange smells and Big 3 Free.

Application:
Camelot literally glides into the nail like black silk. I had zero issues with pooling, balding, dragging, or streaking. If you are okay with a thicker coat, Camelot is an easy 1 coater. I'm wearing 2 thin coats here. This is literally the only black polish that I have never had to thin out during use, or let stand to thicken up. Even wrapping my tips was delightful!

The bottom line is this: If you love Black Polish, you need Camelot in your arsenal. I fear that my plethora of other black polish is going to be gathering dust - this is my new go-to Black and I'm going to be ordering several back-ups. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. If anything, you'll be snatching up more of Adina's magical polish!

What is your go-to Black? Have you tried A England yet?

Thanks for stopping by and Happy (germ and virus free) Polishing!
-Kimber

**Giveaway News**

P.S. Totally Unrelated, but...... Don't forget that you can get 10% off at Born Pretty by using code KWL91 at checkout! They have some awesome nail art supplies, including rhinestones, nail art brushes, polish, studs, glitter/glequins and more! If 10 of you use this code, we will have a giveaway! This code is only valid for a limited time!

31 Day Challenge (v.2!) Day 20: Water Marble

Morning Ladies! Welcome to day 20 of the 31 Day Challenge!

Today's Challenge is Water Marble Nails! Yay!!! I love water marbling, despite the fact that I have yet to master the mess. Someday I will be able to tape well enough to not have to spend 8 hours cleaning up my fingers, but that day is not today. Despite the mess, water marbling is still one of my fave forms of nail art. I really need to start marbling more often.

For this mani I decided I wanted to try something other than the usual flower petals, stripes, and swirls. I started with a base of good ole Wet N Wild Black Creme. For my marble colors I used Sally Hansen Black Out (Since it works fabulously for water marbling) and Sally Hansen Silver Sweep. For my design I too inspiration from the Queen of Water Marbling, Colette from My Simple Little Pleasures. Back in March, she had done this really cool star water marble. She had mentioned that when she used more points, it looked like a pinwheel and since my nails are nowhere near as long as hers, I decided to try something closer to the pinwheel version. However, instead of using 8 points, I used 10, which made it look almost like a starburst/firework on my nails.

Isn't that eye catching? My camera kind of flipped out trying to focus on it!

I'm pretty pleased with how these came out given that it's my first attempt at this design. I do wish that my middle finger was centered, but y can't win em all, right? The overall effect is pretty cool though! I will definitely be trying this design with different colors, as well as Colette's original star design. If you dig water marbling, I highly suggest checking out her blog as well as her youtube tutorials. She is amazing and I have learned everything I know (not much compared to her!) about marbling from Colette's blog and videos.

What do you think of this mani?

Be sure to check out all the water marbled Varnished Vixens today!

Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles 


We'll be back on Friday with the start of the Inspiration Manicures - Inspired By A Color!


Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Spoiled by Wet N Wild: Ants In My Pants!

Hi guys! Hope you're having a great week! I'm having a rough time, but I wont get into that here. Suffice it to say that out of town hubs and sick kiddo plus my own anxiety isn't a good combination. But, lets talk polish, shall we?

Today is the start of my Spoiled marathon, and I thought I would start it off with a bang! I'm up to 29 Spoileds now, and it was tough to choose which one I wanted to share first, but this is such a showstopper that I just had to show it off!

This is Spoiled by Wet N Wild's Ants In My Pants, a veritable plethora of red hex and round large and microgiltters in a sheer black jelly base. It's very similar to Wet AN Wild's Behind Closed Doors, which was one of their LE polishes that I could never find out here. Ants seems to have more glitter than BCD, but otherwise is an exact dupe. Check this baby out!

Ants In My Pants, 2 coats over Black Creme:

Now THAT is gorgeous! I love red glitter, and this baby is just what the Dr. Ordered!

Formula was surprisingly good, a bit thick, but nothing that you can't work with. It is loaded with glitter, so no need to dap around on the nail to place the glitter. Dry time was very fast, and wear? Well, Ive been wearing this for 2 days now with no chips or wear. Impressive! The brush is still a PITA, but I'm getting used to it. I recommend not drinking coffee for at least 5 hours before using this brush, and never try to use this brush while drinking! ;)

I did layer it over Black Creme since it takes a good 3-4 heavy coats to reach opacity since the black jelly is very sheer, and I didn't want to use up a quarter of my bottle on one mani.  This polish is gonna require a backup bottle, and I plan on picking one up as soon as my anxiety chills out and I can drag both kids out to the store without panicking. :) If you only pick up one polish from this line? Make it this one. You won't be disappointed.

Have a great Thursday!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

P.S. I can't seem to find the Julep swatch I was going to post, but I have 2 more Julep's on the way so I'll re-swatch it with those.

31 Day Challenge, Day 31: Re-create your favorite challenge

Ahhh, such a bittersweet post! However, I have found a form of nail art that I am just loving, and will inundate you guys with all too often, I'm sure! For today's challenge, I chose to re-create the Inspired By A Tutorial Challenge, this time with Patchwork!  You can find the tutorial at Chloe's Nails, under the Tutorials tab. :)

I am just loving these scotch tape manis! I have a bunch I want to do, so I apologize in advance for inundating you with them. But, since Erika is on hiatus, someone has to play with tape! Gotta keep the scotch tape manis alive! ;)

For this mani I started with a base of Wet N Wild Black Creme, then taped off my nails and added Sinful's Purple Diamond. Then I taped my off my nails again, and added Wet N Wild Buffy The Violet Slayer, topped it all off with SV, and voila! Patchwork Mani! If you like tape manis, Erika is the queen of all scotch tape manis, and has awesome tutorials on her page.

And with that, I bid adieu to the 31 Day Challenge. It's been awesome, but I'm really looking forward to creating some awesome tape manis as well as swatching my collection.

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

31 Day Challenge, Day 11: Polka Dots!

For this mani, I wanted to do something a little different. I didn't want to do the standard polka dots. I took my inspiration from Erika over at Chloe's Nails, since I just love her matte and shiny manis. Hell, I love ALL her manis! Her site is one of the first that I found when I started on my nail polish fetish journey, and I still go to her site (as well as Manicure Addict and a few others) when I'm lacking inspiration. So this is my ode to Erika mani, and even though she might cringe at my lack of dotting skills, I'm pretty proud that I managed to make something that resembled polka dots! This is only my second time making dots of any kind using my dotting tools, so please forgive my not even close to uniform dots. I'm still learning.

For this mani I chose Wet N Wild Black Creme as my base, used Hard Candy Matte-ly in love to matte my black polish, and then dotted using the same Wet N Wild Black Creme polish. I love the contrast between matte and shiny! The pictures are not that awesome since I had to play with the lighting in order for the dots to show up, and my cuticles look horrid since I couldn't moisturize or the matte would disappear (you know what I mean). But enough babbling, let's get to some pics!

 I must work on my dotting skills! But overall I think it came out ok. What do you guys think?

Tonight I'll be working on stripes. Man, I am not good at stripes! I may do a tape mani just so my lines aren't all over the place! I wish I could freehand well, but my hand tends to be highly uncooperative when I try. It's like it knows I want my lines to be perfect, so it just purposely defies me! Funny since I can freehand on paper. I'm also having a hard time picking colors for stripes. I want to use colors I don't normally use, but I keep drifting back to blue. I am addicted to blue polish. I need an intervention.

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

31 Day Challenge, Day 7: Black & White Nails!

Hi guys! I have to admit, I had a ton of fun with this mani! It took me a good while to settle on a design for this challenge. I started with white with black glitter, then realized another blogger had used that combo so I changed my idea to a White on Black ruffian with black glitter. Then, this idea hit me last night, and since I had never tried this before, it won.

I give you (drumroll please!)....Black and White Drip Mani!!! For this mani I used Wet N Wild Black Creme (my go to black. For a very cheap drugstore polish, this black is just awesome!) and Sally Hansen White On. For the drip look I swiped a strip of black polish along the tips of my nails, and used one of my dotting tools to pull the polish down into drip-like strips. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, even though my top coat did smear the black a touch on one of my index fingers. Booooo!

What a fun mani! And so fast! The drips take maybe 5 minutes! I'll have to try this mani with some other colors when this challenge is over. Speaking of, I am loving as well as hating this challenge so far. I love that I'm wearing colors that I wouldn't normally choose, but I am so bummed out that I wont get to wear any of my new polishes (I kid you not I have a good 50-60 from the past month alone) until this is over.

Tomorrow is Metallic Nails, and I have it narrowed down to 2 choices. I may actually used them together somehow. I tend to just obsess until I have picked the perfect color, much like I obsess if the shape of my nails arent perfect (they never are. I force myself to settle down and accept their imperfections), and if I have even the smallest imperfection in my mani (same deal I force myself to STFU and move along). Anyone else obsess like I do?

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber