This blog has moved: A-England Jubilicious: Order of the Garter, Morgan Le Fay, Perceval and a Lot of Love

Friday, 25 May 2012

A-England Jubilicious: Order of the Garter, Morgan Le Fay, Perceval and a Lot of Love

Dear reader,
I suggest you press play and let your mind wander far far away to a land of myths, folklore and legends, the land that A-England draws inspiration from.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I purchased the Jubilicious set of polishes from a-England and today I am going to be reviewing them. There's going to be plenty of pictures, a lot of descriptions and a lot of love in this post.

The Jubilicious set includes Order of the Garter (originally from the Legend collection), Morgan Le Fay and Perceval(originally from the Mythicals collection). Deciding to get these was quite a risk for me as I don't easily like shimmer polish and metallic reds ~~are~~ were a big no-no for me. I have another couple of their polishes which I absolutely adore and I knew I would love Order of the Garter, so I took the plunge and I am so glad I did. I can't stop looking at my nails!

I also overcame another pet peeve of mine by using different base colours for a mani. I like stamping and designs, but accent nails and different coloured nails(e.g. skittle, ombre manicures) usually make me feel very uncomfortable; not so much this time. The designs I chose to do are emblematic of the UK, a fleur-de-lys and a Tudor rose; I know Tudor roses usually have 5 petals which would have been difficult for me to do, but I found a reference for four petalled ones.

As always, I didn't practice before attempting this. Every time I want to do a difficult design that I should practice drawing at least one of twice before attempting it on the nail, a Californian voice in my head says "Duuude, life's too short! It's time to rock'n'roll!" and I just go straight at it.

OoG, MLF, P natural light

All of them have the buttery, applies-itself quality that they've become famous for. What I came to love more about them though is their uniqueness. A lot of thought has gone into them and that is something most apparent when you're dealing with shimmer polishes. Shimmer in a polish changes the colour quite dramatically and the colour and pigmentation of the base can make a shimmer fly or die. I'm happy to say we have some amazing fly-ers here!

Order of the Garter (OoG) was the only one I was certain I would like. Its gorgeous blue colour and subtle blue-green shimmer made me go back again and again to the website trying to decide whether I should get it or not. I'm glad I waited and got this set in the end. OG's base colour, surprisingly, is not a clean-cut blue, but a light greyish blue, a periwinkle that leans more blue than violet. It's not very pigmented and requires 3 thin coats for full coverage, but that is a very good thing in this case as the light base allows the shimmer to show through from all 3 layers thus getting a gloriously complex blue polish! Oh, and it doesn't give you lobster hands in case anyone is worried.

Morgan Le Fay (MLF, only one letter short of 'milf' which the legendary Morgan probably was) is a sheer shimmery topcoat. When used on its own you'd probably need 4 coats at least for a not-so-visible nail line and it will look whitish shilverish with tiny occasional flashes of pink and green. When used over another polish, somehow it looks frosty light blue. To recap: when you want to have fairy like fingertips, use it on its own; when you want Ice Queen fingertips, layer it over a darker polish.

Perceval (P), the one I thought I was not going to like, but became my favourite of the set. As I mentioned before, I don't like metallic reds; they are too Alexis Colby for my taste and I already have a metallic red I regretted buying in the past. Perceval is a horse of a different colour though and most of my pictures failed to capture it accurately; it's not a true red, or a vermilion like the legendary Perceval's armour was supposed to be. It has purple in it and it's one of those polishes that appear darker on the edges, 'lit from within'. Frankly, as soon as I applied it, it reminded me of a crimson rose; it has that amazing rich rose colour that changes with every angle and a soft velvet look. As if that's not enough to love it, in low light settings it has a certain glow about it which makes it even more amazing. I throw my glove at anyone who thinks Perceval is 'just another red'.

If you managed to read through this post, bravo! You must be a knight of NI! Now for the pictures.

Ps-I think I will fall victim to Jubilove after all. If I had it. the fleur-de-lys would have had a Holy Grail line across instead of red, and the rose would have a Holy Grail centre. Merlin would have to wait for his turn. Why didn't I think of that earlier?