Todays Ruffian NOTD:

I wanted to do something a little different with my nails today so I spent a few moments searching for inspiration when I came across this image of Chanel's Haute Couture nails for A/W 2012.

I absolutely love the combination of pink and gold and hadn't done a ruffian mani in a while so decided to give it a go.

I used Nailteks Foundation 2 as the base coat, OPI's Your Royal Shineness and Mod About You then finished with the ultra glossy, fast drying Seche Vite :)

Do you love/hate the ruffian trend?

Berlin There, Done That!

Welcome a new favourite polish - OPI's Berlin There, Done That from the Germany collection.

I only purchased four shades from this collection, the rest were a little shimmery for me and similiar to others I already have. I regret not picking up Don't Pretzel My Buttons at the same time, but may order that one over the next few days!

I'm absolutely loving creamy nudes and neutrals at the moment and this one works really well with my skintone. The formula is great, this was three coats but two would have sufficed :-)

Nail Of The Day and New Polish:

I rarely recreate the same nails twice. Regular colors, sure. But nail art or fancy stuff? Not so much. Todays NOTD however has quickly become a favorite of mine and this is perhaps the third time I've worn it. I knew it would go so well with my outfit and jewelry, that I couldn't resist a redo.

The gold half moon is Orly's Luxe kept glossy while the OPI Black Onyx is mattified using Essies Matte About You:

And just because Chloe decided to photobomb, I thought I'd share an image of one of my favorite polishes and my all time favorite puppy.
OPI's Ski Teal We Drop. Absolutely love this and the formula is to die for:

And last but my all means not least, here's my little OPI German haul that arrived in the mail this morning. I'm absolutely in love with all of the colors and almost tempted to try them out right now. But since it's midnight and I spent a good thirty minutes perfecting todays manicure, I think it can wait:

My Very First Knockwurst - Nein! Nein! Nein! OK. Fine! - Berlin There, Done That - Every Month Is  Oktoberfest

I am totally gutted to be missing Oktoberfest this year. It was all planned and then fell through :( Oh well. I dont like beer anyway.

Honey, I'm Home

Long time no post! I have been incredibly busy and tired and what spare time I do have I like to spend at the dog park with Chloe - she deserves as much play time as she can get!

But, I am getting more and more used to my routine and a little more free time here and there so here I am :)

Lots to talk about - I finally found the perfect foundation (and it's cheap too!) - but for now here's a little review of my current nails courtesy of Gelish soak off polish :)


So basically, since the move abroad my nails just do not grow. I used to have naturally long and strong nails but for the past 3 months they have just been splitting and tearing like never before. I toyed with the idea of getting acrylics again, but I remember the hassle I had once they were removed last time so decided against that (For now!) and tried something new - Harmony's Gelish Soak Off Polish :)


My local salon offers this service with a manicure for $27.00 though I chose not to get the manicure since I keep my hands and nails are in good shape anyway, and prefer not to be attacked with the cuticle snippers! I filed my nails completely down, paid $18 for this gel and chose the color "Pink Smoothie" - no surprises there.

Above is the polish on day 1: Super shiny, neat and crisp. It is important not to get the gel on your cuticles at all as it will just peel the whole thing off, so my technician stayed away from the skin.

And below, is today - day 8: I added a Nubar Flakie in shade 2010 to the polish because I was getting bored of looking at the same colour. As you can see the regrowth is pretty bad already, but honestly in real life its not all that noticeable and very much worth it to see my nails grow without chipping.

These can apparently last up to 3 weeks, though I plan to remove them at 2. The edges are starting to peel every so slightly, and I have a bad habit of picking at imperfections in my nails, but I will try my best to keep them on for the next week.

Although the removal is included in the price, I plan to soak them off myself and take my time because I saw a lady in the salon using a metal cuticle pusher to dig them off a customers nails - ouch.

Nail Of The Day x3:

My blog is focusing on nails lately it seems, primarily because I havn't worn makeup for months but also simply because I'm very much in a nail phase right now :)

I did my 'montly trim' a week or so ago and filed them all back to shorties. I like to do it once a month or so, not only because my nails grow super fast, but because I feel it helps me maintain stronger nails.

Nubar 'Hotel Baby Pink', 2 coats:

You probably know by now that I love light pastel pinks and this one is a firm favourite. It's a little less lilac toned than most and has more of a baby, almost peachy tone to it in real life. Soon I will post a comparison of all my seriously similar shades.

Orly 'Luxe', 2 coats:

Luxe is one of the most metallic golds I have ever tried and holds up really well (I use a mixture of Nailtek 2 and CnD Stickey for my base coat) unlike some other foil type shades. It has quite a silver tone to it in daylight with silver flecks scattered throughout. Not my favourite shade but a nice change :)

Barry M 'Dusky Mauve', 2 coats:

LOVE this shade. Love how the topcoat gives it a super glass like finish. Nothing else to be said really, great application as with all Barry M's :-)

Nails Nails Nails:

Like many other bloggers I was recently offered the chance to try out some products from Born Pretty Store and since I am very much so back into nails right now after growing out the damage from acrylics, I kindly accepted to do so :)

Here is the design I was wearing a few days ago, created using two items sent from the company: Pink, bright and kind of tacky leopard print ♥

I thought I would try out the pack of nail art brushes since I had been looking into purchasing some anyway. The pack contains 15 different brushes with varying bristles. You get dotting tools, fan brushes, striping brushes, detail brushes, square tip brushes (my favourites for french manicure tips!) and many more. One of the angle tip brushes has become my go-to for clean up, it works amazingly well as it is quite still but still small enough to be effective.

The brushes themselves are of great quality. A nice length, with a pearly cream finish. Don't mind the one odd, wooden looking brush - I accidently dropped it in the acetone I was cleaning it with and it melted the lacquer a little. I decided to go ahead and remove it all and I still like how it looks, haha :) See the set here.

I used 2 coats of OPI Mod About You as a base, then using the bent small detail brush I drew the black part of the animal print. By using a smaller brush like this one it was much easier to control the lines, then having to rely on the striper like brush that comes with the polish. Then I used the metal dotting tool to add Essie Pink Parka to the centre of some of the shapes. It looked a little too neat for me so I went ahead and randomly dragged some of the fluro pink outwards giving a more scattered finish.

Thankyou so much to Born Pretty Store and I recommend you check the site out, as they have a plethora of products for you to browse.

I have a 10% voucher code to share with you all: EMMAK31 to expire on March 31st

I will show you more of the items in a later post :)

Nail Help?

Some of you will remember when I had long, strong, polished natural nails like this:

But laziness kicked in and I grew tired of constantly grooming my nails to keep them in perfect condition and so I caved and had a full set of acrylics applied. No pictures I'm afraid as I didn't take any at the time, but since having the removed my nails currently look like this:

I left this image pretty big so you can click it to enlarge and as you can see they are in pretty bad shape. They are probably 1/4 of the way grown out, and the rest is thin, patchy and weak. Now I'm not one to cry over spilt milk - the acrylics looked great, were super easy to maintain (for me anyway, I can't speak for my manicurist!) and I will probably get them again at some point, but for now does anyone have any product recomendations to help even out the surface so polish sits a little better on them?

Thanks! xo