nails nails nails

Had a bit of a slump in the old nail art a while back, work is really taking it out of me and hadn't really had time to do a lot.

Anyways, that said, it deffo picked up and i started getting a lot more adventurous so here's the latest

Giles Deacon Nails using all Model's Own Products, Bubblegum and Feeling Blue, I've said before how overrated i think Model's Own Polishes are, they chip superbly quickly, they bubble and are expensive for the quality. Despite that I got a few in their recent sale, as they probably are worth the 50% off price and the colours are amazing, but i think there's much better, cheaper brands on the high street.

Cath Kidston Nails, using Eyeko's Vintage Polish, really like the combo of polka dots and flowers but these are a bit girlie for me!

My MasterPiece! I love Van Gogh's Starry Night and one rainy saturday, I set about putting it on my nails. I wish i had a better picture of this as there was so so much detail in it and i used a combo of acrylic paints and Beauty UK Electric blue for the base. I used actual paint brushes to do all the intricate work and i was so happy with how it turned out. I talked about there being better polishes on the high street than Model's Own and the Beauty UK ones definitely impressed me, it was the first time I'd used their polishes and it stayed on without chipping for a week with no top coat (i was scared of smudging it) and it only cost about 2 quid.

And finally the fairly standard leopard print, using one of the 17 polishes that came free in their nail bar gift bag

cosmonaut

Just a quick one on Eyeko's Cosmic Nail Polish. I've been loving all the galaxy nails going around so was super excited to use Eyeko's cosmic shade. I'm an Eyeko ambassador and you can use my code to get money off and i think they are genuinely a good make up brand, the only thing lacking is that they don't have that many products.

The colour is a lot more black than it looks in the bottle but i love all the red flecks in it and it is a super lovely shade.

But, being me, i was a bit bored of it by the next day and wanted to give it a bit more impact so i sponged on some other colours, purple and green i think (using a simple cosmetics sponge) and then dabbed on some big glitter.

I think they came out amazeballs but my litmus test of the work reaction was a bit like 'oh that's pretty' rather than the usual 'OHMYGOD YOUR NAILS!' Psh. whatevs!

good things strawberry polish

I've never had amazingly good skin, but i think it's not bad at all, I still get a few spots now and then even though i'm pretty sure way back in the day Mizz magazine told me i'd have grown out of that by the time i was 19. Well, 4 years later and they're still wrong with a capital W. One of the problems i have with my skin is that because I'm so pale, if i'm the slightest bit tired by whole face gets a kind of grey tinge and if i'm hot I become a red tomato etc etc. and as I'm constantly knackered, I've never been able to find a product that makes my skin look less dull, no matter how many 'brightening' or 'illuminating' products have graced my make up bag/bathroom cupboard.

I really wasn't expecting a lot when i bought Good Things Strawberry Polish, which promises to "lift away dead skin cells along with dirt and impurities and leave your skin feeling extra fresh and smooth."

But I found that after using it to take off my make up at night, my skin did look a lot fresher and the mini breakout I'd been having was drastically better, and completely gone after using this two nights in a row. My skin had a much more even tone and I've found that since using it I haven't been wearing as much foundation which is always good! It has Strawberry seeds and Jojoba beads (not a clue what that is...) as the exfoliating bits which are nice and gentle, as I normal find anything that says exfoliating on it too harsh for my skin and completely drying.

It says to only use it 2-3 times a week but I've been using it nightly and loving it, you only need a small bit so it will last ages and for only £4.99 it's performed way better than other products that will remain nameless (ahem Clinique) that cost 3 times as much.

this is getting silly

Was just sat here like a dope thinking about how rubbish i am at updating this blog and realising that i could actually just update, felt like a bit of a plum...

Model's Own Blooboo - so so so disappointed with this, I find that in general model's own polishes bubble a bit but this was totally smooth (and dry) when i went to bed and when i got up for work 2/3rds of my nails had gone all lumpy and bobbly. This is one of my favourite colours that i have but it looks terrible. I got 17's Heartbeat as a replacement cos the colours pretty close and i find the 17 polishes to be really good quality.

17 - Mini Skirt (definitely my favourite polish at the mo, it gives such a good base to do designs on and lasts pretty well too)

Again 17 - Mini Skirt. I love these little panda guys and how all their faces have different expressions, had two evil pandas on my other hand!

Model's Own Beth's Blue, no lumps! Was going to have these flowery nails all over for my boyfriend's brother's wedding but as my dress had big flower print too decided to just go for plain (boring)

Did these little skull heads watching The Good Wife yesterday morning and went a little overboard! Polish is, you guessed it, 17's miniskirt.

All the designs (i think) have been done using my nail star pens except the skulls which i did with my wah nails pen

various inspirations came from looking on tumblr, especially http://fuckyeahnailart.tumblr.com/

Urgh! been well rubbish lately, just feel like i never have any time to do anything at the moment, anyways! this never meant to be a nail art blog but i've been really not feeling anything in the shops at the moment. There's loads of clothes that i like but nothing that i really want to buy so ive just been spending cash on make up and nail polish so the nail art follows!

Here's my most recent nails...

Love this colour blocking so much, 17 Miami and Pinking Shear. The Miami looks really coral in this photo but it's bright pink, so essex!

17 Knockout Red + Nail Art pens, crappy photo... Got loads of love for these at work though

Favourites! Elf Coral and nail art pens. Love these so much, they even got me out of a super awkward moment in Lakeside Body Shop where i had to go through 3 groupons to find one that worked and then had to pay a quid in coppers. Felt like such a tramp but the girl was so nice and was gushing over my nails...

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Mon Dieu Mondrian.

So this week i've been off work sick with labrynthitis (i know i think its amazing) which means i'm fine as long as i don't try moving. So i've basically spent all week in bed except for a few jaunts out to see if i'd get seasick and have to go to bed again.

Anyways, I'm well and truly ready for summer, I normally hate summer as it means exams, hayfever, sunburn and sweaty trains but for the first time since i was 14 i at least don't have exams to worry about this year.

My mate Nancy and I are heading off to Greece in July to laze on the beach and drink Ouzo and to celebrate i picked up this little bikini set in Primarni for 3 shiny pounds, can't wait to wear it out in the sun!

I love all the sail boats and palm trees on it. Also my Beach sign from Whitstable!

Even though I finished decorating my room in November, i'm still trying to organise all my crap and finding something to put all my nail polish/make up that i only use occasionally is a massive part of that cos it takes up so much space and cos i've lived in 4 different places in the last 4 years, none of my stuff is in the same place, so I found this amazing trunk in TK Maxx and it is in fact full of nail polish. Ohhh well!

Trunk TK Maxx £19.99

Obviously being off sick has meant i've had loads of time to do my nails, I finally took the ice cream polish off today and it was still totally chip free since tuesday. I don't think the same will be said for my Mondrian inspired nails though!

17 Lasting Fix in Mini Skirt and the other colours from my nail star pens

Hopefully be back at work on Monday, I should feel better and not have to take the tablets by then, they make me superly dopey which isn't massively good when you deal with finance all day!

nailing it.

So life has been a bit hectic recently, my job got made permanent rather than just an internship, which you'd think would take a bit of pressure off but now it's all performance reviews and goals and stuff which goes along way, especially with this new thing where at parties all my friends (and me) just talk about our jobs all the time, to making me feel exceptionally dull to be honest! Don't get me wrong I'm so glad to be working there and I know it's a bit of a feat to even have a job at the mo, let alone one that you like, just feeling a bit like the candle is burning at both ends and in the middle, which i haven't really felt since cramming at uni. Probably one of the reasons i got sent home sick today but maybe the prawns i ate last night helped a bit too!

Anywho, life goes on and i've been getting way more adventurous with my nail art, so here's about 3 weeks of progression!

I just got spotify premium on my phone and my commute to work has been massively improved by rediscovering the Pipettes so I guess this was a bit of an homage...

Elf - Light Red, Models Own White pen

My boyfriend agreed to watch Buffy from the beginning with me and after seeing a tutorial on gradients I can't help but think this might have trickled through to my nails

Katy Perry OPI The one that got Away and Topshop Adornment over the top

Gradienting is a really nice way to preserve nail polish a bit more, it's super easy, you just use a sheer/semi opaque colour and layer it up towards the top and over any cracks. Also tried it here with the same Topshop polish, which is so pretty but doesn't photograph as well, it has green, bronze and purple flecks in it.

Here it is layered over a Groupon manicure I got

She used OPI in a blue teal shade with blue glitter on top, think these were my favourite nails!

After seeing this on Tumblr I had to have a go, Cherry Blossom girl was one of my favourite songs a lifetime ago and it gave me a chance to use some of my new nail art pens that you can see pictured above

OPI Teenage Dream (i got the mini katy perry collection and honestly i really dislike it, the shades are too sheer and horrible to remove and somehow they make my nails really sharp so im covered in wee scratches) Nail Star black and pink pens

I mostly like the way it came out but I had to take it off after one day cos the Katy Perry polish was annoying me so much (had that on on its own for a few days before)

Current nails are me longing for summer! This Beth's Blue model's own polish reminded me of parma violets and ice cream and really reminded me of this post

Beth's Blue with broze, pink and green pastel nail star pens

I got this set of nail art pens as a present to myself cos Pete bet me that I couldn't go a month without buying clothes and i'm most deffo winning. With postage it ended up being £26 for 60 pens and they're so good quality, it's the best value thing I've bought in ages

Phew. Photo heavy over and out

The Dangers of Costume Jewellery

Eeek, I promised myself that this year I'd make a real effort to do the blog thing properly but these last few weeks have been so so busy (someone had a birthday!) that i've been more than shit.

This is more an homage to my hands this week, as my last post showed i'm getting quite in to nail art at the minute so when I heard Barry M were doing a version of OPI's shatter at about a 3rd of the cost I was practically running to Boots.

Nail Effects is actually really really fun, you just paint it over your regular nail polish, I used about 3 coats of Elf's Glitter Glam to get a really solid silver as the polish is probably best used to give a glittery top coat than as block colour, then it just kind of coagulates. Watching this happen is really amazing because when you first put it on it is completely black and you think 'oh god I totally fell for it'. Then this happens!

I got loads of compliments all week at work, and it stayed on without chipping sunday-thursday with no top coat on which is pretty amaze I think.

With my birthday spends I had planned on finally, after months of longing, to buy the Lapis YSL Arty. But at about £150 I decided I'd probs get bored of it pretty soon and end up having wasted all that money (that's a lot of nail polish) so opted for Topshop's take on it (although looking at their site they now have much more similar versions)

Anyways, as much as I absolutely love this ring, I'm so glad I didn't buy the YSL one as, after wearing this out for my birthday I woke up the next day to find that it had bruised the whole of my next finger along really really badly and this way i can just go 'Oh bloody topshop' rather than be heartbroken if i'd got beaten up by YSL!

So yes, Beware Costume Jewellery

You've got it Wah Wah Wah WOW

All of my friends know how obsessed I am with having my nails nice and smart, my mate Rachel once asked me if I was having a bit of a rough time cos she'd never seen me with chipped nails before (personally I think that's a bit of an exaggerate but you know...) Usually they're short, square and dark because I think that looks more chic but last week my friend Nancy posted me a link to this Tumblr Wah Nails and I became super obsessed with their designs, after not so much research I found out they sell 'nail pens' in Urban Outfitters and literally (yes i'm tres sad) sprinted through Liverpool Street halfway through my lunch hour to pick one up.

They had one black one left in the shop in a battered up box and I'm not gonna lie, I had very little hope that I'd be able to recreate anything like the nails on their site because my artistic skills leave little to be desired, and whilst I can paint my nails with my left hand, anything more than that is a bit ambitious.

The pen comes with a long super thin brush on one end and a tiny pen on the other. The brush is a bit long for my liking, I think it would be better designed to be more like a dippable felt tip liner rather than an actual brush so you could have more control, and the polish from the pen came out a bit too quickly and easily.

HOWEVER

The pen was amazingly easy to use and in spite of everything this is probably the best nail product that i've bought all year. My only real gripe with it is that even after waiting over an hour for it to thoroughly dry before I put top coat on, the black still feathered a bit like it was wet.

So here's what I did using Elf Polish in Blush and the Model's Own pen and a free thursday evening

P.s. I did see the vid that http://www.gemfatale.co.uk/ did about doing animal nails with eyeliner pens but the majority of the inspiration came from the WAH site. Still, credit where it's due.

Currently coveting.

I know we're all meant to love little ladylike boxbags at the mo and they are lovely and i will probs succumb at some point but all I really want is a really vintage looking leather backpack that i can fit everything in.

Grafea

Ebay.

Luckily, it's payday next week and this is the only thing on my shopping list!

Hating what you Love.

Before I got a job and had to look vaguely smart all week, I used to love work-wear, my wardrobe is full of (plastic) chiffon blouses and structured skirts, brogues and tapered trousers.

It took about 3 weeks of wearing this stuff day in-day out before i realised how much i think i might hate it.

So having gone from a nice shirt and trousers my current work wardrobe is basically a mish-mash of stripy jersey shirts tucked into my old faithful Asos skirt:

I've never really been into wearing casual wear, except for that whole awkward teenage thing where you wouldn't believe how baggy my jeans were. Probably created a denim shortage around the world, but I think having to appear a bit more smart rather than just wanting to has made me regress, so currently these are my most favouritest jeans ever, they're just so comfy and scruff, I love them even though i know how tragic pre-ripped jeans are...

Anyways, the point of this post I guess is how easy it is to get bored of stuff you love once it feels like you're no longer doing it for yourself, but definitely another side of hating my smart wear at the mo is much simpler, now its a bit colder, i really cant work out what shoes to wear with all my slightly cropped trousers. brogues appear too masculine, and its too cold to wear loafers without socks (which just looks whack) and i still, at almost 23, can't actually walk in heels so im resigned to wearing my same boring black skirt for the rest of my days i think.