Jan 20, 2012

Nail Mail!

When you're waiting for a delivery of nail polish one way to make it arrive is to paint your nails.
Without fail nail mail will always arrive when you've just spent a fair bit of time perfecting a manicure, and before it's dry.  Leaving you with the difficulty of signing for and unpacking precious little bottles without smudging your wet polish (or you could wait but who does that) and the dilemma of leaving your new manicure to dry or removing it all just to try your new pretties.
Yep I always seem to have wet nails when the delivery guy comes and if I don't do my nails he doesn't stop here.
Yesterday I waited to be sure there were no deliveries and then I sat down to do a many layered manicure I'd been planning in my head for days.  Just as I got to layer seven (I did 9 in total) the postie came and I found myself staring at two well wrapped parcels on my kitchen bench and ten wet nails.  So what did I do?  I opened them of course, very carefully with a pair kitchen scissors (I sniffed the packets first to avoid any nasty surprises, broken bottles smell and it's better to know they're broken before sticking your hand in the bag/box, I speak from experience).
It was a good mail, (all nail mail is unless it's broken) I unwrapped each bottle while gasping 'oh wow, oh wow'.  Then I tenderly clutched my new preciouses to my chest and rushed outside to see them in the sun, the sun that chose that very moment to show itself for the first time all day.  I'd been in and out watching clouds all morning, armed with my camera.  I call it chasing rainbows because I was waiting for some sun to photograph holos.
Here's the new goodies all lined up in the sun :)  A couple of OPI's and some a-england Mythicals.

Of course I couldn't let that sun opportunity pass without snapping a shot of my (nearly dry) manicure, still chasing rainbows.  I'll save the details of this silvery concoction for a later blog post. Yes my hand is a bit puffy, it's a side effect of humidity, age, lack of sleep and blood pressure (or maybe it's just fat).
 
These lovelies are my first a-england polishes.  I'm not sure whether it's the names, the origin (I'm from England originally) or just the stunning colours but I'd been lusting after these for ages. Price and conversion rates kept me from buying but I couldn't resist the 1st anniversary sale.   I had a hard time keeping it to just four of the collection, and deciding which ones I needed most, but I think I made the right choices with Avalon, Lady of the Lake, Tristam and Perceval.  Avalon is a gorgeous royal purple that just glows, Tristam is a rich blue with fine smooth holographic shimmer, Lady of the Lake is very similar to Tristam but purple, and Perceval... oh Perceval, I think I'm a little bit in love with Perceval.  The most amazing, glowing, red.  It has a lit-from-within look that I can't take my eyes off.  Swoon!


My other new goodies are these dazzling  OPIs I won from Chels at Pretty and Polished blog http://prettynpolish.blogspot.com.  I don't have many OPIs, they are just so expensive here.  When I gave up nail polish about eight years ago I gave away most of my collection of polishes.  One of the few I kept was my first ever OPI and now I'm back on the polish and that first OPI is still as gorgeous as ever (except the newer brushes are much better).  So I was really excited to win these in Chels' giveaway.  This is Metallic 4 Life from the Nicki Minaj collection and Pepe's Purple Passion from the Muppets Collection.









Thanks Chels!  I'm looking forward to wearing these.  Actually  Metallic 4 Life would have been perfect for about layer 3 of the manicure I was working on when it arrived.
Did I remove my many layered manicure so I could play with my new beauties?  Nah I try to only do my nails once a week and have a two day rule.  I paint them and have to leave them for two days before I let myself play with any extra layers, stamping, nail art etc and then on the last day, before I remove the polish, I experiment with things I'm likely to want to take off straight away like a my frankened holo crackle (it worked well but I didn't make enough for a full manicure).
So out came the nail wheels and I had fun testing all my new polish.


Here we have two coats of each of the Mythicals.  They are pretty much single coaters but I like to do two.  Then two coats of Metallic 4 Life, then one of it over Ulta3 Black Satin and three coats of Pepe's Purple Passion.  Pepe's Purple Passion was harder to get even and has a strange bumpy finish which I wasn't expecting.  It would probably be better with a nice thick top coat and may apply easier over a base coat.  Sometimes it's hard to judge these things on a nail wheel.  Metallic 4 Life of course had a glittered texture but less than I expected and the Mythicals are smoooooth.




I am really looking forward to wearing all of these but if I stick to my one manicure a week rule it will take me six weeks to try all these.  I might have to have some mid week manis.

The Mythicals collection is available from the a-england website at www.a-england.co.uk and I have to say the customer service rocks!  Adina is a sweetheart and an inspiration.  She has the most handsome cat and I love her 'united world' policy of free international shipping.
Adina has a new collection, ‘The Legend’, available soon and I've already got my pre-order in :)
Chels from Pretty and Polished blog  - http://prettynpolish.blogspot.com has an Etsy store - http://www.etsy.com/shop/PrettyandPolished selling her own range of polishes.  I must admit I have more than a few on my wishlist including Martian Salad, my favourite shade of green.

2 comments:

  1. Great haul! I used to do a weekly manicure, then it turned into 2 per week then every 2 days. Now I'm doing nightly manis!

    I don't have the problem of deliveries arriving just as I've painted my nails because I work full time. My problem is that I get a delivery card at my door on a Monday and have to wait a full week before I can go and pick my goodies up from the post office on Saturday morning.

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  2. That would totally suck. I used to work the night shift or the dawn shift doing tech support so I've always been around for deliveries during the day. Now my only problem is when the delivery guy doesn't wait long enough for me to get to the door. Not always easy to run to the door while changing a nappy. It's so frustrating getting carded when I'm actually here and then I have to wait for him to take the parcels back to base before I can pick them up. I've got into the habit of not even having a shower until after the delivery van has been past so I wont miss the door.

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