Nailed it

My attempt festive DIY nails - not the best but I'm kind of digging the subtle Christmas vibes.

Happy hoho!

a xxx

Birchbox - November edition

I was gifted Birchbox for my cough 30th cough birthday and I loved it so much I continued the subscription...there are months when I wonder if they even looked at my profile...but more often I get boxes like I recieved yesterday and totally LOVE.

I'll write a note later in the month once I've had the chance to try some of this stuff...the hangover helpers for 'healthy people who like to drink' sound awesome, I needed a new moisturizer and bronzer...and I have been searching for the perfect bright red nail varnish...here's hoping this is it! 

a xxx

New nail obsession

I am unabashedly one of those people who feel naked without nail varnish on. I started getting acrylic nails in high school and haven’t really looked back! I’ve gone from French tips to gel tips, from painting my nails nightly to match my outfit the next day (oh to have time to do that again) to painted super short acrylic. Then I found Shellac. This was the best thing to happen to me in the whole nail world. I could get my nails shaped into a short squared off nail (could never get quite as short as I wanted with the acrylic) have them painted and ready to leave the salon right after I was finished, a mega bonus for pedicures in London when strolling out of the nail salon and on to the bus and home in flippy floppys makes for VERY dirty totally ruined pedicured feet. Initially the colours to choose from were in short supply and I found myself flipping between the almost Lincoln Park After Dark purple (my very fav colour) and a coralish pink. Then Shellac took off – everyone was doing shellac polish, the colours were boundless and still as amazing as when I first got it done.

But alas, my time became not my own anymore and going to the salon for a few hours to get my nails did was not really an option. So I went back to my insane nail polish (varnish?) collection and used the old faithful Seche Vite top coat to create the appearance of a manicured nail.

Then my world was transformed.

CND – the original  shellac creators have created something else super fabulous. Maybe even more fabulous as you can do it yourself without fancy lights or a ton of equipment, or even a base coat.

The first revolution to nail polish in YEARS –  CND Vinylux.

It dries in no time, there is a fairly vast range of colours to choose from for it being the new kid on the block, it says it lasts a week…while I haven’t made it to a week with no chips I have gone about 5 days and then the last two have been manageable (as in a few chips and ‘wear’ around the nail tip but no big hunks of polish coming off).

I’ve also tried using the top coat over ‘normal’ polish and while that doesn’t last quite as long its still better than regular top coat. And the drying time, I mean you really cannot complain about that at all.

In short, this stuff is awesome. I haven't seen in it any UK retailers yet so as of now I've been ordering from Amazon (always look at the colours on their website here first…much more true to what you get than Amazon shows) and I see myself buying ALL THE COLOURS.

a xxx