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

Subtle Stamping and Image Plate Review

Morning Ladies! Happy Tuesday!

Today I have another subtle stamping combo to share with you. I'm really liking subtle stamping at the moment. Sometimes I want something more than plain polish, but I don't want an really in your face mani. Some subtle tone-on-tone stamping usually does the trick!

I was in the mood to try some Green stamping, so I grabbed Finger Paints Go Van Gogh!, Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Jumpin' Jade, and KandNail plate CK-03 from Born Pretty Store and set to work.

This image plate is my first larger image plate, and I was really excited to try it. I had a really hard time deciding which image to use, but in the end I went with the one that jumped out at me first when I opened the package.

 

KandNail Image Plate CK-03

 

 

This plate is not one of the XL plates, but instead is around 8 inches tall with 42 images. A few images do appear twice, but there are some slight differences.  A couple of them are the reverse images for the opposite hand, which I've always thought was a fab idea. There is a way to do that with multiple stampers, but having the reverse image is so much easier. At first glance, I was worried that the images wouldn't transfer well since they are not as deeply engraved as some of my other plates, but I had no issues with transfers. I tested every image on paper first, and they all stamped perfectly. I will note that the images are small, so if you have longer nails (or wide nails like mine), you may have to double stamp some nails. However, if you have shorter nails, these images are perfect. When I do have nubbins, I'm always annoyed that I can't get an entire image on my nails, but these would be perfect!

I did have some trouble lining up the images, but that's definitely me and not the plate. With everything that has been going on lately I am very sleep deprived and at this point I think I was seeing pink elephants. ;) The image did not fit my nail entirely at the free edge, but I chose a smaller image and was aware that would be the case. I'm still very happy with how this plate stamps, and can't wait to wear some of the other images. I have to say, the lace images on this plate are AWESOME! When I test stamped them, you could see the details of the lace, as well as the overlaid image. Very cool!

Onto the pics!

I do love subtle stamping! And IRL, you can't really tell that the image doesn't go all the way to the edge of the nail. Even though I didn't align them perfectly, it's still a win in my book! I also cannot wait to try this image stamped over a linear holo!

This image plate can be found at Born Pretty Store, item ID: 2571, or by clicking the picture of the plate above.  There are 5 of these larger plates, all with tons of great images, and each retail at $8.53.  Born Pretty Store also has TONS of nail art supplies, from polishes to image plates, to glitter, flocking powder for velvet manicures, to studs, and a ton more. If you haven't checked them out, I highly recommend you do! You can also save 10% off your order by using the code KWL91 at checkout (click the link below!).

Thanks for stopping by and Happy (Stamping!) Polishing!

-Kimber

**Stamping Plate provided by Born Pretty Store for review purposes. For more information please see Disclosure/Legal tab**

 

31 Day Challenge (V.2!) Day 5: Blue Nails!

Hello ladies! Welcome to day 5 of the challenge! I have added another participant to the links, so please update! :) Also lots of luck to all of the bloggers starting their own version of this challenge today (they're doing theirs daily though, which we all know I am not about to try again!)!

Today's challenge was Blue Nails, and I have to admit I was excited about this once, since blue is my fave color to wear on my nails.I will apologize in advance since I may be posting another blue after this. Tomorrow is my birthday, and I usually choose a blue for my bday. :)

I went in a different direction with these as well. I hadn't stamped for awhile, so I knew I wanted to whip out my stamping plates, but I didn't really want something that overshadowed the colors. I opted to try out some subtle stamping, since I've seen a few ladies do some really awesome subtle stamped manis.

I chose Sinful Colors Rain Storm as my base color (purchased before the picture debaucle came to light), and stamped using Red Angel RA113 and Barry M Navy.  I was absolutely thrilled with how they turned out, and am actually still wearing this mani!

This was very tough to capture well though. In some angles it shows up well, others not so much. I think it shows the design best in the shots where I tilted my nails back a bit. I also apologize fot the slight lobster hands. I'm naturally slightly pink and  when I shoot in my lightbox it seems to really capture that.

I have to admit, for once I am happy with how my stamping came out. This mani got a lot of compliments, and I do believe I will have to try some more subtle stamping. Love!

As for Rain Storm? That polish is perfection. Such a gorgeous shade of dusty blue, formula was absolutely fab, application was a breeze as well. I'll be showing that one on her own later on.

Don't forget to check out the other Varnished Vixens to see their Blue Manis!


-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
-Greta at How Was Your Day?
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints 
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles


Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber