OPI Samoan Sand & Konad M59

Hiya!

I thought I'd post about my current Mani.

I wanted a chic, neutral base this time (in contrast to all the crazy shades I've been rocking recently!) so I used the classic nude shade, OPI Samoan Sand.

I was pretty apprehensive yet seriously excited about doing this manicure, because it would be a first for me- I purchased three Konad plates at the Olympia Beauty Expo the other week, after years of wanting to try Konading out. For some daft reason, in all that time I failed to buy into the Konad system on the Internet, (no real idea why!) so when I discovered that Konad would be at Olympia... Well, the time had definitely come!
So yeah, I was so excited about doing these nails, but a bit worried that I'd screw up my nails, etc. as I'd had no prior Konading experience!

Turns out, I needn't have worried so much!

I decided to do a 1950's themed Mani, so did my Samoan Sand base and then dotted black spots onto all apart from my middle finger nails. On these, I used Konad plate M59 and used the plain bow (also using black lacquer) and honestly, I was so excited and happy at the way my nails turned out!

Have a look:

 OPI Samoan Sand & Konad M59 view I

OPI Samoan Sand & Konad M59 view II

OPI Samoan Sand & Konad M59 view III

They're cute, right?

Now that I've finally (!) hopped on the Konad bandwagon, already I can't get enough!

Stay tuned for way more Konading to come!

:)

Olympia Beauty 2011

Hello everyone!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Yesterday, Sunday 18th and Monday 19th of September, were days I had been looking forward to for nearly two months! The reason? It was the the Olympia Beauty event in Kensington Olympia, London.

BIG woooooo!

...Anyways, more about that in a minute. First let me show you guys the manicure I did for the event. Seeing as I blog about Nails, I wanted to create a really special, completely blinged out Mani for the event.
This is what I came up with:

Nail Expo Special Mani!

A close up-

Pretty, no?

For this Mani, first of all I used two coats of Orly Dazzle, then two coats of OPI Crown Me Already!, then glued a Swarovski crystal onto each nail with nail glue.
It came out pretty cool I think, I felt a bit like GaGa or something- this is one impractical manicure! Still, I got lots of compliments on them whilst going round all the stalls, so that was nice.

To start, can I just say, omg! The event was so much fun!

OPI was there, as was Nubar, China Glaze, Color Club, Essie, Jessica and more!

Here's a video I shot on my phone- as you can see, it was busy, busy busy!

Olympia Beauty Event

Some pictures of the stalls:

The OPI stall was insanely busy the whole time! -Look at those brand new, unavailable in shops Muppets Mini packs! I picked one up, of course! Swatches coming soon... :)

To prove how busy the OPI stall was all the time, here's a picture of the queue:

OPI Mania! (And yes, in case you were wondering, the queue was this long all the time! Go OPI!)

...And who can blame people when OPI was being sold at trade price!? Discontinued Lacquers were discounted to £3.00!

£3.00 OPI's!? Thank you very much!

I also had a lot of fun getting my greedy little polish loving mitts on some lemmings I've had for certain polishes from other brands:

The China Glaze stall view I

China Glaze view II

Here's the Nubar Stall:

The Nubar Stall

Discontinued Lacquers at Nubar were only £2.00!

 What a bargain!

The Color Club stall was brilliant. I was really excited to see this stall here because I've only ever seen Color Club available on the Internet. It was great to see all the shades in person...

Color Club view I

Color Club view II

And some general shots of the Exhibition Centre:

View I

View II

View III

As you can guess, I was loving every minute of it!

My Top 5 new acquisitions from the Expo are (in no particular order):

* China Glaze Skyscraper
* OPI DS Temptation
* Color Club Wish Upon A Rock-Star
* Nubar Purple Rain Glitter
* OPI I Brake For Manicures

Lots of new swatches to come soon for your viewing pleasure!

Have a great day, everyone! :)

Nail Philia: A Nail Art Exhibition!

Hello everyone!

Yesterday I went up to London for the afternoon, and one of my To Do's for the day was go to a Nail Art Exhibition in Cambridge Heath (Near Hackney/Bethnal Green).

I first learned of this exhibition a few days ago on the Daily Mail's website, and immediately I knew that I'd have to go along and do a report for my lovely London-Lacquer readers- It looked incredible, and so innovative! According to the Press Release I picked up on-site, this exhibition is the first ever covering Nail Art in London! (Well, better late than never, right!?)

 The exhibition space...

DegreeArt.com collaborated with London's best Nail technicians and big names in the Fashion world for this exhibition, which coincides with the dates of London Fashion Week 2011.

The incredible Nails showcased in the exhibition are by established Nail techs such as Marian Newman, Sophy Robson, Sam Biddle, Mike Pocock, Megumi Mizuno, Anthony Buckley, Jenny Longworth and Sue Marsh.
Google any of their names to find very inspiring websites and blogs!

Anyways, enough of that, about the exhibition now... It's incredible, I LOVED it! I mean, of course I would, but seriously people, if you're into Nails or Nail Art or even Art and live in London, go along to this exhibition. It's a brilliant fusion of Nails and Art, there are some stunning designs showcased there.

Some images for you now:

Beyonce's nails from her 'Run the World' video- Wooo! Here's a screen grab, courtesy of YouTube, to prove it!

Wow! :)

All Images taken on my iphone- Sorry if the quality's not brilliant...!

...Well, these images just speak for themselves, I think, really. 'Nuff said! :)

The exhibition runs until September 26th, and is on between 12 and 6pm daily at 12A Vyner Street, London E2 9DG, nearest station Cambridge Heath.

Check it out, you will not regret it! Incredible.

Leopard Print Nail Art!

Hi guys and gals!

Last week, as I said on my previous post here, I did some pretty cool Nail Art! I don't actually do Nail Art very often at all, in fact, very seldom... (I should do more, right!?)... But yeah, last week I was looking at some videos on YouTube for leopard print nails and decided to do some of my own.

For this mani, I used Orly Dazzle- (one thickish coat as a base) and OPI's incredible Crown Me Already! (one/two coats, I used two) for my silver leopard base.
For the leopard spots I just dotted a thick blob of Orly's Bubbly Bombshell, and after those dried, I outlined to turn them into leopard nails!

Here are the results:

My OPI and Orly Leopard print nail art!

What do you guys think? Should I do more Nail Art?

Leopard Nails...again!

I had a practise with a nail wheel too, and came up with loads of different colour combinations! Here it is:

Leopard Print practise nail wheel

What do you guys reckon? Try it, it's sooooo easy!

:)

Vogue's Fashion Night Out: London 2011

Hi everyone!

So- Last night was the International Vogue Fashion Night Out, so I went along with a friend to check it out.

In H&M in Oxford Circus the WAH girls were there doing free manicures. I didn't bother getting one myself since I did my nails yesterday afternoon in an AMAZING design which I'll post here later on... Stay tuned for the awesomeness, people!

WAH Nail Team in H&M Oxford Circus for Vogue's Fashion Night Out

In case you'd like to check WAH Nails out, here is a link to their site, full of cool Nail Art designs and Video Tutorials, too!

http://wah-nails.com/

OPI, Barry M and Glitter Combo!

Hi guys!

Here's how I jazzed up my OPI 'Be A Dahlia, Won't You' Lacquer this evening:

OPI Be A Dahlia, Won't You, Barry M Pink Shatter and holographic fuchsia string glitter tips!

This was my first time trying my Barry M Pink Shatter, and I think it did what it said on the tin brilliantly!
I'm very impressed.

I may get Barry M White Shatter now, as I have had the Black Shatter for ages- way before the whole shatter trend really kicked off!

There is also a Blue Shatter by Barry M, if you're interested.

:)