FAQs And Some New Things!

Hi!

This is a post I've been meaning to do for ages. I get asked a lot of questions but there are a few that come up a lot so I thought I'd do a post on them.

First off, and I'm not sure why people are fascinated about this, but a lot of people ask to see my 'bare' nails so here they are sans polish!

You have to ignore the slight yellow staining. Trust me, they used to be FAR worse! They're longer than I usually have them at the moment, I just haven't got round to chopping them. My cuticles aren't at their best here either :)

The 2nd question I get asked a lot - What base and top coat do you use?

I have tried quite a few base and top coats. In my opinion though, nothing beats Nails Inc Kensington Caviar base coat and top coat -

For me, it's the best by a long mile. I don't know how I coped without the top coat especially! It dries in 45 seconds and gives a really good shine. The only thing I can't use it for is over konads as it smudges them but I still put a coat of it over the konad special top coat.

The only downside for me is that it's quite expensive but I think it's well worth it and I can usually find it on ebay for a bit less than usual.

3rd question - Do you use any other products on your nails to keep them strong?

I am very lucky with my nails. They are naturally very strong. Usually I only break one if I really whack it on something. I wish I had some amazing tip but I don't!

The one thing I do do regularly is use cuticle remover, buff and shape -

I use Nails Inc Striptease cuticle remover. For me it works well but it's all I've ever used so I have nothing to compare it to.

About once every couple of weeks I use the cuticle remover, then I use the nail buffer (top) to smooth and shine and then I shape (or should I say attempt to) using the glass nail file. That's all I do nail care wise.

4th question - how do you clean up any excess polish on your nails?

I forgot to take a picture for this one! It would only have been a picture of a boring brush though :)

I usually put nail polish on at night, go to sleep and then in my shower or bath the next morning I peel off any excess polish and tidy the nails up. If I can't do that though then I just use a firm bristled brush soaked in nail polish remover and wipe that round the edges of my nails.

Those are the questions I get asked the most. I do always answer any emails so feel free to ask me anything else you want to know!

One other question I've been asked a couple of times recently is why I never do any haul posts... well to be honest, I don't actually buy that much nail polish! I buy the occasional bottle that I really want and I'm very lucky in the fact that Maz and some friends occasionally buy me a bottle. I'm trying to be sensible spending wise at the moment but here are a few things I've bought or been given recently -

(L-R) Bourjois Bleu Violet, No7 Spun Sugar, Miss Sporty x2 (no names)

(L-R) Rimmel Green With Envy and Desire, Bloom Isla

OPI's Absolutely Alice and China Glaze's C-C-Courage

Lastly, here are a couple of things I've won recently -

The 8 new konad plates! Thanks to Beauty Judy and wowsocool.com

A Nutriganics gift pack from The Body Shop. I won this through twitter. I haven't used it enough to give my opinion on it yet though :)

That's it for today. My nails are NAKED at the moment so no manicure to show you. I may do them later if I can resist cutting them...

Nail Polish & Makeup Storage.

Hello!

It's taken several attempts but I've finally managed to upload a video to YouTube to show you guys my storage!

The reason I don't sound very bouncy in it is because it was about my 5th attempt to record a video under 10mins long! I couldn't edit because as soon as I edit anything it seems to increase the upload time to about 10 hours!

Anyway I decided to do a video because there were just too many pictures. For those of you who don't want to watch the video then I will put a few pics on later :)

Sorry about the quality and lack of good lighting!

So here it is -



As you can see my collection is not nearly as big as most people's but I'm having a good go at increasing it :)

Hope you enjoyed the video. Let me know if you want to see anything more closely or have any questions!

Look how short they are!! Plus konad of the day :)

I cut my nails. I had to do it. I was spending far too much time obsessing over whether to do it or not!! Then yesterday the nail on my right hand ring finger split so I took that as a sign and just chopped them all off! I know some of you will think I'm mad but the reason my nails are so strong and I can grow them so long is partly due to me doing this occasionally. It gives them a fresh start :)

They are so short though... I already miss my long ones! Never mind, it won't take them long to grow back.

Today I thought I'd try out another Nails Inc colour - Chesham Street. It is a beautiful colour and definitely added to my favourites list. My only complaint about it is that the brush was a bit rubbish!


It's described as a blue and admittedly looks blue in the pictures but in real life it looks more purple to me!

I took a million pictures of this polish but I just couldn't capture just how amazing it is!

It just looks like a navy blue in all these pics but there is alot more to this polish than that :)

The below picture is the closest I could get to showing the purple in the polish.

As I said yesterday I am going to see Harry Potter tonight and I was going to attempt to draw some HP themed things on my nails with my nail brushes but I just haven't had the time today so I just did a more simple idea instead.

This is using konad plate m3.

I'm quite pleased with the result :)

Anyway, I am off to have some dinner and watch Harry Potter.

Hope everyone's having a good week! Nearly the weekend - yaya!

Simple Konad and some kitten pics!

Hey!

I've just finished my 2nd konad attempt :) I think it's alot better this time. Only a couple of mistakes!

I wanted a simple look that could be worn to meetings and things like that.


This is just 2 coats of Nails Inc South Molten Street with the the konad french tip from plate m56. As you can see it's a VERY pale pink but it does the job of covering up the yellow staining :)

I have decided to cut my nails after this manicure comes off. Just not sure how much yet... I may chop them really short and start again purely because that will get rid of some of the yellowing! I think I've mentioned before that I'm very lucky in that my nails grown VERY fast so it won't take long for them to grow back.

Speaking of fast growing things, my hair also grows incredibly fast. That would be ok if I wore my hair long but I prefer short styles so in an ideal world I need to get my hair done every 6 weeks. Unfortunately my finances don't allow for this so I spend alot of time complaining about my hair! Usually Maz gets fed up and books me an appointment as a surprise :) Another issue is that although I've been in Manchester well over a year now I still go to my hairdressers 3 hours away in my hometown of Newbury! It's difficult to find a good hairdresser!

As for how fast my leg hair grows....don't even get me started!! ;)

Anyway enough of that tangent. I am going to watch the new Harry Potter tomorrow evening with some friends. I'm not a die hard Potter fan but we got a really good deal for film and dinner so I couldn't say no. I never usually go to see films on their first nights out because I hate crowds but I'm sure it will be fun! I will be doing my nails for it later :)

Enough of my ramblings...here are some Barnaby pictures for those cat lovers out there :)

Sleeping in the tissue box (or should I say trying to sleep despite the annoying person with the annoying camera disturbing him!) -

With Bobo our other cat. She's 2 and a half and likes to play even more than Barnaby does!

We thought it'd take a while for Bobo to accept Barnaby but as you can see she's not exactly hating him :) She hissed for about the first day but since then they've been chasing each other all over the place.

We had to take Barnaby to the vet yesterday as he kept being sick and because he's so little I was concerned about dehydration. He's fine but they weighed him when he was there and he's only 0.5kg!! He's 9 weeks now and should be having his vaccinations but he's too small! I think he must have been the runt of the litter. He eats like a horse though so I don't think it'll be long before he's big enough ;)

Have to say though, nothing funnier than seeing a 0.5kg kitten chasing a 3.5kg cat!!