this silicone practice finger for nail art.
um.
That is all.
No song either. Just kidding, here’s Bonj.
Tag Archives: nail art
cheap trick
2 AugI got my THRIFTY badge when I was a girl guide and this is why:
bastard boobs busting my bra
underwire, under control
Because I sew my errant underwire back in with dental floss, so it ne’er budges again. Seriously, try it, and you’ll also have minty-fresh boosies to boot. Use it to sew buttons back on if you never want them to pop off ever again. Unbreakable stuff, that dental floss.
I wouldn’t be going all post-war-Poland on my underwear if it wasn’t thirty bucks a pop. That’s right; the EXPENSIVE perils of being stacked up front. You lot think it’s all swanning about getting free drinks and whatnot, mais non.
And I’m a student now, you see. No more of my glorious champagne lifestyle, it’s all spam and spumante for me.
Thank god my favourite older sister Phoebe got me a Bravissimo voucher for my birthday, don’t know how much longer that bad boy’s going to hold out.
Which segues neatly into how I’m going to support myself once my ENORMOUS salary from the Backpackers gets pruned back to practically nothing. I don’t have the answer to that yet, so while I find a second job, I’ll be filling in surveys on http://www.valuedopinions.co.uk to earn Amazon vouches to keep myself in Wayne’s World wigs and Sex Pistols CDs (they really should put a breathalyser on the Wish List somehow).
Anyway. Here’s Cinderella with Gypsy Road, which is where I’m headed with this slow-but-stylish slide into destitution. The song isn’t about a fledgling makeup artist struggling to buy bras, more about shagging and getting into bar fights, but you get the idea.
PS Makeup-related bargain while we’re on the subject of penny-pinching – here are those Iron Fist Zombie Stomper nail stickers on sale, 50% off! Get in!
bye, July
31 JulChloe and I travelled through space and time down to London last week, for the David Bowie Is exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. She bought us flights and a night in a hostel right by the museum for my birthday, and THAT, boys and girls, is how you win employee of the month.
So here is a little photo essay, scroll down really fast to animate and it’s almost like you’re there with us. Soundtrack: us screeching “HOW FUCKING MUCH?” every time we had to pay for something.
it would probably be quicker to WALK from Oban to London but public transport is just so much funnnn
After … about 30 hours in transit, we finally arrived in London. It was HOT down there – up in the highlands, summer so far has been humid and freezing, the worst of both worlds. But in London, blue skies and legit t-shirt temperatures!
Nelson’s Column, London Eye in the background.
We checked in to our hostel…
good luck with that
… and beetled straight over to the V&A to check out our chances of getting in the next day. We put on our broadest Australian accents and advised the staff that we had travelled a very. long. way. to see the exhibition, and we were only in London for one day so what did they suggest we do to guarantee a ticket?
Sadly they didn’t usher us into the exhibition after hours so we could dance about trying on the priceless Yamamotos.
Chloe (left) and me dancing about in the priceless Yamamotos. Thanks, yeah, I work out.
But they did tell us to get in line quick-sharp the next morning, and all going well we’d be allowed in. The museum opens at 10am so they told us to come around 9am, but we didn’t take any chances. We were there at 8am because we’re hardcore.
good thing too, this was the line by 9am. We were 15th and 16th from the front, coiled like steel springs ready to fly through the doors at 10:00:01am
We got stand-by tickets to the first showing…
BOOM
and the exhibition was friggin’
squeeeeee
We had to go and drink some vodka in Regent’s Park afterwards to calm down before our flight back up to Scottyland
So then we spent the night in my new flat in Glasgow, which I will be moving in to in 2 weeks from today.
Sad to leave my awesome housemates and weird to leave the town and job that have been home for the last 5 years…
… but excited for the change of scenery and the bloody amazing fun and opportunities that are to come!
So that’s me, kids. I’m spending the next couple of weeks trying to sort out things at work and get my move a’happenin’. I know I’ve really let this flog die in the arse and I do apologise to any disappointed stalkers out there. I’ve got some good ideas for future posts so hang in there and one day I will get my shit together and make it worth your while.
meantime, here are my nails! Silver flame wraps that I bought in Reykjavik earlier this year.
Right, now I’m off to bed, and when I wake up I’m going to make August my BEEEEAATCH. Stay tuned, best beloved xX
nailed it: Zombody to love
22 AprWordplay stolen from Carissa.
Iron Fist ‘zombie stomper’ nail transfers
These Iron Fist bad-boys came in a neat lil packet with a nail file and wooden stick to poke your cuticles with.
I’ve used lots of different brands of nail transfers, and I have to say (having only worn these so far for a few hours) that I’m pretty impressed.
The instructions recommend buffing your nails and applying the transfers to a clean surface, but I also suggest putting on a base coat, whatever you would normally put on your nails if you are so inclined. For a while I have been using Sally Hansen Miracle Cure Problem Nail Strengthener.
I recommend this for two reasons; partly to give the sticker something to grip, but mostly to protect your natural nail. So when you peel it off, it doesn’t take bits of your own nail with it. Stickers are dark horses; wearing them back-to-back for several weeks last summer, I found myself with soft flaky nails, good for nothing.
I suggest putting on a base coat, letting it dry, then applying your transfers.
All nail stickers are usually designed for long-ish nails; you need to have some length to be able to wrap the transfer over, to file it off. And the designs are usually for longer nails – some of the zombie eyeballs were kind of cut off, even on my nails which I would say are pretty long right now.
Speaking of. You might have also noticed that some of my nails are revoltingly long and pointy; this is a nail-shape that seems to work well for me, as in, it resists chips and splits etc, and I can grow my nails disgustingly long if I file them in to a point while I do it. Also makes me feel like Cat Woman.
Anyway. These nail stickers went on really well; they are a lot softer and more pliable than many other brands I have used, so they were very easy to stretch-to-fit onto my nails, and being so pliable, fit really easily. I screwed up on two of my nails and to be honest those two are already (a few hours after applying them) showing signs of poor resilience.
Compared to other brands (including Nail Rock) that have been somewhat more brittle, it looks like these will wear well. I’ll update this post to let you know for sure. Other brands I’ve used have been more difficult to apply completely smoothly, and that seems to be the trouble with any nail sticker; as soon as it’s not perfectly applied, any wrinkles will quickly turn into peeling and lifting. Makes sense I guess.
Anyway – this post is scheduled to go live on Monday, when I will be heading back home to Oban from Glasgow. I was there to see Jettblack, so it’s possible that by the time you are reading this, I will have run off with Jon Dow and you won’t hear from me again. If that is the case I’ll give Chloe my flog password so she can let you all down gently.
Do you think he likes zombie nails? I hope he likes zombie nails. Screeeeam!
Update: this is what they look like after 48 hours wear.
The index and pinky finger are the worst; these are the two that I screwed up putting on. The pinky is ripped in the middle and the index finger just has quite a big chunk missing from the tip. As the pattern is so busy it’s not actually that noticeable in real life.
The rest of the nails have worn a little on the tips but not too much. None of them have peeled or lifted, so, they remain the best-wearing nail stickers I have used – hands down!
nailed it: Illamasqua i’mperfection bird egg nails
14 Apr
Here’s Loz modelling the Speckle nail polish (colour: Scarce) from Illamasqua’s newest collection, I’MPERFECTION.
Nice, innit?
As you can see, Loz is a married woman so to all you hand-fetishists that creep around on here, don’t even think about it. But wouldn’t you say this makes a classic, yet subtley-different nail look for a bride?
By the way, this is polish applied by me drunk in the pub, with no top or base coat, and it’s been on for 2 days already. Illamasqua nail polish wears really well and stays shiny, get amongst it! Review coming soon of the excellent matte top coat I bought at the same time… 😀
nailed it: carbon grey with studs
31 Mar
This is Maybelline Forever Strong Super Stay 7 Days gel nail colour in Carbon Grey #815. So far it’s been on for 3-4 days and showing no signs of wear – impressed. It’s a really nice dark gunmetal grey with just the right amount of shimmer to it, and the finish has stayed really shiny. I applied two coats to get the opacity I like.
Along the tips of my nails I put some little diamond stickers just for fun. The purple nail is a Sephora colour.
High five!
Grant’s skull nails (freehand)
7 FebSo, this was what I was trying to do.
My handsome, hilarious, charismatic friend Canadian Ian emailed me that picture, knowing I love all things skull and nail art. I screamed and decided to give it a go, enlisting my favourite hand model Grant and his nice big neat fingernails.
I started off painting the ‘ribs’ hand black with Barry M Nail Paint in Black. For the hand with the skulls, I painted a big white spot with my white nail striper from www.sparkly-nails.co.uk, outlined with my black nail striper. Grant commented that this was a bit of a 60s/mod kind of look, and I agree – in fact it reminded me of these nails from MAC’s Glamour Daze collection (late 2012)….
…which I tried to recreate on myself a few months ago, long before I owned nail stripers, I was painting the black on with a regular (ie, too thick) nail polish brush so it was impossible to get the thin lines I was after. So I improvised and only did three sides of each nail, I thought they looked pretty funky and graphic. I like the combination of candy pink and black.
And here are those nails in action, just for fun.
Anyway, back to the skulls. They then transformed into panda feet and something kinda Aztec, when I painted the teeth on with my white nail striper.
Before finally becoming what I think is a decent copy of the photo up the top of this post!
In the original picture she’s got nail stickers on her thumbs; here’s me with two different types of Nail Rock stickers on my pinky and ring fingers (for some reason they WILL NOT stay on my middle and index fingers on either hand).
So what do you think? Do you find fiddly nail art easy or does it take you FOREVER (like me!)?
Thanks to Instagram Queen Carissa for the snaps of my nails!
nailed it: Hunger Games/Katniss/flame nails
30 JanFeeling a lil bit hot-rod one day, I thought flame nails would be a good idea. HOT DAMN!
To YouTube! The CutePolish tutorials on YouTube are some of my favourites. Using my newly acquired nail stripers from http://www.sparkly-nails.co.uk, I got busy.
I’m right handed so I had a go painting my left hand with free-hand flames, which in the end came up better than the flames I painted on plastic for my right hand. I used cling-film instead of a thicker lunch bag type plastic, and they ended up kind of wrinkly. They still looked pretty cool, though.
Here are the nails I painted freehand, I don’t seem to have a photo of the other hand.
These I painted on starting with the red then moving in towards the centre of the flame with the orange, followed finally with the yellow. Once it was dry I went around the outside with a black glitter nail striper. The usual Sally Hansen base and top coats (Miracle Cure nail strengthening basecoat and Insta-Dri anti-chip top coat).
What do you think?
nailed it: grey on grey skulls
28 Jan
Sally Hansen Miracle Cure nail strengthening basecoat – I f_ck with my nails a lot and this stuff keeps them going.
2True Fast Dry Colour Quick Nail Polish in Shade 13 – cheap cheap, from Superdrug.
Nail stickers also from Superdrug, also cheap cheap.
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri anti-chip top coat.
It’s been on my nails for about 4 days now and there isn’t a single chip – this is almost unheard of for me, my nails usually don’t last more than 24 hours before they start to show serious signs of wear. The grey is an unusual choice and a lot of people have commented on it.
Just goes to show that you don’t need to spend a fortune. British high street is amazing for cheap, good quality makeup. Which is how I justify buying so much of it 🙂
digital imologue 