nail routine for long lasting manicures and strong nails

China Glaze Are You Jelly? and Models Own Southern Lights

I went back to acrylics for about 2 years whilst I wasn't blogging, and had them all taken off last summer. One thing that's really irritating about natural nails is that the polish doesn't last anywhere near as long! Those two things combined have lead me to develop a very rigorous process when it comes to my at home manicures. I thought I'd share the products I use along with some general tips to help your manicures last longer whilst strengthening your nails!

Now this is LONG, and some of it seems like common sense/you'll have been doing for years, but I wanted to compile it all into one post.

Using the following process and products helps my manicures last about a week with minor tip wear. I do usually get bored and switch it up before the week's out, however.

notd: china glaze street chic

I've been really loving autumnal shades again recently, which is probably lucky due to the great british weather at the moment!

this is Street Chic, part of the China Glaze Metro collection released last fall, and it's a taupey brown with a very slight purple undertone, I like that it's not too warm but not so cool it makes my skin look funny.

I couldn't for the life of me get a good picture of the colour (desperately need an actual camera), so the first picture I changed the colouring of slightly and it's now pretty damn close.

The colour looks a lot like cadbury chocolate; a kind of muted chocolately brown.

This polish, like 99% of the China Glaze colours I own, goes on like a dream. This was two coats, and applying it actually feels like applying a smooth chocolate sauce to my nails! It's naturally really shiny on its own but I've added one coat of Seche Vite as always to enhance this shine.

I don't actually like chocolate, but I shall be getting my chocolate fix from this at work tomorrow!

You may have noticed how long my nails are getting, I'm absolutely chuffed, although I keep breaking my right index finger so I then have to file the rest down, which is annoying. I talked about my experience with Nail Envy when I first started this blog, but I've continued using it and it actually seems to be working rather well. I just apply one coat before my base coat (china glaze strong adhesion), and it doesn't seem to be affecting the wear a at all. I might do an updated review of it shortly...

xx 

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notd: opi did you 'ear about van gough

I bought this polish a while ago and have only just got round to wearing it. It's from the OPI Dutch Treats collection that I swatched some of here I bought it because although I can't get enough nudish cremes, I don't have anything much like this.

First picture is without flash, second with.

It's a putty grey nude, definitely too cool to be a true nude, but rather unique and I really like it. The picture without flash is closest to what it actually looks like but still not entirely accurate, it's a little bit bluer than that. And it's nothing like the flash picture, which looks quite similar to Stranger Tides from the Pirates of the Carribean collection, which is probably actually a mixture between those two above pictures. Confusing.

Anyway, this was three coats, but I'm pretty sure that was because my first coat was waaaayyyy too thin.

In other news, it's payday tomorrow FINALLY. I'm going shopping so there should be lots of fun stuff to post about! I'm definitely getting St Tropez Dark so I'll be posting a comparison between the original in the next few days, and I'm seriously considering buying LiLash... Seen it on amazon for a bargainlicious £52 and I've wanted to try it for years. Watch this space!

x

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notd: nailgirls metallic leopard + review

Two posts in one day? WOW! At the moment I'm lucky if I manage one a week!

I've been fancying having leopard nails for a few days now, and was therefore thrilled when I recieved these two beauties in my July JolieBox!

nailgirls are a London based company owned by two sisters. They own a salon and sell all of their nail polishes in there as well as on their website.

These two are from their Olympics themed Medal Collection, one is a true gold foily shimmer and the other is a bronze with a slightly less sparkly finish. I tried them both on seperately earlier and I love 'em! The gold base literally only took one coat, I am so impressed! There's also a silver in the collection.

My leopard nail tutorial is HERE!

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notd: maybelline forever strong dark denim

i love these nail polishes, the brushes are fab, the formulas are brill and I love the colours. so good for the price

dark denim is a new for 2012 colour and as soon as I saw it I fell in love. I've been obsessed with navy cremes ever since I got bored of OPI russian navy back in the day, I still loved the colour but the shimmer got on my nerves.

This is beautiful, pretty much exactly the colour of dark denim funnily enough, I love it. it's a bit more muted than it looks here.
it's a perfect navy in my eyes, not too dark and not too electric blue, just right.

The above pic is 3 coats but I could have done two I think, a thick coat of seche vite and flash, but pretty close to real life.

look at it shiiineee!

I'm going to London tomorrow and Wednesday for a course on supervisor skills for work. I'm scared about getting there, my co-worker is coming with me but I'm shit at travelling; I've never got on a train by myself.. ha

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nail rock tattoo wraps + devastation

I've been putting off wearing these for ages because a) I was waiting for my nails to grow and b) I didn't like the idea of having to buff the shine from my nails in order to wear them. Read on for my opinion...

glitter ombre nail tutorial

Whilst browsing my blogroll earlier today I came across this post by the lovely Natasha over at The Tyrannosaur, showing how to do ombre nails using the sponge method, which reminded me that I've been meaning to also do a tutorial on one of my favourite easy nail art methods: glitter ombre!

notd: china glaze high maintenance

flash

indoor light

this is probably my favourite red I own. It's a slightly blue based jelly, it looks a bit like fresh blood and that's just how I like 'em.

This is three coats because I always do three, but it looks fine at two. It's closer to the flash pic but a bit deeper and not quite as bright. my skin looks really yellow on camera for some reason but it's actually really pale and pink toned, and this looks lovely with it if I do say so myself. It's really not a summery colour but the weather hasn't been lately so I don't care.

I also love the name of this polish, although it's not a high maintenance polish to apply. my ex thought it was hysterical when I bought this. I'll let you guess why.

:)

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notd: pearl accent nail, nails inc basil street + china glaze golden enchantment

hello ladies!

fancied a bit of nail art today, so I thought I'd jazz up my usual accent ring finger with some flat backed plastic pearls. I wasn't sure what colour to go with on the rest of my nails, and I've been wanting to try golden enchantment for ages so I went with Nails Inc Basil St for my base, as it's my FAVOURITE nude ever. I'd misplaced it and searched high and low for an hour, messing up my base coat in the process! The colour doesn't really show because of Golden Enchantment, but it's a lovely beigey nude, I'll do a seperate post on it soon.

Golden Enchantment is a really fine gold holo glitter in a clear base, it's not very dense at all, but looks beautiful with one coat, although this is three, I love it, it'd look gorgeous over virtually everything!

The accent nail is quite straight forward to do, but if anyone wants a tutorial I can do one :)

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OPI dutch treats collection swatches

the other day when in Sally's I spotted this mini collection of OPI's Dutch Treats collection, and couldn't help but buy it, for blogging purposes of course... *cough*

I have a Herring Problem, Red lights ahead... Where? Kiss me on my Tulips and Pedal faster Suzi!

Read on for swatches

opi the amazing spiderman collection: swatches

today im going to show you one of my new opi mini collections.

this one is to promote the new spiderman film, which I doubt I'll be seeing, but when there's nail polish involved, HELLO!

into the night, number one nemesis, just spotted the lizard, your web or mine

Read on for swatches...

notd: models own indian ocean

I've spent today out in my garden enjoying the sunshine before it disappears again. I went all out, playsuit et al, and have managed to develop about 13,73,856,486,345 additional freckles on my arms and chest, as well as a "tan" line where the playsuit was tied, where my skin looks red and there's two lines which are insanely white. fab. I might fake tan later to try and hide this. I also feel a bit woozy from being out in the sun all day because I'm so not used to it.

leopard print nails tutorial

so, as you can probably see from my background, i love me some leopard print! i also love nail art. and i love this because it's so easy, and as i've demonstrated from the pic above (just spare stick ons painted, if you want to know what any of the colours are drop me a coment), it can work with virtually all colours. my favourite is browns because it looks more like a leopard!

Read on for the tutorial...

models own nail polish swatches

hi! so here is the post I promised about my recent models own polish purchases I told you about here. I thought I'd show you some swatches of the colours.

haul and mini reviews

so I went to Boots for some "essentials" on Monday, and ended up buying rather a lot...

Deep breath...

notd: nails inc victoria

excuse the messy cuticles...

I know, I said I'd try to keep polish free and just use my nail envy. I failed. I happened to suddenly remember one of my all time favourite colours. this.

My experience with acrylic nails + nail envy original review



Yes, those are were my nails. Not real, unsurprisingly.

I understand they may not be to everyone's taste, but I bloody loved them. Unfortunately, they now look like this....