Illamasqua Load and China Glaze Afterglow (featuring bonus pictures of my first attempt at the half moon manicure!)

Before we get to today's manicure, I want to show you what became of my Mermaid's Tears manicure from the other day:

My first attempt at the half moon manicure! I chose OPI Get in the Expresso Lane, a deep brown, to compliment the turquoise of Mermaid's Tears. I love the combination of dark brown and turquoise, it's one of my favourite combinations. I used paper reinforcements to create this look, which was incredibly easy. Here is what it looked like as a work in progress:

I think next time I will take extra care to make sure they are stuck on really well so I get a crisper line, and I'll also place them just a bit lower to show less of the base colour. What do you think of my first attempt at a half moon manicure?

Now, onto today's manicure! This will be my first time posting an Illamasqua lacquer, but you'll probably see a couple more in the future. I really love this brand.

This is Illamasqua Load. Yes, this is a polish called "Load". I think I'll just leave it at that, shall I?

Anyways, this is a really unique polish, as it's a kind of off-white. We'll call it antique lace, I think. I haven't come across anything like it before. The formula is very good for a white polish, as they tend to be super streaky, but this is two coats and it's pretty perfect. I like how it looks here, but I thought I would this would make a good base for China Glaze Afterglow.

Afterglow was one of my $2 purchases from the other day, and I was quite excited to find it. I recall seeing it featured on Scrangie's Blog and was fascinated. In real life, this lacquer has the most amazing and very strong blue flash- not only in sunlight or bright light, but also in lower lighting, which I love.

Here is Afterglow, layered over Load:

It does take on a somewhat yellowy tone (albeit not as yellow as in the last picture), which I'm not totally thrilled about, but it looks really cool. And I couldn't quite capture how bright the blue flash is, unfortunately. I can't wait to try it over other colours!

These are a couple lacquers I really like; in particular the Illamasqua is really fantastic. I have good memories of London when I wear Illamasqua, because I purchased my Illamasqua lacquers during a trip to London. I had the opportunity to visit the Illamasqua store near Carnaby Street (a shopping district in London that I really love).

I really wish I had taken a couple pictures of the Illamasqua store itself- it was pretty cool! And the ladies working there were really nice, too. If I go back there, I'll definitely take pictures to share with you (along with new purchases, I'm sure!).

As it happened, we were in London during a rather momentous occasion...

This was taken while watching the Royal Wedding on big screens in Hyde Park. It was an exciting (and busy) time to be in London.

Do you own any Illamasqua lacquers? What are your favourites? How about China Glaze Afterglow? What do you think of it?