A-England - The Legends

Can we do them justice? Probably not. But let's try.

All shown alone, without base and top coats.




Princess Sabra, a k a Tristam Eyes. Any cat owner can tell why. It's the cat eye green we all adore. Three coats.


(Swatching companion.)



Dragon. Perfect green holo with a slight orange flash, which is unfortunately practically undetectable in these photos. Two coats.





Saint George. Deep emerald green, and a personal request from Adina (she does listen to the fanbase!). Two coats!

And while we're at it, although you've been able to read about the myths elsewhere and my post is terribly picture heavy already and I was going to exclude it, let me show you a few Saint Georges of my hometown of Stockholm. That guy is huge here.

Wooden sculpture from 1489, in Storkyrkan, in the most ancient part of Stockholm, called Gamla Stan (The Old Town).

And here is a replica made from bronze, placed only a few blocks away from the church, at Köpmantorget in Gamla Stan. This copy is exactly one hundred years old. Of course I had to find a photo where it's snow-covered - it's Sweden for heaven's sake.

In this case, Saint George, or Sankt Göran in Sweden, is actually Sten Sture the Elder, a regent often referred to as king, who once saved the city of Stockholm from the dragon - the Danish. This was during a period of time when Sweden strived for sovereignty from a pretty loose union with Denmark, ruled by the Danish king. This dude successfully managed to keep Russia out of Finland (which was at the time a part of Sweden), and eventually, after his death, the Swedish struggle made the country a nation after a serious amount of bloodshed. So, in short, Sankt Göran is the symbol of Swedish independence. However, he never managed to maneuver out the already widely used image of Saint Erik as the symbol of Stockholm (don't mess with our Eric the Holy!).

History lession finished, now, let's continue the bling.




Princess Tears. Two, or was it three?, coats. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a holo, it's a duochrome - no, it's a holo and a duochrome! The holo effect is among the stronger in the collection, and the sheen of pink and barely detectable green over it... And this shade surprised me in a positive way. I've seen violet holos before, but this is bottled magic.




Ascalon. Three coats, but two would have been enough. Like Princess Tears but with a charcoal base. Copy and paste superlatives from the description of Princess Tears here.




Bridal Veil. Two coats. Jet black subtle space in a bottle. I love spaces in bottles.




Order of the Garter. Three coats. The oddball of the collection - it's "just" a plain ol' shimmer. But a pretty one. This is a blue you'll have to see for yourselves, it's not as good in photos as it is in reality. I was positively surprised by this one too. Magnify the macro if you don't believe me!

Also, it matches my jar of snus.


This collection has been widely anticipated, and it doesn't disappoint. Personally, I actually like it even more than I first thought I would. Since I'm known to be much more of a duochrome lover than a holo ditto, the added duochrome pigments to a few of the shades made me a happy lacquerista. I have never been afraid of admitting to being an A-England fan, and my love for the brand continues with this release. Three green holos?! Yeah. And although I asked for Saint George, I'm actually leaning towards Dragon being my favourite of the three. And both Ascalon and Princess Tears are obvious favourites of mine.

Formula was good, as usual, though some are more sheer than others. Three coats of Order of the Garter could still show a bit of visible nail line, but that's okay. Ascalon and Princess Tears are a bit thick and needed some extra effort, but that's okay too.

The Legends will soon be available on the official A-England website, and in the meantime, if you missed out, read this interview with the fabulous and fanbase oriented brand proprietor Adina.

Swedish word of the day:
legendarisk -adjective legendary
These shades will be.

Depend spring 2012

Late on this, but better that, than never, right? Here's what Swedish nail care brand Depend is offering us for spring, in terms of color. This collection contains 11 colors and a matte topcoat.




Unfortunately, low light is all Sweden has to offer this time of year, but the colors here are pretty accurate.

Let's take a look at the wheel, and we might just find something interesting. Or..?

Do you see that? Yes. Eight of these are mattes. Semi-matte, but still. Eight! Only three glossy shades to choose from.

Now, let's see what we can expect from the matte topcoat. Here over the three glossy shades.

Yeah. So...

Yeah. where do I begin? This is by far the most terrible collection I had to review. Let's talk about the colors first. I do realize that pastel like shades are back this spring, and yes, that's painful for me personally, but these shades... Some of them aren't even pretty in theory. 298, 302, and 303 (the latter referred to as "band-aid colored" by fellow Swedish blogger Nailtastic) stand out as the worst color lab mishaps of the year (and it's only just begun!). Let's be fair: some of the shades are good, 299 might even be really pretty, but none of the better shades are very inventive or fresh. And then there are good shades that have that semi-matte thing going on, and if you'd by any chance like your manicure glossy, that frost finish they're made from will be revealed.

The last time I reviewed a Depend collection with quite a large bulk of these semi-matte shades, my verdict was a lot more positive. There's a reason for that. I believe this is the third, or perhaps even fourth, collection where Depend includes this finish - and this time with a total of them that exceeds all the previous together. It's just too much. In the accompanying press release, they state that mattes are still going strong among nail trends, but the Depend peeps and I must be looking for way different sources. I'm sad that Depend didn't catch up on the again exploding flakie trend, like they did when they released 156 during the last flakie boom, and while pretty much every brand releases a shitload of flakies that make lacqueristas all over the world giddy, Depend releases ...eight more frost struck semi-mattes.

Let's skip to the matte topcoat. Again, while most brands released matte topcoats in 2009 and 2010, Depend does so in 2012. Together with a collection that consists to 70 % of matte shades. I don't follow their logic, but okay. So, what's it like, performance wise?

Well, those of you who were around before the new generation of matte topcoats may remember using certain ridge filling basecoats as substitutes. This is pretty much the exact same feeling Depend's matte topcoat will give you. It's thick, and slightly whitening, it alters the color underneath into a lighter shade. See the last photo, compare the colors to the un-mattified versions on the wheel above.

I don't like being this mean, but this is a terrible collection. Three okay (but frosty) shades in the matte division (294, 295, 301), a decent staple among the glossy ones (300), and one pretty shade (299) that could be worth picking up if you're short on good periwinkle cremes. Not even two greens saves anything. And there used to be a time when Depend did colors that I would stock up on, buy a large pile and forward to international friends, such as 156 (pink jelly flakie) and 170 (super greyed blue creme). They were fast on picking up the army green trend, to my personal content. But this... Let's hope for a better fall for this brand.

Swedish word of the day:
matt -adjective I matte II weak, dull
Too many mattes makes me weak...

Colors from OPI's Holland, part II

Sunshine! And I woke up in time. Actually, honestly, my SO woke me up and said "It's sunny today, so if you need to swatch, you should!". Yeah. So... You should perhaps thank my SO for this post.

I took out three more OPI Holland colors, and these are the ones you'll get to see today.





I Have a Herring Problem, three coats. The sun washed the color out, but I took a bunch of pics in different lights, so you'll have an idea. And look at this bottle macro:

You can tell what's going on here, right? Yes, a lot. Dusty, slightly teal blue base with silver and gold shimmer, and some of those little black bits that enhances the dirty look in such an awesome way. This is my favourite polish of the collection, and almost a bit daring for an OPI. It somewhat corresponds to I Don't Give a Rotterdam!, but this color is even better.





Pedal Faster Suzi!, three coats. A cool, light pink with heavy silver shimmer - though the sun makes it look warmer here than it actually is. This is a pink I can get behind. Most of you know by now that I'm not really into the pink spectrum, but there is actually quite a big chance I'll wear this one. It's rather sheer though, so you'll need all three coats, and you may still detect some visible nail line. I just wish OPI would have made this one to correspond with I Don't Give a Rotterdam! and I Have a Herring Problem as well, thrown in some of those black bits. That would have rendered a really interesting and more unusual shade of pink.



Thanks a WindMillion, two coats. I wish I had done three, but most of you will be content with the two. Pretty straight forward medium, dusty green creme. It's not bad, it's just not that exciting. And you're reading a greens enthusiast here. I feel like this shade is a year or two too late, and would have fitted better in the Pirates of the Caribbean collection from last summer. I'll probably slap it on at some point, but it's not very high on my can't-wait-to-wear list.

All these were good to work with, though the shimmers are on the sheer side. Pedal Faster Suzi! had an undesirably long drying time, apart from that all three are of standard OPI formula.

I read somewhere that these will be out in stores on February 8th in the US, so if I hurry up a bit, you just may get to see the rest before that. Let's hope for some sun!

Swedish word of the day:
väderkvarn -noun windmill
Perhaps the English word for it is prettier.