Showing posts with label opi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opi. Show all posts

Getting Topshop's SS12 Hieroglyphic Nails

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been snowed under and then now it's Fashion Week and... yeah. Anyway, here's a piece I wrote for Grazia Daily on Sophy Robson's hieroglyphic nails that she did for Topshop's Spring/Summer 2011 show. More updates soon, I promise!

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Those who know me know that I'm a fan of many things and one of those things in particular is nails. I love pretty colours, wacky designs and amazing artwork - all of which Sophy Robson does so well. I've been eagerly awaiting all of her London Fashion Week updates and yesterday's Topshop hieroglyphic nails caught my eye. The bright colours! The simple but super impressive designs! I had to have them on my nails - now!

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...

Cupcake Nails



It's my birthday on Thursday and I'm turning the big 2-3 so to celebrate I've finally decided to paint cupcakes on my nails. It's been done a million times before in a million different ways so whilst it's nothing earth shatteringly new it's incredibly cute and puts a smile on my face when I look down (although I've literally just thought of a way to make them cuter..)

Yellow: OPI "The It Colour"
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)

The Revlons are all scented polishes (something I remember being totally into when I was 12 and reading Bliss and J-17 magazines - those were the days!) and I definitely love catching whiffs of them throughout the day!

These were actually super easy to do and I actually replicated it pretty well on my right hand as well:


Crappy Photobooth pic

To do the cupcakes I painted on rectagular blocks of colour along the edge of my nail (a bit like a giant french tip) before layering on the white polish to create a frosting effect. A blob of red for the cherry on top and some multicoloured sprinkles completes the look! And I also added glitter onto my ring finger cuppycakes as I can't resist having one different from the others.

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:



An incredibly suitable present for a polish fanatic like me: Deborah Lippmann's "Happy Birthday".

Marc Jacobs prints

I haven't been having much luck with my nails lately. I've tried a couple of designs and aren't happy with any of them so I'm not going to post them until they're perfect. In the meantime, here's a couple of Marc Jacobs manicures (yeah I realise there's beena few!)


First Marc manicure I ever did and probably the first that I did trying to copy/replicate other designs. This one features Miss Marc on the thumb, mouse (as in mouse flats) on the index, Marc Jacobs scrambled logo on the middle, Lola on the ring and kiss print on the pinkie (surprisingly easy to do!).




Marc manicure take two - much more happier with this one (a week later after the original). Featuring leopard print on the thumb, Lola on the index, a much better scrambled logo on the middle, Daisy Eau So Fresh on the ring and the polkadots from the FW11 collection.

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.

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...

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...

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"