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!

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...

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...

Sophy Robson for Sephora

Do I talk about Sophy Robson too much on my blog? Probably. But I just can't get enough of her nails and seeing her shoot with Sephora just made me DIE! My favourite of the bunch has to be the purple half moon mani:

What can I say, I guess I'm just a sucker for half moon manis and most especially, giant rhinestones!!

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?

Not too bad. This is after a week's wear and you can see that it's wearing off at the ends - eep! What you can't see is some of the gems have fallen off but otherwise it's all in pretty good nick! I started off by using Barry M's Limited Edition pastel purple (the one they did for Boots with the gold lid) before painting on the darker purple - Revlon's "Passionfruit" (scented and oh-so-nice) on top, leaving the half moon. I did this freehand and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I then added a bit of Seche Vite and the gems on top before sealing with another layer of Seche Vite.

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!

Antonio Berardi V-Gaps

Ahh, Sophy Robson, how I worship at your feet! I remember seeing these nails earlier this year when Sophy blogged about them on her site. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the v-gap as seen at Antonio Berardi AW11.

Love how this look is both classic and new at the same time. Swoon!

The show nails created by Sophy were petrol blue. Unfortunately I am seriously lacking in the blue department so after some hmming and ahhing I eventually settled on a matte polish. I picked Revlon's "Ruby Ribbon" which is part of their matte suedes range although if I'm honest the colour is more red brown and the final effect reminds me more of leather than suede - definitely a handy one for Loewe leather look nails!

As you can sort of make out here there is still a slight sheen to the polish so in my opinion it's not a true matte but still gorgeous all the same.

This was definitely trickier than I had anticipated. I reckon this could have been made simpler by using a square piece of tape, placing it at a diamond angle at the bottom of the nail and then painting vertically upwards leaving that all-important gap in the middle, of course. If I were going to do this look again (and I totally would) this is how I would do it so note to self: stock up on some tape.

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".

Hussein Chalayan SS11

I love Hussein Chalayan. He's one of my favourite designers (along with Chanel, Marc Jacobs and Luella). Lately I've been craving nude nails, nothing too wacky, something a bit more sophisticated. Maybe it's because I'm about to turn a whole year older but quite simple nails were called for.

I had a browse around net-a-porter for some nail inspiration and hit upon gold. This was after I had attempted to do some Jonathan Saunders nails pretty much in the dark (thank you, dodgy wiring) and they had, of course, come out all shades of horrible. I was definitely ready for simple!

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:

I'm quite happy with this although I'm super tempted to whack something sparkly on... If I had uber long nails (never going to happen since I wear contacts and quite like having eyes despite them not being quite so good as they used to be) I'd have done a Louboutin-esque manicure with the pink on the inside and nude on the outside. A bit more peekabo like the dress but nevermind, I'm sure more people can appreciate the pretty colours better this way!

(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.

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...)