Happy Halloween!

*HAPPY HALLOWEEN!*

 

It's been a little while since I last blogged as I've been super busy with a bunch of stuff so apologies for my lack of presence on here.  Part of the reason as to why I've been so busy is that I've started having to commute to London which often means that I have to leave the house before 7am and I don't get home until half seven in the evening so, as you can imagine, it's pretty exhausting.  Worth it, but exhausting!

 

Anyway, seeing as Halloween has been all around us lately it seemed only right for me to commence my blogging duties by embracing all that is All Hallows' Eve!

 

I'm not great with Halloween as I'm easily scared - it took me years before I could watch Hocus Pocus without being terrified of Billy (the zombie) - I'm pleased to say that at 24 years old, I can now watch it without the fear factor, and, if anything, Billy (besides Binx the cat) is probably my favourite character in the film. 

 

My Halloween was fairly laid back this year and I basically refused to watch any full-on scary movies as I'm the kind of person where even the front cover on scary movie DVDs tend to freak me out so just watching them is pretty much out of the question!  However, I did agree to watch Tucker and Dale vs. Evil with my family which was bloody (literally) brilliant!  If you haven't seen it (and you really should) it's about two hillbillies who a group of college kids assume to be crazy serial killers, it's what I call a proper 'laugh-out-loud' movie and stars Tyler Labine, who I've been a huge fan of ever since watching Reaper (why did they have to cancel that show?  WHY?!).  It also stars Alan Tudyk who happens to be in one my of favourite (and recently-cancelled!) TV shows, Suburgatory, as well as being the voice of the Duke of Weselton in Frozen (bit of trivia for ya there!).  You should definitely check this film out if you want some giggles - be warned though, there is a bit of gore but if I can handle it, then you probably can too!

 

I was keen to make sure that my nails matched the Halloween atmosphere this year and went for some fun monster nail art which took me about an hour to do but was well worth it and resulted in plenty of compliments at work.   

 

 

I was also determined to make the most of the Halloween festivities on Friday so rocked this pumpkin crop top to the office:

 

 

I got the pumpkin tee for £5 reduced from £28 last summer from Urban Outfitters and I was so excited to finally get to wear it so thank goodness I didn't forget about it or I probably would have cried.

 

I was meant to go to a Halloween house party on Friday night but got back from work late which made it impossible to go to the party - plus I was incredibly tired from work so it was probably for the best (or at least that's what I told myself!).

 

Even on Saturday night when more Halloween revellers were out causing mischief and mayhem, I settled for a quiet dinner out with one of my best friends which, in my opinion, was much better than a night out as we were able to have a proper catch up which was lovely as we hadn't seen each other in about two months! 

 

I finished off my Saturday night with a heavenly Halloween-themed bath courtesy of Lush.  I used their Halloween Wizard Bubble Bar which smelt divine and turned my bath a stunning shade of purple and it was exactly what I needed after a long week of work! 

 

 

 

 

So Halloween this year was a somewhat relaxed affair compared to previous years but I'm kind of OK with that, as in all honestly, I just don't think I had the energy to go full throttle this year - I guess that's a sign of getting older, right?  YIKES!

 

 

 

 

Office-Appropriate Nails and Reliving my Teen Years

Office-appropriate nails are always a dilemma of mine and I have spent many an evening going through my drawers of nail polishes trying to find a colour or shade that is suitable for an office environment.

In general, I tend to opt for subtle, natural shades such as nudes, beiges, greys, pale pinks - nothing that is too 'in-your-face'.  However, sometimes this all just gets, well, pretty boring, especially for a nail art obsessive like myself.  So, this evening I tried to come up with a compromise: I would stick with this subtle nail polish palette but I would incorporate it into a nail art design.


The key with my chosen nail art look was to stick to the subtle theme and keep it fairly understated which meant no neon colours and clumpy glitters (my heart just broke a little bit from writing that!).  This resulted in selecting only two simple nail polish colours, a grey-based nail polish by Topshop and a shimmery (well, I needed a little bit of glitter, I'm only human!) sheer nude-based nail polish by Maybelline (this is the same one that I used for my nail art looks in the posts Nail Update: Summer, glitter and sparkles! and Black Gloopy Nails, just in case you were wondering......were you actually wondering or have I overstepped the mark here?). 



Office ombre nails!


I went for an ombre nail design as it's a quite soft nail art look and a fairly easy process which doesn't take too long to achieve.  To start off with, I used my standard base coat which is OPI's Original Nail Envy Nail Strengthener followed by one coat of Maybelline's Color Show nail polish in Sugar Crystals.  Once this was dry, doing one nail at a time, I used a Topshop nail polish in the shade Hopscotch and painted the top third of my nail so that it looked like this (this bit does not need to be too neat):







A little messiness is just fine by me!

Once I'd applied the polish to the top third of my nail, I grabbed some tin foil and dropped a few blobs of the Topshop nail polish onto it.  I then grabbed my cosmetic sponge and dabbed it into the nail polish and lightly blotted it on the foil a couple of times before dabbing the nail polish onto my nail using the sponge.  I carefully brought the colour about halfway down, so that the colour faded out as it approached the bottom half of the nail.  I then finished this nail art look off with a coating of Seche Vite's Dry Fast Top Coat to blend the nail polishes together and soften the look even further.  The reason why I did one nail at a time was because I needed my Topshop nail polish to not be completely dry when adding my top coat otherwise it would not have blended as nicely.

Items used from left to right: Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat, OPI Original Nail Envy Nail Strengthener, Topshop nail polish in the shade Hopscotch, Maybelline Color Show nail polish in the shade Sugar Crystals and a cosmetic sponge.

I'm really happy with this look as I think that it is subtle enough to be acceptable for an office job but it's still slightly quirky and unique which is very much a good thing in my opinion. 

The irony of this whole nail art look was that whilst I was trying to achieve this 'mature' nail art design, I was reliving my teenage years and listening to 'The Best of Hilary Duff' on Spotify, I'm not even ashamed about it though.......and I'm definitely not ashamed about the fact that I still know all the words to 'So Yesterday'.  Not even a lit bit of shame here, only Hilary Duff-lyric-knowing pride - turns out my teenage years weren't wasted after all!




No shame here!

Feel free to let me know what you think of this look, or Hilary Duff, I'm not fussy!

WAH Nails: Marble Nail Art

For those of you out there who aren't already aware, I'm somewhat of a WAH Nails enthusiast and when I'm not constantly scrolling through their Instagram pics then I'm eagerly checking out their Twitter feed awaiting some new nail art revelation. 

I recently stumbled upon WAH Nails' YouTube page and their nail art tutorials and the only way I could have been more excited was if I was actually at WAH Nails getting my nails done!  I couldn't help but want to try out one of the designs so I went with the most recent video upload which was their 'Candy Marble Nails' tutorial.  I decided after watching the video that I would adapt the design somewhat and so I went for a different selection of nail polish colours as I wanted a really vibrant finish.  I also did more of a mismatched swirl in my marble design compared to the one done in the tutorial but the technique was completely the same.  I love this design as the effect comes out different on each nail and you can swirl the nail polish anyway you choose which injects a bit of personality into the overall look.

 

The beauty of this nail art design is that you don't even need any nail art tools - just a couple of nail polishes (I used 4 different colours), a base coat, top coat and some cocktail sticks.  It's a super simple concept that creates such a strikingly stunning nail art look. 

Products used from L to R: Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat, OPI Nail Envy Nail Strengthener, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Nail Paint in the shade Blue Grape, bright pink Kelly Brook Nail Polish (available from New Look), Barry M Nail Paint in the shade Foil Effect (gold), Barry M Nail Paint in the shade Matt White and cocktail sticks.  

All I did to create this look was start off with my OPI Nail Strengthener base coat and I then applied one coat of Barry M's Gelly Hi-Shine Nail Paint in the shade Blue Grape.  Afterwards, doing each nail one at a time starting with my thumb nail, I applied some blobs of my Barry M nail polish (the same one I mentioned in the previous sentence) onto my nail followed by blobs of Kelly Brook's nail polish in a bright pink shade and then some blobs of Barry M's Nail Paint in the shade Foil Effect (Gold) and finally some blobs of Barry M's Nail Paint in the shade Matt White.  Once I was all blobbed out, I grabbed a cocktail stick and swirled it through the wet nail polish which created a marvellously dreamy marble effect.  After I had done this blobby/cocktail stick routine on each nail, I finished off the design with a slick of Seche Vite's Dry Fast Top Coat and I was good to go!

This nail art look essentially gives you a very similar finish to water marble nail art but without the clean up or sellotape prep that you would have with the water marbling process for your nails.  Don't get me wrong, I love doing water marbling on my nails but it can be quite fiddly and sometimes a little messy around the nail.

It took me about 25 minutes to achieve this WAH Nails marble design which just makes it even more amazing if you ask me - it's quick, it's simple, it's easy, you don't need any fancy tools and it looks so incredibly striking that you'll be getting compliments all day!

Here's the WAH Nails YouTube tutorial which I was referring to in this post, check it out:

Let me know what you think about this nail art design, I'd love to hear from you!

Nail Update: Summer, glitter and sparkles!

So last week I was working the black gloopy nail art look which I absolutely loved, in fact I loved the gloopy factor so much so that this week I decided to update this nail art design and give it a more summery twist by swapping black for pink, glitter and sparkles!

Check it out my lovelies:

I can't help but smile when I look at these - is that a bit weird?

 



This design is not only cute but also pretty damn easy to do so it ticks all those pesky nail art boxes!

If you're interested (and I'm naively assuming you are seeing as you've read this far!), here's everything that I used for this look (minus the nail glue which I threw away because I used it all up):

(Top to bottom, left to right: nail diamante pin wheel (purchased from New Look but there are loads of these available on eBay), cosmetic sponge. Nail polishes (left to right): OPI Original Nail Envy Nail Strengthener, Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat, Maybelline Color Show Nail Polish (shade - Sugar Crystals), Models Own Nail Polish (shade - Snowflakes NP145), Bourjois So Laque! Ultra Shine Nail Polish (shade - Rosé Merveille 45), Barry M Nail Paint (shade - Matt White 66). Nail art brushes both purchased via eBay).



To create this look start off with a base coat, I used OPI's Original Nail Envy Nail Strengthener  which is my standard base coat because it keeps my nails nice and strong.  Then for all the nails except your ring fingers, apply one coat of Maybelline's Color Show Nail Polish in the shade Sugar Crystals followed by two coats of Model's Own Nail Polish in the shade Snowflakes NP145.  While your nails are drying move onto your ring fingers and apply two coats of the Bourjois So Laque! Ultra Shine Nail Polish in the shade Rosé Merveille 45 and leave to dry whilst going back to the rest of your nails you painted earlier.

Using a thin nail art brush, apply the same Bourjois nail polish used on your ring fingers along the tips of your nails creating French tips.  Once done, use an even thinner nail art brush (you'll want this for the precision of your 'gloops') and paint in your 'gloops' and connect them to the French tips you just painted on. 

Going back to your ring fingers, make sure that they are completely dry and if so, grab a cosmetic sponge and dab a little bit of Barry M's Nail Polish in the shade Matt White 66 onto the sponge and then blot it onto some kitchen roll, tissue or tin foil and carefully dab it onto the tips of your nails working down to create a subtle ombre/dip dye effect.  Once your happy with your ombre effect, then apply Seche Vite's Dry Fast Top Coat to blend the white and pink nail polish together even more so.  Then apply the same top coat to the rest of your nails.

To finish off, grab a selection of diamantes for your two ring fingers and using some nail glue apply the diamantes to your ring finger nails.  Finish off with a final application of your top coat and you're all done! 

I hope my explanation made sense, I'm one of those people that has a tendency to waffle on a bit so it can be a real mission for me to explain something relatively simple without making it sound incredibly complicated and daunting.

Well, there you have it, a simple guide to some super summery and sparkly nail art - let me know what you think!

I could stare at these all day!

Nicki Minaj OPI Mini Nail Polish Collection Part 2

These Nicki Minaj OPI nail polishes have now become my favourite out of all my nail polishes (which is a big deal seeing as I own a ridiculous amount of different nail polishes). The nail polish is really decent quality which I guess you'd expect seeing as it's OPI & as well as that all 4 of the colours which come in the mini polish collection are gorgeous!

On my thumb & little finger I have the Pink Friday shade. On my index finger is Fly. On my middle finger is Did It On 'Em & on my ring finger is Save Me.

All 4 of these shades I absolutely love & I have a feeling that I'll be getting through them pretty quickly so I should probably start saving my money now for the actual full sized bottles of these nail polishes!

As well as the 4 shades that come in the mini polish set, there are also 2 other shades in the collection which I don't have. The first one is Super Bass Shatter which is a crackle/shatter nail polish in a sort of magenta/purpley/plum kind of colour which I'm not that fussed about because I'm not massively into crackle nail polishes, I have a few Barry M ones & I don't particulary like the effect. But that's just me being fussy!

The other shade is called Metallic 4 Life which I really want, it's a shame that it's not included in the mini polish collection because it looks really pretty. It's a sort of black/charcoal based shade with what seems to be silver particles in it.

I got my Nicki Minaj OPI mini nail polish collection off ASOS for £12.95 & they also offered a combo deal of the mini collection along with a full sized bottle of the Super Bass Shatter shade for £18.00 but annoyingly they did not offer any sort of combo for the Metallic 4 Life shade which would have been perfect. So I'll guess I'll have to get that individually at some point, which I definitely plan on doing!

Nicki Minaj OPI Mini Nail Polish Collection Part 1

It's a little bit embarrassing how excited I get over nail polishes, I genuinely think I am addicted to painting my nails. But I'm ok with that, it beats being addicted to other stuff like drugs and alcohol, which would be a total bummer by the way.

Today my Nicki Minaj OPI mini nail polishes arrived and opening that tiny ASOS parcel was like opening a long awaited present on Christmas morning.

It's like the world's created the ideal gift for me. I LOVE Nicki Minaj and I LOVE nail polish, especially OPI, so to combine those two things together is almost too much for me to handle.

I can't wait to try them out which I plan on doing later on tonight! Although I should probably chill out before I use them because I don't want any smudges!