ABC Challenge: "U' is for Ulta - stamping with Ulta Soho Skinny and Rockin the Shorties!

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Hello lovelies! Man, do I feel like a slacker! I honestly had every intention of posting this yesterday, but as you all more than likely already know, I haven't been sleeping much over the past few couple of months. On average, I'm getting about 3 hours of sleep a night, and yesterday exhaustion finally caught up with me. I went to nap for a little bit, and just never made it back out of bed until 8 this morning. I suppose I should be okay with that since I really needed it, but I'm desperately trying to catch up here on the blog and I have a ton of swatches that I need to get done. Sleep is for the weak!!!  Kidding! I actually love to sleep. It's just been fleeting for awhile now.

I did manage to spend some time on my nails yesterday, but not in a way that you'd expect. It's no secret that I like having my nails long. It's just a preference since I prefer how my hands look with longer nails. However, my poor nails are so damaged from nipping, scraping, and over buffing that my free edge was paper thin and just not behaving. I made the executive decision to rock some shorties for awhile in order to grow out healthy, pretty nails instead of continuing to worry about breaking a nail or patching, etc. After nubbinizing all the damage from over buffing is gone and my nails are right about where the should be for me to grow them out and baby them back to health. Thanks to Pure Nail Oil™, my nails are actually very healthy below where that damage at the free edge was so I am certain I made the right choice. Also, I really dig shorties! If my fingers didn't look like sausages with shorter nails I might actually keep them shorter.

I do have my 21 day Pure Nail Oil results post coming up for you all, but Wednesday was a challenge day, so I have another ABC Challenge manicure to share. I had this finished and ready to go on time for once too! I really need to learn to post in my sleep.

This week's challenge was the letter "u", and man! This was a tough one for me. I have a couple of polishes that start with U, but I am itching to do more nail art and none of them would really work for nail art. Luckily I remembered that I have some Ulta polishes, and grabbed Soho Skinny, a really pretty dusty blue.

I wanted to do some stamping, so I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls as a base, and grabbed Red Angel plate RA-112 and Ulta Soho Skinny and came up with a decent manicure. It looks awesome from a distance, but up close you can see all it's little flaws.

First off, Soho Skinny? Yeah, pretty color, not a great stamping polish. It's very runny and smears easily so getting a clean transfer was near impossible. Frustrating, but since it's not really noticable outside of macro mode, I decided to leave well enough alone. Besides, these days I am going non-stop from the time I wake up until the moment I fall into bed, so no time to re-do this one.

I'm actually fairly okay with how this turned out, although I do wish Soho Skinny was better for stamping. I adore dusty blues for stamping and this one would be perfect if it wasn't thinner than water. I do dig the overall feel of this mani though, and I kept it on for 2 days (Shock and awe!!). I have a thing for blue on white. Reminds me of this beautiful china that my mother used to have. The name is on the tip of my tongue but it's almost midnight and my brain is already checked out for the night. :)

What do you lovelies think? Do you dig blue and white?

I will return in the morning with my 21 day Pure Nail Oil™ update (yes, I am still in love and still seeing improvement!), as well as Flakie Friday! I have a ton of awesome Indies coming up starting Saturday, so make sure to check back. You won't want to miss them.

Don't forget to check out all my awesome Polish Sistahs and their letter "u" manicures!





Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber




*Product(s) Featured purchased by KLK. Please see Disclaimer/Legal Page for more information**

Nothing to Disclose

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