The Swarovski nails and my attempts at nail art!
A while ago I wrote about how teen daughter and I love nail art. We are dab hands with a nail pen and I had a chance to show off my skills last week, when Amanda and I were invited to a nail art workshop with Boots No 7 and nail technician to the stars Jamie Nunn. The event was to promote the new range of No 7 nail colours and show the Hand Picked Media bloggers some new techniques.
Jamie demonstrated how to get an antique marble effect by putting a small amount of metallic polish onto a clean dry make up sponge and dabbing it onto an already applied layer of dark polish. The effect is subtly dramatic (if that makes sense!) and had everyone eager to try other techniques. We were given a nail wheel and encouraged to try out stripes, spots checks and for the more bling among us, applying rhinestones.
Jamie was the nail technician on The X Factor and had worked with the girls from The Only Way Is Essex (including Nanny Pat) so I was in my element trying to extract celebrity gossip. He was professionally discreet (damn!) but did tell us he would be doing Lady Gaga’s nails for her new video and they would involve a lot of Swarovski crystals!!
There is nothing the teen and I like more than an afternoon in a Dalston nail bar. Not only do you come out with fabulous nails, you get to spend an hour observing every form of human life, while watching your nails dry! But if nail bars are not your thing, its well worth checking out the new No 7 Stay Perfect range. The new bigger brush makes the polish easy to apply, it drys really quickly and there is an amazing range of twenty new colours.
Our nail routine is usually strictly low maintenance and we don’t bother with base and top coat, but Jamie and his lovely assistant Sue persuaded us otherwise. They say it stops your nails staining (we all know that one!) and chipping.
Dollar, Sing The Blues and Lucky Lilac
Our favourite colours were the gorgeous dark metallic Sing the Blues, (Navy) and Dollar, (teal) which are perfect for next Autumn Winter, and I am currently wearing the lovely Lucky Lilac – with of course, base and top coat!
Oh yes we’re so in tune, we are just clicking à propos the blue nail colour thing. I wish I had a Boots here in Switzerland but alas no. What I do have however, is an Estée Lauder counter or 2. I was passing one just the other afternoon shopping for socks for my teenage son (I have one of those now) and did a double take when I saw the new collection of 16 funky colours. Historically, Lauder had always played it relatively safe in terms of their colour palette (yawn), so this was gorgeously refreshing and exciting for me. It doesn’t take much. My total fave was without a doubt “Wild Blue” – a beautiful shade of summer blue which goes frightfully well with slightly tanned hands and white, and yellow, and denim and florals! Very versatile, this colour. So I was tapping my own nails on said counter wanting desperately to purchase this little gem but the lady was lunching so I had to leave empty handed. Am so returning tomorrow. X
I am bringing you a whole range of new shades in the summer. You also need to have lemon and lilac in your life!
Jx