Pass the Pastels

Mmm pastel shades. I love pastel shades. That is I do until I get sick of them like I've eaten far too many Parma Violets. But right now I am back to loving pastels again mainly thanks to these two photos:

The Cherry Blossom Girl is my absolute girl/life crush. Everything she posts is so gorgeous and whilst I can't stand most outfit-posting-bloggers (the majority seem far to up their own asses), I just adore her's. Here's an example of one of the many beautiful photos that she takes and I am in love with her sweet macaroon-coloured nails! Of course if I'm going to replicate this look I may need to conduct some research that begins with buying some macaroons...

The new gradient/ombre nails. I love these super pretty shades and this manicure has been sitting on my Tumblr for a while now. I think it's time to give it a go... Here are the shades that stephanieanguyen used:

Pinky: OPI’s Samoan Sand
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?

This reminds me that I saw OPI's Samoan Sand being used at a show during New York Fashion Week this year. I think it was Max Azria but don't quote me on that. Nevertheless it's very pretty and like a peachy-nude (I seem to be all over these at the moment) so I may need to pick a bottle up.

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

Apparently 1 in 3 tuned in for the Royal wedding - me included! I wasn't planning on watching but the excitement around the dress, and the fact that I was up early to buy some Liberty print Nikes meant that I ended up switching the TV on.

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."

Very natural colours and I'd imagine that they're quite sheer as well. Does any have these colours and can try out the new princess look?

Floral Nails - A First Attempt

I had a go at doing floral nails earlier this week. This is definitely not the best photo in the world of them but my camera is back in London and I'm still at my parents'.


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!

Originally I wanted a blue base colour but the blue I have with me didn't go with the colour of the flowers (which I practised on a notepad beforehand). To do the flowers I tried all sorts but preferred using the brush that came with the polish to "dab" on spots of colour. I think that when trying to do vintage-y Cath Kidston type floral prints it's much better to be less precise and more rough so after the first colour (Freedom of Peach), I layered on top Rosewood Pink in the same dabbing motion before switching to my trusty Barry M White. I then added some leaves using a Topshop polish, although I'm not too happy with the shade of green...

(I swear my hands are not normally this wrinkly?)

Overall I think it's quite decent for a first try but I wish I had something light and sheer with me that I could've used as a base coat. Ahh well, next time. Practise makes perfect and all that. More runway nails to come soon, I promise! I've got a good idea in my head but it'll take a couple of weeks to gather the right materials...!

Easter manicure

This totally isn't a runway look (as far as I'm aware!) but I just wanted to share with you the nails I had over Easter. I changed them last night but I haven't decided if I like my new nails or not so in the meantime here's some cute pastel bunnies...

Yellow: OPI "The It Colour"
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"

As you can tell I like to use a lot of Barry M! I love Barry M as they're cheap (always in some sort of 2 for £5/3 for 2 type dealio) and they're quite opaque. I've gone back to my parents' for Easter and have only a small selection (read: 20) of polishes with me so I haven't listed the full names of the colours. If anyone wants them, just leave me a comment and I'll get back to you when I'm in London again.

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

These were some nails I did a while ago. Rather simple, chic and featuring Chanel (I'm a sucker for Chanel). If you'd like to read more about how I did them, click here to see the article I wrote for Grazia.

Base: Revlon "Grey Suede" (the best nude colour I've found for my skintone so far)
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...)

Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 v3.0

Not totally sure how I feel about these nails. I bought a yellow nail art pen from a shop in Chinatown and it was shit. Really hard to use. This would probably look better on longer nails.

Base: Butter London "Pearly Queen"
Black bands: WAH Nails Model's Own nail art pen
Yellow triangles: shitty cheap pen from Chinatown

I'd like to say that you get what you pay for but today I discovered that the brush on my WAH Nails Model's Own white nail pen had somehow broken off whilst it's been sitting on my shelf so...

Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 v2.0

I did these nails after three attempts at doing some more runway nails. I couldn't do any of the previous prints any justice on my nails and was getting increasingly frustrated when I thought I'd do this as it's relatively simple.

I used Butter London's "Pearly Queen" as the base colour, then layered on dots with the end of a hair pin (works quite well if you don't have any tools like me!) The black and white were Barry M and the red was OPI's "Monsooner or Later". Easy peasy.

These nails were actually retweeted by Marc Jacobs and Sophy Robson (my nail idol)!

Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 Simone nails

So this is the story of how this blog came about.

I was on bored, looking at the new Marc by Marc Jacobs collection and loved the colours of this Simone dress. Then I looked at the nail polishes on my shelf. I had pretty much the exact same colours just sitting there so I figured I'd give it a go. And from there it's kinda grown. I love prints, I love fashion (obviously, I have a degree in it) and I'm hopelessly head over heels in love with nail art. So here we are.

White: Barry M
Yellow : OPI "The It Colour"
Greige: Deborah Lippmann "Waking Up in Vegas"
Blue: Andrea Fulerton "Gloria" nail art brush
Red: OPI "Monsooner or Later"

Sophy Robson's Giles Nails

I had a go at doing Sophy Robson's Giles' nails (with different colours) a while ago. They were super easy - no special tools needed - and got me lot of attention! They were even a hit with boys!

New York Fashion Week FW11: Ruffian

Backstage at Ruffian's Fall/Winter 2011 show during New York Fashion Week.

Tuxedo nails: The best nails I saw all week.

(Click to enlarge)