Chanel SS12 Nails

I was excited to see the photos from the Chanel SS12 show a couple of weeks back and an idea for some nails came to me when I saw this pic:

Mmm pearls and pretty pastels and golds on those jewels. It had to be done. Here's my Chanel SS12 manicure:

To do this manicure I first painted two coats of Revlon's "Coconut Crush" before water-marbling pastel colour polishes (see below for list). Next I applied pink and white pearls on the half moons of my nails and then added a gold Chanel decal onto the center of each nail before sealing the whole design with some Seche Vite.

Gold: NARS "Kismet"
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 quite like these nails although I was going for a more subtle, not quite so bright look. I think my favourite nail is my left thumbnail (last photo) and I wish that all of them had come out more like that but water-marbling is so unpredictable (hard if you're a control freak like me!)

I also really enjoyed the Louis Vuitton SS12 collection so watch out for those nails coming up!

The Married to Chanel Manicure Take Two!

Major apologies for being MIA lately. It's been a while since I last updated, and I'm pretty irregular anyway but my internet has been down for the past week or so which hasn't helped things.

A few months ago I did my first married to Chanel manicure, which also got featured on Grazia Daily! These nails are a sort of follow up to them. Last night I was bored of the nails I had on (they were so boring I've forgotten what exactly I was wearing) and opted for my old favourite combo of nude and black.

I really hope that Revlon never stop making "Gray Suede" as I will be crushed! It is my all-time favourite nude and just a fantastic neutral colour. I did try this manicure with a more peachier shade (one that came in a gift box/nail art kit of sorts from Urban Outfitters from around Christmas time) but the polish was horrifically streaky and far too bright for my skintone. So after that first attempt, I decided to stick with something I knew!

After applying two coats of "Gray Suede" I then drew on the half moons freehand using my trusty WAH nails/Models Own nail art pen. Whilst my white version somehow broke sitting on my shelf (Models Own were very nice and gave me some replacement polish) my black one is perfect and dreamy. It was easier than I thought to do the half moons using the brush and my right hand isn't too bad either.

To stick the decals on I first stuck them onto the ball of my finger, pressed on it either side with a pair of tweezers to curve the decal and then stuck it onto my nail with some Seche Vite, which finishes off and seals the look.

Nude: Revlon "Gray Suede"
Black: WAH nails/Models Own nail art pen
Decals: eBay

Also I just wanted another chance to show off my new ring that I got from Topshop on Friday! It's so pretty and sparkly that I just had to buy it even though I'm poor and hate stars...

Mary Katrantzou SS11

When I first started to think of what prints I'd like to use on my nails for this blog I instantly thought of Mary Kantrantzou's amazing print dresses. I would seriously love to own one of these babies:

For my birthday I unfortunately didn't get the Serendipity dress but I did get some printer decal paper and some acrylic spray so that I could make my own nail decals!

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.

Yerp. So as you can see I thought it might be clear (I had no idea since my present giver had no idea either) and painted my nails white just in case. I think I'd quite like to try out the clear kind and see what difference it makes, if any. Also, since I had thought that the decals would be quite thin (like the kind free with Mizz), I thought I could just whack them on my nail and then use a cotton bud with nail polish remove to clean it all up. No such luck. I had to use nail clippers (no idea where my crappy nail scissors have vanished to) to try and curve the what-was-rectangular decal to a sort of nail shape and as you can see it resulted in a totally uncool "rough around the edges" look.

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.