One whole year after I stopped biting my nails

This time last year I was on holiday with my man in beautiful Rome, and it was there were I decided to stop biting my nails, and honestly I couldn't be prouder of myself. After feeling crappy about biting my nails, thinking they looked awful and disgusting, worrying about people seeing them and dealing with the pain of severely bitten talons, I am so glad that I managed to curb a 19 year habit. I really do think that this was one of the most fantastic choices I have ever made, which may sound a little bit over dramatic but I don't really care, because it's true. If I hadn't turned this corner and sorted it out I never would have discovered the passion I have for nails and nail art. This my seem like I very shallow thing to feel passionate about but I don't mind, even if it is. When I stopped biting, and gained a little bit of length to my nails I began painting them constantly, catching up on all the learning and nail experimentations us ladies mostly do when we're little girls. I wanted to try every polish, every brand and every colour ever, all at once, because I never had the opportunity before. As I became more confident with painting block colour I started to play around with designs, most leopard print to start with as you don't need specific brushes or tools it's easy to do with just an orange stick. This is where I came to the realisation that patterns distract people from shorter nails, something I particularly loved, because when you're starting to grow your nails you can start to think that people look at your nails and think "Why would you bother to paint nails so short?" and if there's some form of nail art to look at they're more likely to think "Cool, zebra print!". Anyway, from there I started to take pictures and branch out with techniques and designs and this is turn led to the confidence to start publishing my opinions and designs on here and my Tumblr, and confidence I me. In both my ability to complete something, changing things for the better, and my ability to be creative. So I am super proud of my last year in nails, because I can now stop thinking about my nails as something to be hidden and start seeing them as ten little opportunities to feel good about myself, be creative and make people think "Wow, that's cool!".

I know this was a little bit of a self-indulgent, self aggrandising post and I'm sorry about that, it's just that when I was looking for inspiration to stop biting I saw very accomplished nail blogs and no real posts about the pride you feel when you see a difference in yourself and start to feel good about something you've done. Xxx.

Essie Watermelon Swatcheroo

I went shopping, again, and picked up the most beautiful hot pink shade and I couldn't be happier. Lately I have been swinging towards cooler, bluey green hues as far as polish is concerned, but when I saw Watermelon by Essie I just had to own it! I purchased this lush little bottle at Boots for £7.99, a little bit on the pricey side, but you know you're getting a high class product, so for I treat it's money well spent. As you would expect from the name it's a delicious deep, warm, pink colour. Now normally when I see a polish close to this colour, it tends to have a pearlescent or metalic finish, and sometimes a girl just wants yummy, glossy, pink! So as you can imagine I was very happy to add this little cutie to be ever expanding collection.

There are several reasons why my Essie love is steadily growing, one of which is their brush. I find that, even with some of the more budget polishes, a high quality brush really can make the difference between loving a brand and just avoiding them all together, with most Essie polishes, you get the most fantastic brush.

It's a flat edged, tapered and thick brush, three factors that I always search for in a brush. It's thick bristles mean that it picks up and holds colour really well, which helps to avoid those heart stopping moments when you think you're going to drip paint on your newest of the new dress! The flat edge means that it's easier to clean off excess and you can also get a nice clean stroke of paint with each sweep down the nail, meaning less bubbles, less balded spots and less thick gloopy re-do sweeps. The tapered tip of the brush may well be my favourite thing about this brush. It perfectly fits the line of you cuticles, now I am an extremely lazy but extremely fussy little thing when it comes to painting my nails, Meaning that I hate clean-ups, but not quite as much a I hate polished cuticles, so when I paint my nails I will attempt to get it spot on first time round. This picture above was taken without a clean up. This brush makes it pretty much impossible to over paint your nails and hit skin. HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE NAIL PAINTING LORD!

One of the other, many, reasons I love Essie is the quality of the polish. It's always just the right consistency and loaded with pigment so you know that the finish you're going to get will be packed with colour and dry super fast. Making it my brand of choice for the "in a rush mani" I find myself frequently experiencing! Now I know that it is on the more expensive end of polishes, but you can occasionally find these on offer or even a discount store so shop around if you're just testing the water with this brand and then break the bank if you love it as much a I do, £7.99 I'm glad to have paid! Xxx.

Gone Fishing swatch.

It's my second post du jour, and this one's a cheeky little Topshop swatch! Gone Fishing is a gorgeous mint green and it's yummy! It paints on really well, and it's nearly a one coat varnish, which is something that I always look for. It's a really fresh pastel green which is super summery. It's a very girlie kitschy shade which I tend to wear when I'm sporting slightly less feminine outfits, just to keep things contrasting and cute.It also works really well with contrasting colours and nail art patterns, over all beautiful shade, highly recommended!

Singing the blues.

After a little bit of an absence, I've decided to spend a lovely day off post blasting, and catching up on what I've neglected to do over the past few weeks. I haven't posted in a little while because I was waiting for my nails to gain a bit more length after the tragedy of breaking all of them in the space of about three days and I've been very busy, finishing my second year of university and beginning my transformation into a skinny mini, I hope. Anyway, to kick off my day of posting I'm starting with beautiful bluey shades that I'm particularly fond of at the moment. For this post I have selected four very different polishes, in both finish and brand, but they are equally favoured by me. The first of the bunch being the Models Own Balearic Cool, from the HedKandi collection, it's a super yummy nearly neon bright blue which paints fairly well. It's a gorgeous summery colour great for sunny days or miserable, cloudy days where you want to feel a little bit brighter. I really do like this shade, the only complaint I can find with it is it's consistency. This particular polish, to me, seems a little bit thinner than what I have grown to expect from this brand, meaning that it does require a few more coats to cover up bald spots, and being as impatient as I am, I tend to favour one coat polishes, I just don't have the time or patience to wait of multiple coats to dry. However, like I said before the hue is lovely, really bright and eye catching too, so when I have the time to spend on a proper mani I always choose this polish.

The second polish of the four, is a lovely deep blue Marine Scene by Topshop. I love this polish for so many reasons, it's a gorgeous rich shade, super pigmented, which paints on beautifully and it's a one coat polish! I generally love Topshop's range of polishes anyway, even though sometimes I feel they can be a touch too thin with not enough pigment, but with this one I don't think you can go wrong. It's £5 from Topshop, as the standard shades often are, and as far as I'm concerned it's £5 well spent, a quick dryer that really stands out, not too bubblegummy blue, the darker shade has a little bit more of an edge and looks great with black tips for an alternative French mani.

Number three of my beautiful blues is a polish by Claire's, unfortunately, the polish I have is missing a name, now I don't know if this is a fault with my bottle or it just doesn't have a name. It's a very sheer polish with really tiny blue glitter flecks in it making it almost pearlescent, it's nice for a subtle glitter mani that isn't too over the top. It's also ideal over more vibrant blues to soften the harshness that comes with certain brighter tones. When I bought it the price was £2.25, so it's an absolute bargain, a really expensive looking hue but for less, leaving more money to buy more polishes, and that's what we like!

Last but certainly not least is a pale blue from Nails Inc called Albert Place. It's a very cute pastel blue, and surprisingly, with this shade you can get away with one coat. I really love the subtlety of this polish, I think it makes a really lovely base for leopard print or zebra nails, giving the designs a little bit more pop that a brown or white base. Now normally with a Nails Inc polish you'd be looking at spending around £11 per bottle, but I got this shade in a set of three from TKMAXX for £11.99, which is an absolute wonder, so I would probably recommend having a look in those types of designer brands discount prices shops, just to see if you can find a little gem like I did!

Four very different blues but all equally yummy! All recommended by me!

What are your favourite blues? Xxx.

InStyle Bluebell swatch.

So I've decided to properly swatch all of my polishes, in a bid to stop myself from buying any new one until I've completed the job. So today I'm swatching the lush InStyle Bluebell shade from Nails Inc.

The polish came free with the latest InStyle magazine, which cost me around £3.80, and you can get it in pretty much any news agents.

It's a beautiful pale, dusky blue, and it paints like a dream. Usually, as I said in my post about Models Own Blooboo, I tend to expect paler tones to take two or three coats to gain a nice even coverage, however, this shade is super pigmented and could easily pass with just coat. (The picture above of my thumb is purposely painted with just the one coat, so you can compare with the picture below where the nails have been painted with two coats, also sorry about those dry looking cuticles!) Which we always love! Especially if you're like me and forget to paint your nails and always end up painting right at the last minute just before going out.

It's a beautiful thin consistency, so really easy to paint on, absolutely no gloop to it, which means the drying time is lovely and quick too! Overall I'd say this is a really great buy, at under £4 for a polish which would normally cost £11 and a magazine, you can't really lose! I would say it's a really great option if you don't own any Nails Inc at the moment and want to try out the brand without committing to a full price bottle! Serious recommendations on this one, give it a cheeky try! Xxx.