Snowflakes
Chanel SS12 Nails
Purple: Barry M Boots Limited Edition
Teal: China Glaze "For Audrey"
Blue: Barry M "Blueberry Ice Cream:
Pink: Barry M 119
Decals: eBay
Pearls: Poundland
I also really enjoyed the Louis Vuitton SS12 collection so watch out for those nails coming up!
Born Pretty Store's Colour Changing Polish
Holographic nails were a go-to look for me over summer due in part to the bright summer sun working their magic on those beautiful glitter particles but now I have another go-to summer nail polish! Using the sun again to work its magic, this polish goes from milky white to bright, hot magenta pink depending on how bright the sun is.
I also feel obliged to say that I bought this polish with my own money as part of a bigger order I placed with BPS. Also in my order were the acrylic mixing system and 3d molds so look out for a review on those in the somewhat near future!
Best Nails of LFW: Meadham Kirchhoff SS12
These are most definitely going to be my next nails. Let's see if I can pull this one off! Stay tuned kids!
Getting Topshop's SS12 Hieroglyphic Nails
Apologies to Toppers for not using their polishes but I didn't have any of the right colours to hand (no pun intended). Instead I used Revlon's "Gold Coin" for the gold (middle finger and thumb), OPI's "Monsooner or Later" for the red (index and pinky) and OPI's "Teal The Cows Come Home" for the blue (ring finger). I also used WAH nails/Model's Own nail art pen in black, Andrea Fulerton's Stripe and Sparkle in Kathleen (aka white) and Andrea Fulerton's Stripe and Sparkle in Gloria (blue) to do the detailing.
After painting two coats of colour I then did the designs by freehand using nail art pens to draw eyes onto my nails. Two curves, a couple of lines, a dot of blue and a dot of black somehow made a passable eye. A horizontal stripe of "Gold Coin" and two thin-ish black lines completed the index whilst a thick white line, two black vertical lines and some zigzags finished off my pinky. The triangle on the ring finger was easy enough to do freehand and I'm rather impressed with my clean lines, if I do say so myself! A good coating of Seche Vite and I'm done, I've got the Egyptian look! What do you think? On the left is a pic from Sophy Robson's Twitter and on the right is my attempts at getting Egyptian nails...
The Married to Chanel Manicure Take Two!
Black: WAH nails/Models Own nail art pen
Decals: eBay
Sophy Robson for Sephora
I had some free time last week to do my nails so opted to try out this look. I didn't have any gorgeous gold crystals but I did make a trip to Poundland for some of their nail art kits (which turned out to be buy one get one free!!!) so I used the silver gems in that. And the result?
I'd love to get my hands on those bigass gold gems that Sophy used so I guess I'll keep my eyes peeled on eBay for them. The whole shoot that Sophy did for Sephora is just pure and total NAIL PORN so you should all definitely take a look!
Miu Miu SS11
Not gonna lie - was totally lusting after these in the Selfridges sale
Black: WAH Nails/Models Own black nail art pen
Stella McCartney Spring/Summer 2011
Amazing value for money: GOSH, £4.99
Like everyone else I've gone a bit loopy for fruits and fruit prints so this may be the first of a few fruity nails. The inspiration for these came from a dress in Stella McCartney's Spring/Summer 2011 collection and I'm just in love with this print:
Green: some green polish that came with my Gcocl kit (which I've had for nine years and still is fine!)
Antonio Berardi V-Gaps
Mary Katrantzou SS11
I printed out a large version of Mary's Serendipity dress (thank you Net-A-Porter for providing hugeass images for me to use) onto my printer decal paper so I could then use sections of the dress on my nails. I did think about small versions of the dress on my nails but 1) I don't have a super amazing printer (although it has served me very well) and 2) I couldn't be bothered to try and resize them to fit my tinyass nails.
The whole thing was rather straightforward save for the part where you put the decal into water and leave it for x amount of time until the backing paper comes off. Being a bit of an idiot (I don't like to read instructions, I'm far too impatient to waste my time doing that!) it took me about four or five goes before I realised that around 15 seconds was enough time for the backing paper to come off and any longer meant the whole thing would just fall to pieces.
I also rather stupidly thought that it would be just like the water decals I used to get free with Mizz when I was 14. Nope. This (and I used the white kind fyi) was more like a sticker that you had to put in water to "activate" the stickiness. And ultimately that's what it was rather than what I would think of as a decal.
To finish I filed off the excess with a cheap emery board from Poundland in the same way that you would with a nail wrap.
Essentially this is my homemade version of some nail wraps only more fiddly and a lot more wet.
Worth the effort? I'm not quite sure yet... Whilst I love the idea of creating my own nail stickers with whatever images I want, ultimately I still think that I prefer polish. And honestly I can't see that changing any time soon.
Cupcake Nails
Orange: Revlon "Mango Madness"
Bluey-Green: Revlon "Ocean Breeze"
Pink: Revlon "Bubblegum"
Pink Glitter: Barry M "Pink Iridescent"
Purple: Barry M Limited Edition Boots colour
White: Barry M
Red Cherry: OPI "Monsooner or Later"
Sprinkles are: Barry M (blue), OPI (yellow), Revlon (pink and purple)
These were actually super easy to do and I actually replicated it pretty well on my right hand as well:
Crappy Photobooth pic
Of course I've asked for a whole heap of nail art goodies for my upcoming birthday and am hoping someone will sneak a bottle of this into my pressies:
Marc Jacobs prints
I think I need to feel inspired again. I have recently come into a lot of polish (freebies plus I got some nice OPI pinks from work - the perks of my job!) so I'm sure inspiration will hit me like a brick soon enough.
Hussein Chalayan SS11
When I spotted this dress instantly knew I had the right colours sitting on my shelf; Revlon Gray Suede and Revlon Passion Fruit (it's scented too). Unfortunately I was having a severe case of impatient-itus and ruined my nails all over again. I took my time after that and painted the colours with a day inbetween to seriously dry so after a few days this was the result:
(Have to say that Passion Fruit smells so yummy! It reminds me of a packet of Skittles which is really making me hungry...)
Oh, by the way it's my birthday on May 19th so if you'd like to buy me the matching dress it's only £930 from net-a-porter.
Vogue Nippon Loewe Nail Stickers
I'll let you know if I get over my anal-ness or manage to get my hands on some more...
Pass the Pastels
Ring: OPI’s Kiss On The Chic
Middle: OPI’s Lucky Lucky Lavender
Index: OPI’s Rumple’s Wiggin
Thumb: OPI’s Do You Lilac It?
I really want to get back to London and my entire polish collection to yank out all the pastels I own and paint my nails in the sweet shades but I currently have a list of nail ideas as long as my arm so it might be a few weeks before they make an appearance on this blog. Keep your eyes peeled though as when it comes to my nails I get bored pretty easily...
Royal Nails
The dress was Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen and it was gorgeous. I'm not a fan of long-sleeved wedding dresses but I just fell in love with the lace (such a sucker for lace) and the perfect train (not too long) and the edging on her veil! It was a perfect fairytale wedding dress.
After the dress had been revealed I was of course quite curious about the nails. According to the Daily Fail the nails were done by beautician Marina Scandoval who used a "custom blended a special mix including Bourjois no 28 Rose Lounge and Essie 423 Allure."
Floral Nails - A First Attempt
I've been meaning to try out floral nails for a while now but didn't have the right colours. When I spotted the Models Own Pro range in Boots the other day I couldn't resist picking up a couple of bottles. After umming and ahhing for about half an hour I chose Rosewood Pink (a dusty vintage sort of rose pink without being overly saccharine) and Freedom of Peach (a nudey sort of peach). I've been meaning to get some colours I could use for florals and these seemed perfect!
Easter manicure
Green: Barry M
Pink: Barry M
Blue: Topshop
Purple: Barry M Limited Edition colour for Boots
White (eyes and insides of ears): Barry M
Black (eyes): Barry M
Pink (noses): Deborah Lippmann "Pop Life"
I was going to use the WAH nails/Models Own nail art pens for the eyes and ears but I find using the actual brush that comes with the polishes much easier than the nail art brushes (sometimes too fine a line) or the fine end (always end up with polish spurting out the top!!) Speaking of Models Own, yesterday I stumbled across a Boots that has the Models Own Pro range and since Boots are doing a very yummy 3 for 2 across all make-up, I snagged a couple of bottles which I've used in my most recent nails! Photos to come on that look...
Married to Chanel
Tips: Barry M Black with Nailene's Perfect French Tip Stickers
Chanel logo: eBay (also have some LV to use and some YSL ones on my hitlist...)