Two-Toner.

When I first got into nail art and painting my nails as a means to quit biting my nails, I used to change my nail varnish on a daily basis, if not more than that. I must say that making my nails pretty really did help to stop attacking them and now, although I do occasionally fall back into it, I am nowhere near to where I was a few years ago, and I'm pretty proud of myself.

I think nail biting is something you just stop when you fancy it, you can't be told to or really make yourself, at least those are two things that never really worked for me.

After cutting my nails really short, it took forever for them to grow, so aside from the tie-dye (perfect for festivals) design I was obsessed with this time last week, it's taken a little while for me to get into nail art again. I picked this design after seeing a similar two-tone design on someone's Twitter at the beginning of the week with a minty green and pastel pink - and I just will always love leopard nails - I think it's really pretty and goes well with this beautiful summery weather we've had for the last few days.


Base: Nail Envy – O.P.I (amazing base coat, particularly good if you're giving your nails a break and need to strengthen them)
Colours: Sweet as Candy – Rimmel / Utopia – Models Own
Design: Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen (it's like an actual pen, couldn't recommend it enough)
Top Coat: Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (hides a multitude of sins)



I must say that using better base and top coats makes all the difference to how my manicures look and feel, and I've been finding myself a lot more willing to keep the same designs for more than a day. Seche Vite, where have you been all my life?!

Bespeckled.

I guess with Easter approaching it seems only fitting to feature a bit of nail art that mimics Easter eggs, not quite as fun as my efforts last year but still a neat effect and I've definitely found a couple of polishes that will see me well into summer.


Seche Vite Top Coat and Matte Nail Envy Nail Strengthener by OPI are two products I definitely couldn't do my nails without since discovering them, two fantastic finds that I owe to browsing beauty blogs.


I first saw these on Hello Terri Lowe and knew I had to have them right away, the packaging was so different from any other polish I've ever had and they were just so cute. I do like glitter polishes but I'm always put off because I feel like they're hassle to take off, these ones aren't really any different but each layer adds a lovely mixed glitter layer like a sparkly speckled bird's egg, and at just £3.50 they're an affordable dupe of Illamasqua Speckle Polishes.

I picked them up in 'Mintchoco' and 'Strawberry Stars Candy' (because I figured they were most ice creamy and springy) from this seller on eBay as recommended in Terri's post. I think I disagree with her in that it 'doesn't dry hard' as I found it was pretty solid. With 'Strawberry Stars Candy' I found a few coats did do the trick but being a bit of a nitpicker, I ended up doing around 6 or 7 coats just to get the combination that I wanted. I'm yet to try 'Mintchoco' but I must say that it looks like it provides a thicker coverage, either way I think they're a great find and the perfect polishes to perk up my collection which is in need of a good spring clean – if spring ever gets here.


*scuse the poor lighting, I ran out of daylight, I hope you get the idea that this polish is kind of a light milky pink, the photos don't show the tiny flecks of holo glitter that well though, but that's there too!

What I Wore: Polka Dot Creep.

Here's what I wore when I went to Gathering Festival on Saturday. It wasn't too cold but it did get drizzly in the evening and I didn't want to take any chances having only just recovered from being ill for the two days previous to this. I was really pleased with this outfit, it was cosy and warm but I didn't feel too wrapped up.


Coat: Primark
Cardigan: H&M
Dress: Izabel London @ House of Fraser
Belt: Another dress, Primark
Tights: M&S
Socks: Primark
Shoes: Timeless @ ASOS


Necklace: Vintage
Pin: Cath Kidston


Bag: Marc b. @ Topshop


This dress was a total bargain from when I was having my shopping spree fail at the beginning of the month. It was originally £32, marked down to £18 but I got it for £12. I really love the shape and I don't have enough polka dots in my wardrobe at the moment. It actually came in super useful as a semi-smart-casual dress when I was shooting Nick and Cat's wedding the weekend before too. I really like the frilly waist detail and I'm just so pleased, it's definitely one of my best finds in ages.

I'm really sad that these flatform/creepers didn't get more use when I bought them in the summer, but I like styling them up the way I have here and I think I might do it more often. They were really comfortable too, great for standing around for ages, perfect for gigs!

I really hope that this coat is a real bargain and lasts, I'm not hopeful as it's only Primark but it's doing really well so far. I really like the cuffs and it definitely does the job of keeping me cosy now it's colder.


I really enjoyed this manicure. I feel like it might be my first successful attempt at Aztec/Tribal nail art, which I'm definitely putting down to the fantastic Topshop nail art pen.
Proper Copper, Top Turquoise, Vintage Rose & Disco Heaven (Hed Kandi) by Models Own
Country Bumpkin by Topshop
Nightrider, Topshop Nail Art Pen


I finally feel like I've adjusted to the seasonal change now, especially seeing as the weather is behaving more as I would expect it to. Have you been wrapping up warm recently?

Izabel London

I'll Eat You Whole.

So a few months ago, some of you may remember that Ciaté released images of their 'caviar' manicure. It looked awesome, but was a little steep for my purse at the time and I was reluctant to try it.I was in Superdrug and what should I spot but MUA's own version (ish). I thought back to Ciaté and I had to have it, for £3.99, I figured it was a steal. It turns out, for reasons I'll go into in a bit, that there's a reason for this.



MUA call this product 'Nail Constellations', to go with star signs, naturally I chose Leo, and I quite liked it because the colours are similar to those of Models Own's Disco Mix, which I'm a massive fan of. The colour in the pot is kind of where the similarity ends as this is basically just beads you plonk onto tacky almost-dry nails.
It did come with basic instructions attached to the lid but like a pleb, I threw it away, although it turns out it was pretty straight forward.

1. Paint on your base color, in hindsight, I probably should have chose more blue/purple colours to go with the beads but I was too excited to try this out so just picked up the first two I saw.
2. Wait until your nails are almost dry and then over a piece of paper squirt (although there's probably a better word for it as it's not wet) the beads onto the nail
3. That should basically be it, the paper's so it's easy peasy to put back in the bottle, which it kind of is, but it's like glitter and I'm still finding it days later. Just apply a top coat and you're away, kind of.


The above is the end result, you can probably see the difference between the colour in the bottle and on my nails, basically my top coat removed a lot of the colour, which I don't see as a plus against the product itself because I use a decent enough topcoat, at least it works well with standard polish.

I know there are special polishes for 3D nail art and it probably would have worked better had I used one of them but the whole manicure just made me feel a little weird and looked kind of gross. Not nearly as pretty as the stylised Ciaté caviar images.

I'm finding it a little hard to say nice thing about it because I feel like the quality was a little shoddy and although I didn't expect amazing results, I wanted a little better. I don't think I'll be whipping this out any time soon to be honest, it was quite time consuming, as well as the fact that overall it hardly lasted and probably, definitely fell off into the risotto I made that evening. It also stresses me out to find tiny little balls everywhere, wouldn't really recommend this as I don't particularly see it as versatile either - I love my nail art to stand out but there are easier, less choke hazardous methods that are much better.

Have any of you tried out this yet? I kind of hope that it's a case of me doing it wrong and giving it a hard time so then I might be more inclined to give it another go, I'd love to hear any tips you might have.

Photo An Hour: Twentythree 16/08

I hope it doesn't seem as though I've gone all birthday-centric on you, but I've got so much to tell and I have to cram it all into a couple of days but try to make it staggered at the same time.

So, I thought I'd document my further ventures into twenty-somethingdom with a Photo A Hour, this was probably my least exciting birthday as I spent basically the whole day on my own, but it was great to have a bit of time to relax and not have to worry about anything, as it's something I rarely do.

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10am: Birthday cards.


11am: Essential nail painting session.


12pm: Doll pops back inside / I head out for my driving lesson.


1pm: Flowers from Moon's mum and brother.


2pm: It's a yellow afternoon and time to make lemonade / Tiny lunch in preparation for the evening.


3pm: Watching 'America's Animal Hoarder' / Baking.


4pm: Leaving my cake to cool / As a grown up, I actually had to go to the council offices to sort some things out, I was pretty unimpressed with this.


5pm: Moon got home and I opened my presents, he'd wrapped them in such pretty paper and got me a great Gemma Correll card ♥.


6pm: My finished cake.


7pm: On the road to Oxford / Waiting to order in Atomic Pizza.


8pm: Main courses arrive / Moon expresses his enthusiasm.


9pm: Back to Newbury / Stopping off at Tesco to search for housewarming gifts for our buddy, Chris.


10pm: Blowing out my birthday cake candles in my PJs.

What I Wore: Tiny Zebras.

Cardigan: Primark
Necklace: Punky Pins
Dress: Peacocks
Belt: New Look
Tights: Primark
Bag: Alphabet Bags
Shoes: Converse

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Here's what I wore when Moon's mum came down to visit us on Sunday. It's a pretty confused outfit if I'm being honest, it ended up being rather warm despite the heavy showers in the morning. I kind of wish I'd abandoned the tights and cardigan, but I do enjoy how co-ordinated I was. I love this dress, I just wish I never had to iron it, I know the difference ironing makes but it really is the most detestable task.


Sadly there was no carbooting to had on Sunday, we've got to get it right at some point this month, fingers crossed for this weekend being the one.

This took a lot longer to do than it should have, so out of practice!
Bases: 'Shelton Street', Nails Inc; 'Country Bumpkin', Topshop; 'Sunshine', Rimmel I ♥ Lasting Finish & 'Top Turquoise', Models Own
Design: 'Ibiza Mix', Models Own & eBay Nail Art Pens
Top Coat: 'Clearly Clear', Rimmel Lycra Pro

I've switched top-coats and I'm kind of sad I had to take this off yesterday as I could have had it forever, and I reckon it would have lasted a couple more days too. I'm still using Rimmel, purely because it sits well within my budget, but just a clear 10-day polish rather than a 'specialist' one and surprised to say that it actually works better, in application and wear.

That Barry M glitter gel I bought all those months ago is still going strong, it's clumped up a little, I think because I took it to Turkey, but it's actually made it better as now I get a lot more coverage, which is kind of the look I wanted from this one, kind of 'glam rocky' (ish), if that makes sense.