I recently made my first Llarowe purchase, which included a few lovely and beautiful A-England polishes that I’ve been dreaming about for a while…
After much self-deliberation, the first colour I decided to try was Lancelot, described as an “intriguing mysterious black red garnet” on A-England’s web site. The colour is extremely deep–to the point it looks black in most light. I simply adore deep-dark polishes like this!
The colour glides on like a dream. It’s thick enough to almost cover in just one coat, yet goes on smoothly and dries rather quickly. Even without a top coat the polish was super-shiny! I used an OPI base coat, 2 coats of Lancelot, and finished with a coat of OPI’s top coat. The only thing I realized was that if you’re too stingy with the top coat (as I was), you’ll leave streaks on your polish. I fixed that later!
After a few days, I wanted to change things up a bit. A while back I had seen a wonderful review of Essie LuxEffects on Scrangie‘s blog, and I decided to top off Lancelot with Essie’s A Cut Above, a multi-size pink glitter suspended in a clear base that I hadn’t yet had a chance to try. Can I just say… WOW!
The pink glitter seemed to hover overtop of the deep base, almost like a gorgeous constellation or a pink nightsky!
Here I added another coat of Lancelot (just because!) one coat of A Cut Above, and another coat of OPI top coat. The clear glitter base combined with the top coat gave my polish an almost gel-like look that I just love! The polish is even shinier than before, and what impressed me was just how quickly this combo dried! The Essie formula was good and packed with glitter. It was denser than some other glitters I’ve tried, meaning I didn’t have to go digging in the bottle to get enough coverage!
So… what do you think?
Essie’s LuxEffects was released for holiday 2011 and may still be found at some beauty suppliers; A-England can be purchased from Llarowe or directly from A-England.
I love every single A-England polish! I have Lancelot but haven’t worn it yet—did it show the garnet under some light conditions? in the bottle it sorta just looks black….deep and luxurious for sure.
Your nails look spectacular, btw, those pink constellations are very cool. 😉
Hi Ruth, thanks so much–it did turn out quite nice! Lancelot does show a touch of garnet in bright sunlight, but you’d have to look for it. To most, it’ll look really, really dark. But I love it! I also think that there are probably many ways to wear it 🙂
How are the other A-Englands? I am loving the formula!
I discovered A-England about 4 months ago—and by discovered I mean that one of my buddies emailed and in gushing tones advised me to “hurryandgetsomeA-Englandtheyarethemostamazingpolishes!!!” yes, just like that; I think she was barely breathing she was so excited. — So I went to Adina’s site (didn’t know about Llarowe yet) and nabbed some Tristam, Avalon and Lady of the Lake…..well, the rest is history: I now have them ALL , including the entire new collection. A-England is, without a doubt, my favorite brand of polish in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE! Every one is smooth and creamy in application, self levels, dry very quickly and are very nearly “one-coat-wonders” –I apply two because I like an extremely dense opacity…they have a beautiful finish with great shine. And they wear like iron.
If you have not explored the new ones yet—let me tell you: St. Goerge is a necessity! In fact , I’m about to post a spam-pic at Leah Anne’s page right now 🙂
LOL you are hilarious! I finally managed to get my hands on Lady of the Lake which I had been drooling over for some time… I cannot wait and see how these wear!
I’ll blog about Lady soon!
You bought the whole collection already? (I was hoping not to have to but they do look spectacular…) Spam away–I’ll be looking for your pic! 🙂
yes…the whole collection in one fell swoop! The Mythicals I tried to exercise restraint–bought them 1,2 or 3 at a time…this time I bowed to the inevitable and just got them all at once (Resistance *really is* futile!)
So far they all have worn extremely well and no chipping!
Anxiously awaiting your pics of Lady of the Lake!