Nails Inc Leather & Skulls in Noho

I'm a huge fan of textured nail polishes, so when Nails Inc released their line of leather polishes a few months back I just knew I had to purchase them straight away. I didn't actually get round to giving them a go until May for my sixth form leavers ball but it was well worth the wait!

Bling It On: Leather & Skulls in Noho. RRP £19

I used the black leather polish - Noho - as an accent nail with one of the silver skulls that are included in the set. The application process in terms of the skulls may seem a hassle but it's surprisingly easy once you get going, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be - so that was a pleasant surprise!

Nails Inc Noho with silver skull as an accent and
OPI Liquid Sand in Solitaire for the other fingers

There are instructions on the back of the box but I will briefly explain the whole process. Firstly, you need to apply two coats of the polish and ensure it is fully dry. Note that you shouldn't use a top coat with these because it will ruin the effect! Take the small bottle of glue that is included and apply a small drop to your nail and to the back of the skull. Use tweezers to place the skull in the centre of the nail and hold it down for at least 60 seconds to allow enough time for the glue to set. You will be able to feel whether or not it has stuck properly. Finish off by using the wooden stick to apply glue to the edges of the skull to add extra strength

I think the skulls look amazing but I don't think they are the most practical things ever. They can catch on things quite easily. For example, washing your hair is a big no no because they just get stuck in it :( I removed the skulls after 2 days because of this and I knew they were likely to snag on clothes whilst I was at work, which wouldn't have been great. They are really great for a special occasion or if you're going out for the night though because they look absolutely fab - soooo sparkly.

However, the great thing about the skulls is that they can be reused! How amazing is that?! Just dip your finger in  nail polish remover until the glue has softened and the skull can then be removed, cleaned up (if required) and saved for later. You can do this by using tweezers.

This is me before leavers ball with my nails :)
As you can see I was very colour coordinated/monochrome haha

Overall, I'd definitely recommend these leather polishes, so well done Nails Inc! You can buy the polishes by themselves in a range of colours for £12 or in a set with the skulls for a slightly higher price of £19. They are available direct from nailsinc.com, asos.com or selected Boots just to name a few.

Until next time! xoxo

USA Flag July 4th Nail Art

Hello everyone! Wow, it's been a while.. I've just had so much going on the past few months so I haven't had any spare time at all to blog but I'm now going to make a real effort to find the time to post as regularly as possible.

Ok so I know I'm a day late with these nails, but never mind! Thought I'd post them anyway since they're fun. It was Independence Day yesterday in the states, as you'll all probably know. Whilst I'm not from the USA, I've always had a huge interest in America. It's one of my favourite places despite the fact I've never been, I definitely want to take a trip over there one day. I love an excuse to do themed nail art so this was my latest design.

Stars and stripes!

The nails above were inspired by the USA flag/July 4th. The colours I used are as follows:

RED: OPI Cherry Much In Love

WHITE: OPI Alpine Snow

BLUE: OPI Ogre The Top Blue

It's really simple to get the look - create the red and white stripes first, then add the blue to each tip. To finish off the design, use a small nail art brush or pen with the white nail polish to draw three small stars on each nail and you're done! Make sure to leave lots of drying time before you put on a top coat!

Did anyone else do an American nail art design yesterday?

Topshop Holographic Nail Polishes in Winterfrost and Moondance

I love looking at the make-up in Topshop. They have some really nice products on offer and they also always come at affordable prices. On a recent shopping trip, I saw that they had their nail polishes on offer - 2 for £8, a bargain considering they are usually £6 each. This was obviously incredibly hard to resist, even though I knew deep down I certainly don't need any more polishes at the moment! So after much debating and walking round and round the stand, I decided to pick up these two holographic polishes. I'd seen that this collection was only just released so I thought I'd give them a go. There is a third polish in this holo range that is pink, but I have way to many pink shades so I thought I'd go for something a bit different for a change.

Topshop Nails in Winterfrost & Moondance

I'm a sucker for holographic effect - it's so pretty - especially when it sparkles in the sun (not that we get much here, but still). OPI's older Designer Series polishes are some of my absolute favourites in my collection, but I'm always very cautious about how much I use them as you can't buy them anymore, so I thought these ones from Topshop may come in handy as an alternative. I'm quite excited to see if the silver one is sheer enough to use as a holographic top coat that could be placed over any regular colour.

I haven't had chance to try them yet (I have way too many other untested colours that I'm trying to get through), but I usually find Topshop polishes easy to apply, quite chip-resistant and who can really resist the cute packaging? I adore the polka dots on the lids.

Do you have any Topshop shades in your collections?

Mariah Carey OPI Liquid Sand Polishes - The Impossible & Stay The Night

Hi everyone!

I have been meaning to do a post on OPI's first liquid sand polishes since they came out over a month ago now, but I've only just recently had the time to test them out! I love how OPI are always one of the first brands out there to invent new types of polish like these. These are part of the Mariah Carey collection and there are 4 liquid sand polishes and 4 regular polishes.

The colours in the collection are:
The Impossible - a bright red with star shaped confetti
Stay The Night - a black/pink mix
Can't Let Go - purple
Get Your Number - blue

I absolutely love these polishes. They give off such a unique effect. The texture is amazing, it's like gritty but not so gritty that it's sharp, horrible to touch or would easily snag on clothing or anything. I've had this polish on a week now and it's starting to become a bit more 'flat', shiny and less textured if that makes sense, but it still looks and feels fine. The polishes also seem to last really well on your nails, I only have very minimal tip wear - no chipping yet whatsoever. I've received so many compliments and people asking to touch my nails whilst wearing this! I can't yet comment on removal because I haven't taken it off yet but I'm hoping it isn't as bad as normal glitter...

The Impossible with Stay The Night as an accent nail

It's important to note that these polishes only give off the "sand" effect when used without a top coat. By all means if you want to achieve a slightly different look, then go ahead and apply one. It just means the texture won't be present and the polish will appear to be slightly more  'jelly' looking. I've heard that these polishes can eat insane amounts of top coat too, so if you do want to give this a go then I'm guessing you're gonna have to layer quite a few coats! It's really cool for an alternative though because it's almost like getting two polishes in one. :)

I can't wait to see what other liquid sand polishes OPI release this year! What do you think?

Meet & Greet with Rita Ora - 29th January 2013 - Newcastle

Hi guys.

Ok, so I know this isn't a new nails post, but I just have to do a quick post on this because it was one of if not the best moment and experience of my life to date!

On Tuesday I had tickets to go and see Rita Ora in concert at my local O2 Academy in Newcastle. I had seen that her management team were running competitions giving the option to win meet and greets for selected venues if you uploaded a picture to Intsagram and tagged it #RadioactiveTour. I was at school at the time, so I didn't have my tickets with me to take a picture of myself with them, so I immediately thought I didn't have much of a chance at all. However, I knew I had nothing to loose so I chose to upload a picture of both my ticket with a signed copy of Rita's debut album, ORA, that I own.

It felt like such a long wait before the winners were picked, and I honestly wasn't expecting to win at all. Then, to my surprise, I got the notification through to my phone to say that her management had commented on my photo! I just saw 'WINNER!' and I almost died on the spot. I couldn't even believe it. I was in my English lesson and I couldn't even focus to do any work for the rest of the afternoon because I was just far too excited.

My winning photo!

We were told to arrive at the venue by 6pm and someone from Rita's team would could outside to pick us up and take us inside. They were running late though so it was after 6:20pm when we actually got to go inside. This had its consequences later as it meant we didn't get to stand in the front row at the barrier as they had to let the other people who were queuing outside in whilst we were in the meet and greet. It was raining and really windy so we were all panicking about looking an absolute mess next to Rita when we got photos taken with her! But anyway, when we were took inside, there was a guy on the door who checked our names on a list and then we were lead backstage to the dressing rooms! At this point I was almost hyperventilating haha. We all lined up on the stairs and waited whilst Rita was doing  some press interviews. It seemed like we waited so long here, but it wasn't too bad because at least we were out of the rain and had at least half an hour to dry off.

It finally got to 7pm and the guy came out and said that she was ready to see us! It was two people at a time. My sister and I were the third group in the queue, so we got in petty quickly after this. We walked into the room and there she was. Right in front of me. I couldn't quite believe my eyes as it didn't feel real! She is even more perfect and flawless in real life. I tried my best to keep myself composed for the few minutes that we had with her because I thought to myself no way am I spoiling this moment, I can fangirl after haha.

This is a summary of what happened when we went in:
Rita said "Hello! Nice to meet you." and gave me a big hug. Then she was like "Wow, you're so pretty!" (as you can imagine, at this point I thought I was going to wake up from a dream or something lol) "Come in close for a photo." She put her arms around me and my sister and her professional photographer took a photo of us together. Then she said "Do you want me to sign anything for you?" So I said "Yes please, my ticket if you don't mind". I was practically shaking at this point! She signed both our tickets and whilst she was doing this I obviously noticed her nails, as I had seen the design around on Twitter the day before. "I love your nails!" I exclaimed. She replied "Oh thank you. I'm still in the middle of getting one of them done! That's why I was a bit late" and she showed me her blank thumb (hahaha). Then she said "Woah, let's see yours.. Wow! They are amazing! Is it your 18th today?"(I'm still rocking the birthday nails from last week! lol) I told her no it wasn't today and how it was on Friday, and then she was like "Aw, happy 18th for friday then! Hope you had a lovely day". I was aware we'd already had a lot of time with her and the next pair would be waiting for their turn so we wrapped up our conversation. Then just before we left, she said "Thank you so much for coming, I hope you enjoy the show" so I finished with "We definitely will! Thank you so much."

This is the front of the venue, the sign for the dressing rooms backstage,
my signed concert ticket and then the photo of myself and Rita!

The concert itself afterwards was amazing. She is an amazing live performer. And the whole night was made even better by getting this once in a lifetime opportunity to meet her. It's been 2 days now and I still can't actually believe it happened! I set the picture as my phone screensaver so every time I unlock my phone everything comes flooding back, but it's so so so unreal.

And that was the day I got to meet one of my idols! Sorry if I've bored you with this post, I'll be back to my normal nail stuff next time. I just couldn't not tell you guys about it. Thanks for reading if you did! :)

Until next time,

Models Own Bottle Shop & Colourcopia at Westfield London

Okay, so I had the most amazing day ever yesterday. I went to see Rita Ora in concert in Newcastle. But not only that, I only got to meet her before the show! How crazy is that?! The experience was unreal. If you know me well you'll know that I absolutely adore Rita and she's one of my idols, so it meant so much to be able to meet her like that. I know this isn't related to my blog but I'm going to do a post on the full night later this week, I'm just waiting for the picture I got with her to be put up by her management team. :)

But anyway, just a quick post today on two of my favourite shops to go to when I visit London! As you've probably established by now, I'm a huge fan of both OPI and Models Own. In Westfield Shopping Centre at White City/Shepherd's Bush, London, there is a pop-up Models Own stand and a shop named Colourcopia that stocks OPI. Lena White (OPI UK Distributor) opened Colourcopia a couple of years ago in addition to the nail bar they have in Selfridges on Oxford Street. Both of these stores are on the first floor of the shopping centre, pretty close to each other - how convenient!

Not really sure what these two girls are doing?

The Models Own bottle shop is quite simply fab. It's so unique because yep, you guessed it, it's in the shape of a nail polish bottle! How cool is that!? The bonus about the Models Own store is that you can get the full range of products (unlike at other stockists e.g. Boots) and still not have to pay postage to buy items from their website. They also usually have some description of offers on. I've heard that these are almost the same if not similar to the deals offered on the website, so I guess you're not missing much - it just means you get to avoid p&p, which is always a bonus for me. When I was there this weekend, they were offering 3 nail polishes for £12 and 6 bottles for £20 - saving you a considerable amount as one bottle of polish would usually cost you £5.

Here you can see the "bottle shape" of the store

Colourcopia also have a range of lacquers on offer, compared to if you just went to a local beauty supply store. They are currently clearing their stock of Nicole By OPI polishes as they are no longer stocking the brand (sad times), so they are all £5 at the moment, but only in store. I'm not sure how long the polishes will be available so if you want any I suggest you get down their quick! I also noticed that all bottles of Shatter lacquers were £4.50 and a "last chance to buy" section of regular OPI containing a few older shades like Fiercely Fiona, but I already had all of these ones so didn't get any. There was however no prices specified for these so I'm not sure if they were even discounted but still, a good way to get your hands on some discontinued polishes, even if you do have to pay the £11 RRP.  Again, not sure now long these will be there for so get down quickly! Perhaps they rotate the shades on offer here throughout the year? There is also the option to have your nails done here or at the nail bar in Selfridges, which is a nice touch. If you look on the Lena White or Colourcopia website you can see the various packages available with the prices for each one. I think you get a discount if you buy a polish towards your manicure.

Colourcopia is the store in the middle of this shot, next door to Pret (sorry it's not the best picture)

Have you visited either of these places before? What do you think?

Also who likes my new blog look? I'm really proud as I managed to do it all by myself!

That's all for today's post, so bye for now!

18th Birthday Weekend & Nail Art!

Hey everyone!

It was my 18th birthday on Friday (25th). I did mean to do this post then but I was just so busy and didn't have time over the weekend either as I took a trip to London. For my birthday I got money, nail polishes (duh!), jewellery, a new pink OnePiece, Juicy Couture Perfume and some other bits and pieces. I also got a really cute box full of little surprises from one of my friends at school with some makeup and nail polish in, it's so nice! The trip to London was also part of my present from my mum and I went to see 'Stomp' on Friday night. It was amazing - so much better than I expected! I would recommend seeing it if you haven't already. It's choreographed really cleverly and has lots of humour throughout, considering the actors don't talk at all. I also went to see Pitch Perfect on Sunday morning. I had wanted to see it since it came out back in December but I was so busy with revising for my English exam that I just didn't have the time. Glad I got to finally see it before it leaves cinemas. It was really good! It made me want to live in America and be in an acapella group like that haha. Some parts were absolutely hilarious, Rebel Wilson gives an amazing performance as 'Fat Amy' throughout. I can't wait until it's out on DVD so I can watch it again! But anyway, enough about my life and onto the nails!

Birthday cupcakes with a number 18 accent nail

I absolutely love doing my nails for special occasions like this. I received many compliments on these across the weekend. In particular, when I visited the Models Own Bottleshop at Westfield Shopping Centre (White City/Shepard's Bush) one of the sales assistants couldn't believe that I'd done them myself and they were my own nails! She even ended up getting all of her colleagues over for them to have a look at my nails too. We then went on to have a conversation about our favourite shades from the brand. It's so nice when you speak to fellow polishaholics!

The polishes I used were as follows:
- OPI Play The Peonies as a base underneath the cakes
- OPI Kiss Me On MY Tulips for the cupcake cases and the accent nail
- OPI PEdal Faster Suzi! for the icing
- OPI Rainbow Connection for the sprinkles
- Nicole By OPI Step to the Beat of My Heart for the cherries on top
- My trusty WAH Nails x Models Own Nail Art Pen in white for the stripes on the cupcake cases and the '18'

I did originally intend to do a tutorial for these nails but I forgot to take pictures step-by-step :( sorry about that!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend, until the next time :)