Sunday 7 April 2013

Month of A-England: Excalibur and Avalon ruffian

For the second of my month of A-England posts, I decided to try a manicure I've never been brave enought to try before- the ruffian. I'm not the neatest of nail painters, and my saving grace is always my trusty clean-up brush. Obviously with a ruffian, my ability to paint in a smooth line would become very obvious, very quickly. Yet I'm really proud of myself and impressed with how this turned out.


Ruffian manicure using Avalon and Excalibur. I love how purple and silver look together!



I started with a base of Excalibur. Excalibur is a platinum metallic foil polish and I have to admit it's not my favourite type of polish. Foil finishes always show brushstrokes, no matter what you do, and I never thought I'd like a plain silvery polish anyway. In fact, the only reason I bought this is because it came bundled with Saint George and Tristam in the Thank You promo a few months back. I never thought I'd wear it- but I was thankfully wrong! I still wouldn't wear it on its own, I don't think, but it's a lovely complimentary colour to so many of the polishes in the collection. I used two coats, to try and even out the brushstrokes.


I then used two layers of Avalon on top, trying my best to follow the curve of the nail a few millimetres down the nail. Avalon is a shimmery royal purple, that I think would be opaque in 1 coat if you were applying it onto a bare nail. I needed two coats to get full coverage over Excalibur and also to try and neaten out my lines!


Overall, I'm impressed with these polishes- and with the manicure. It's not perfect, but considering this is my first ruffian, I don't think it's too bad. I'll definitely be wearing Avalon again, possibly on its own since it's so gorgeous, and while I probably won't wear Excalibur on its own, I will definitely use it in manicures to compliment other polishes- I'm keen to find out if it will work well as a stamping polish, because I think that could be gorgeous! I might have to try that for one of my posts this month! 

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