Purple Ombré Nail Art with Silver Glitter Stripes

Another bit of stripy nail art today - what can I say? At least I'm consistent! This particular design was heavily inspired by one of my most favourite nail artists on Instagram, Jessie K, aka @nailsofjessiek.

Mani Swap with My Mint Nails

I'm so excited to write this post because this is my first ever Mani Swap! The lovely Sarah from My Mint Nails has recreated one of my nail art designs, and I've had a go at one of hers.

Camouflage Print Nail Art

A really fun bit of nail art for you today. And it was so simple to do!

Matte Pastel Nail Art with Glitter Stripes using Barry M Nail Paints

A bit more nail art today, feel like I'm on a roll at the moment. With the start of a new season and lots of new products being released comes added nail inspiration, which is great for me as I try to distract myself from spending too much money!

The Iconic Chevron Manicure

Whether you're a nail art fanatic like me, or you've just done a google search for inspiration for your next salon visit, chances are you recognise this manicure. It's been everywhere!

Bright and Simple Negative Space Nail Art

Negative space. Again! It's one of my favourite styles at the moment. This was totally inspired by a manicure I saw on instagram by @twi_star.

Rainbow Glitter Gradient Nail Art with L'Oreal Polishes

Today is a relatively exciting day for me because my broken nail has finally grown back! Cue the fireworks! Not exactly life-changing but I thought I'd celebrate the occasion with a bit of rainbow glitter.

Glitter Stripes Nail Art with Color Club

Some more stripy nail art today. Stripes are so simple to create with a bit of tape but I think they give a great effect. I've been wearing this mani for a few days now and I really love it, plus it involves my favourite polish brand, Color Club.

Nautical Nail Art - A First Attempt

As a lover of bold colours and stripes, nautical themed nail art seems an obvious choice for me. I'm quite surprised I haven't tried it before now. And since I've recently acquired a few red nail polishes, here was a good chance to try them out.

Negative Space Nail Art with Models Own Colour Chromes

I knew when I first tried the Colour Chrome polishes that I wanted to use them together for nail art. Since 'negative space' seems to be having a bit of a moment right now, I thought it would be a good opportunity to combine the two trends for a modern and grown up manicure.

Simple Pink Gradient Nail Art for Valentines Day

Happy Friday 13th everyone, hopefully nothing unlucky has happened! Just a quick post today to show you this pretty pink gradient manicure, quite seasonally appropriate as it's Valentine's Day tomorrow...

Welcome to my blog, farewell to summer

Hello and welcome to the first post of Hair, Nails Etc! As you can probably tell, I'm fairly new to "blogging" and to be honest, I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing. But hopefully I'll pick it up as I go...

Although I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog for some time now, I'd always talked myself out of it thinking that I'm not much of a writer, nor photographer. I have been randomly posting nail art (and the occasional hairdo) to Instagram for over two years now, but more recently I found myself taking lots more pictures, more regularly and becoming more interested in the latest products and polish releases. Yesterday something clicked, and I decided the time had come to bite the bullet and get started on this blog.

I chose the name of the blog, to ideally reflect the content I'm planning to publish. So expect lots of nail polish, (simple!) nail art, swatches and hauls, broken up with my ramblings on hair care and perhaps the odd pretty lipstick.

To finish off, I wanted to include a few nail pictures. Since Autumn officially began last week, and the past few evenings have felt distinctly chilly, I thought I would do something completely unseasonal and show you my favourite manicure of the summer!

This was my first attempt at leopard print, and I decided to use some of my favourite bright polishes - the Ice Neon collection by Models Own. The neon colours stand out nicely against the pure white base and black rings, and I like the subtle contrast between the matte white and the shiny black.

I started with a base coat and then used two generous coats of Models Own White Light to give a smooth white background, which I then topped with one coat of Rimmel Matte Top Coat (old-style bottle shown in photograph).

Next I used a small dotting tool with the Ice Neon polishes to make rough 'blob' shapes all over the nails. I used two colours per nail and tried to be sparing with the blobs, if you add too many there won't be enough room to add the ring shapes and it would look too crowded. I went over the spots a second time to intensify the colour.

Once the spots were dry (neon polishes dry quickly) I used the Models Own Artistix Nail Art Pen to make small 'C' shapes around each spot. Finally I used an extra small dotting tool to make small dots and curves in the remaining white space. No top coat was used as I wanted to keep the matte effect of the base colour and the shine on the black polish. 

Overall I was happy enough with this design, considering it was my first go at leopard print. I absolutely love these neon polishes and will try and keep using bright colours for as long as I can - probably until I start Christmas manicures (yes I just said the C word!)

I hope you enjoy my blog, please come back again soon. And let me know if there's anyone else out there who likes to ignore what colours are seasonally 'appropriate'!