Tag Archives: A England Beauty Never Fails

My Almost New Year Nails!

Hello! I hope you are having a fantastic start to this brand new year!

black and gold glitter gradient

This is the nail design that I was going to be wearing at new year but because I was ill, I ended up not going anywhere other than my sofa and feeling sorry for myself. Boooo!

black and gold glitter gradient

But these nails are so pretty I had to share them with you all! 🙂 So sparkly!

Annoyingly, after only a couple of days of getting better from my last horrible cold,  I seem to be coming down with another one D:

Stoopid germs!

black and gold glitter gradient

The polishes I used for this very sparkly look are Maxxed Out from CrowsToes and Beauty Never fails from A England!

If you’re interested, you can find my swatch of Beauty Never Fails (along with my other lovely A England polishes) Here

I decided on using Beauty Never fails rather than a black cream because of the beautiful greenish gold shimmer running through it, I think it really complements the magnificent sparkles of Maxxed Out.

black and gold glitter gradient

Maxxed Out is quite possibly the sparkliest nail polish I own! It’s one of the lovely collection of polishes I picked up from a blog de-stash from the lovely Debbie over at The Crumpet!

Look at all the holographic glitters! Lots of varying sized hex in different shades of gold, gold glitter and a smattering of quite long bar glitters.

With this super sparkly glitter bomb I was expecting application to be a nightmare but I actually really easy to apply, all the glitters behaved I didn’t have to fish for any of the larger ones, and applied they all laid flat against my nails, the only bits that I moved around where some of the bar glitters.

The first coat of glitter I used a sponge just to add a layer of glitter like a messy french tip, after applying the second coat, with the brush I realised that I really didn’t need to have done the sponge coat at all!

I added one coat of Seche Vite to smooth it out and add a glassy finish, then very carefully filed away the overhanging glitter (some how I forget to file my thumb, I’m going to blame the germs).

black and gold glitter gradient

I’m not usually a fan of gold nail polish, but I really do like both of these! 😀


Christmas Spider!

Have you ever heard of the legend if the Christmas Spider?

Christmas Spider Nail Art

I think the Christmas Spider is a really lovely Christmas story.

“According to ancient storytellers, there once was a widow living in her cramped, cold hut with her children. One day, a pine cone dropped from the tree outside and took root. The children, excited by the prospect of a tree for Christmas, tended the seedling and made plans about how they would decorate the tree. Poverty was a way of life for the small family, and when Christmas approached, the widow knew that they would not be able to decorate the tree. The children and the widow accepted their fate and went to bed on Christmas Eve, the tiny tree branches bare.

But the household’s spiders heard the children’s sobs and spun intricate webs on the tree. Early on Christmas morning, the children cried, “Mother, mother wake up and see the tree. It is beautiful!” The widow rose to find that during the cold night a spider had spun its web around the fragile branches. As the rays of the sun crept along the floor and silently climbed the tree, the glow touched the threads of the web turning each one into silver and gold, and, as the story goes, from that day forward the widow never wanted for anything.”

This version is from Ukraine.com

Christmas Spider Nail Art

For My Christmas Spider Nails I started with the lovely Beauty Never Fails from A England.

Then using I’d Melt For You from China Glaze and Golden from Revlon I stamped the gold and silver Spider Webs.

The web image Is from Stamping plate HD04.

Christmas Spider Nail Art

Hardly anyone I know has heard of this story so If you are interested here’s a bit of further reading 🙂

Christmas Spider Wikipedia Page
Spider Wisdom
msichicago Holiday Traditions


A England Swatches

Hello!

I have some rather lovely polishes from A England to share with you today 🙂  there are quite a few, so this is a slightly more picture heavy post than usual.

As I couldn’t decide on which one to start with here they are in alphabetical order 🙂

Beauty never fails

Beauty never fails

Beauty never fails is a glorious black jelly with tiny gold flakie glitter, I’m not usually a big fan of gold in general but this polish is stunning!

This is two coats with no base coat, it’s so shiny!

Bridal Veil

Bridal Veil

Bridal Veil is a deep black cream with tiny scattered holographic glitter. This has a wonderful creamy formula and is perfectly opaque in two coats.

For some reason I was expecting this to be more of a jelly polish.

I really like how the glitter in this nail polish is actually quite subtle, This is definitely the most sophisticated black holographic one I own 🙂

This is two coats with no topcoat, Bridal veil doesn’t have quite a glossy finish as the other A England cream polishes I have, but I’m sure a layer of topcoat would fix that! 🙂

Camelot

Camelot

Camelot is a glossy black cream. This is one of the best black nail polishes I have ever tried! Ever! And I’ve used a lot of black nail polish!

The formula and colour are phenomenal, Camelot is like having a glossy abyss on your nails 😀

This is one coat (yes one!) with no topcoat!

Elaine

Elaine

Elaine is a very pretty grey toned purple cream, this A England cream polish also has a really lovely formula it’s so creamy and pigmented!

It just occurred to me that I haven’t mentioned anything about the drying times for these polishes, I found that all of these polishes dry slightly faster than average, only a couple of minutes to be touch dry.

This picture is two coats of Elaine with no topcoat.

Incense Burner

Incense Burner

Incense Burner is a really interesting multi chrome nail polish. The black base contains brownish gold shimmery particles that change to purple, green and blue depending on the light angle.

Annoyingly because I’m still having to use my phone to take pictures I couldn’t capture all the other colours 😦

I have to admit that my first impression of the polish was “Hmmm Brown”.  I’m not a big fan of brown polish and I was expecting to be disappointed with this one, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. This polish is so pretty!

This is two coats with no topcoat.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a vampy red flakie glitter in a black jelly base, it really is incredibly pretty!

I’m really liking these subtle glitters, on the nail the polish looks black until the light hits it then it flashes and shimmers this stunning deep red.

This is two coats without topcoat.

Ophelia

Ophelia

Like Jane Eyre Ophelia has a black jelly base, but with this lovely dark purple flakie glitter.

I found the glitters in Ophelia didn’t show up as much as the other jelly polishes, but even so it is still a stunning polish.

Again this is two coats to be fully opaque and shown here with out topcoat.

Princess Tears

Princess Tears

Princess Tears is a very pretty pale pink holographic polish with a beautiful duo chrome sheen that flashes green and purple. My photograph really does this polish no justice at all!

I think this is a sophisticated light pink! I found that Princess Tears has a slightly mate finish when dry

I did find that there was a little dragging on the second coat, but the third covered everything perfectly.

This is three coats with no topcoat.

Queen Of Scots

Queen Of Scots

Queen Of Scots is an amazing dark blue metallic polish, I have already written a little post on how amazing this is for stamping, you can find that right here.

This polish is without doubt a one coat wonder! It’s so intensely pigmented.

with any heavily pigmented polish it’s always a really good to have a good basecoat to help prevent staining. I can’t comment on if this polish stains as I was only wearing it for around five minutes.

Queen of Scots has a lovely creamy formula and dried really quickly, probably because only one thin coat was needed for it to be fully opaque!

Saint George

Saint George

The last polish is Saint George which is a dark teal/forest green holographic with a with a very subtle golden shimmer.

Saint George is another heavily pigmented polish, with careful application I believe this could be opaque in one coat.

This polish is so pretty, the deep teal colour is very flattering, and the holographic glitter in this polish makes it almost glow!

Shown here is two coats without top coat.

. . .

I have to say that all of these polishes are glorious! Not a single one was even slightly disappointing. I think I’m going to be collecting an almost obscene amount more!

😀


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