Snowflakes

Just a quick one... need to catch up on my recent nails but here's what I've currently got on:

Blue: Leighton Denny "Inkjet"

White: Models Own/WAH nails white nail art pen

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!

Born Pretty Store's Colour Changing Polish

This is something I've been meaning to get up for a while now (lack of internet and working shitloads will make you fall behind with blogs, so I've been told..)

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 totally marvelled over my nails for a good few days, as did all the people I showed them to (yep, people, not just girls but boys also!) Here's a video which doesn't quite justify the super amazingness of it all:

That video doesn't quite show you just how bright the polish can turn. Here's a pic of my scraggly nails standing on the platform waiting for the tube to go to work one particularly sunny morning:

Pretty amazing, huh?

It's not all great news though. I have to be honest and say that the formula was a bit weird. And by weird I mean gloopy and taking quite some time to dry. Once dry the polish had a rather matte finish. And it chipped a lot and really easily too (hence that massive hunk that came off on my index finger in the picture). You can put a topcoat on this, it won't affect the final finish or the colour changing properties of the polish but it didn't seem to help! You'd think that because it chipped easily that it would be quite easy to remove, right? Well, no. Not at all! See, I ended up with half nails of polish, bits here, bits there. It drove me mad. So I tried to take it off. Nope, not budging. I had to get out my cheapie Boots nail polish remover which contains acetone (I found out that night that my regular remover doesn't contain acetone), soak cotton wool pads in this and then wrap my fingers in tin foil for at least five minutes before it would turn gloopy again and peel-off-able. Here's my futuristic robot fingers:

Despite all the negatives, I do think I'll be using this again albeit not for a while (what's up with these darker evenings, super depressing). At only $6-something it works out to about £4, plus there's free worldwide shipping and I think for £4 you're not going to find anything else quite like it on the highstreet! (I did see that H&M I think had some UV colour changing polishes but as I'm not a regular frequenter of clubs it's not something for me personally.)

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!

Colour changing nail polish from Born Pretty Store, $6.14.

Best Nails of LFW: Meadham Kirchhoff SS12

I loved the Topshop nails. I loved the glossy gorgeous red at Antonio Berardi too (coincidentally spotted a similar shade on someone a few days earlier and mentally noted to add this to my collection). But my favourite nails of all of London Fashion Week had to be those from the Meadham Kirchhoff show.

(Image from @styledotcom)

OMG. I die. These nails are just incredible and cute and incredibly cute. I love the kitschy ridiculousness of it all and after hours and hours of Googling and waiting, it seems these nails were created by Nail Rock (of nail wraps fame). Here's a link to all the purty designs on their Facebook account.

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

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!