NOTD

Oh dear. I may have recently been gnawing at my nails again leaving me with bitten stubs of varying lengths. Here goes attempt number 2 at painting them nicely so hopefully it's easier to resist the odd nibble. 

Last week I purchased 3 Barry M Gelly Nail Paints (£3.99 and currently buy 1 get 2nd half price at Boots) in Lychee, Blueberry and Sugar Apple so I also used this as an opportunity to try them all out. I used Lychee as the base colour and was so impressed that despite its nude shade it was entirely opaque after 2 coats and maybe even could have got away with just 1! Ontop of this, I used a stripper brush dipped into Blueberry, Sugar Apple and a Christmas glitter Essie polish to make a 'whoosh' shape from the tip towards the nail bed. The end result: something that kind of resembles glamorous seaweed. 

This was super easy to do as I didn't apply much precision and although it would work better on longer nails in terms of being able to vary the shapes more, I still think it's effective on my stumps. I also think it turned out looking very Summer appropriate and would be ideal if you have a beach holiday planned.

Lara xo

Easy Nail Art for Super Short Nails

Summer Triangle Nail Art

    

With leavers' ball coming up I decided it really was time to start trying to grow my nails again after nail-biting exam season. I've always enjoyed splashing creativity on my nails and hopefully now I'll also be less tempted to have a quick nibble!

My nails are naturally small to start with, but I began by filing them all down to an even length and buffing them to remove those tell-tale bite marks. I used Boots 4 Way Buffer Block here - cheap and cheerful.

     

As a base I used Essie's 'Grow Stronger Base Coat' here which both stops the bright polishes staining the nails weird colours and helps strengthen them from breaking. I painted 4 of my nails  with Mystify by Misguided which is a standard hot pink shade and added an accent nail on my ring finger using Barry M's nail paint in 'Indigo' here.

Using a nail art brushes which I picked up from Ebay for only 99p for 15 brushes here, I added a triangle on each nail before using a dotting tool and a white nail polish by Natural Collection. As the dot covers the tip of the triangle, this means the point doesn't have to be precise!

I finished with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Speed Drops on Ebay here which lock in the design and reduce drying time.

Lara xo