Q&A: Can Shellac damage your nails?

Q: Can Shellac (and other soak-off hybrid gels) damage your nails? A: Yes. Hybrid soak-off gels (e.g. Shellac, Gelish, Axxium) are less damaging than the old style long-lasting treatments which needed to be filed off for removal (often taking a chunk of your natural nail with it), but a recent study found that they still caused significant weakness, thinning and …

Read more

DIY Clay Scrub/Semi-Mask

As much as I like what clay does for my face, I never have the patience to do a proper one (and I usually forget I even have clay). My face feels so itchy as it dries, and I hate when I look in the mirror afterwards and see a green ring around my face that I missed. As a …

Read more

Mud on your face! Clay for skincare

Clay is pretty amazing, isn’t it? You can make art with it, you can slap it on your skin, you can even eat it for digestive problems! I’m only going to talk about how great it is for your skin today, but I thought we should take a moment to appreciate how useful mud is, except when it gets on …

Read more

How does Latisse (bimatoprost) make eyelashes grow longer?

Who doesn’t want long, luscious eyelashes? For years all we could do was paint them and stick on falsies, then Latisse landed on the market, promising to make your natural lashes gorgeous and doe-y. But how does it work? About lashes Lashes, like all hair, grows in a cycle, which involves 3 phases and takes 5-12 months. Anagen – This …

Read more

Artsy Wednesday: Easter nails

For Easter, I decided to freehand some chicks peeping out of their shells… I’m not sure if it looks right! I was going to do some silver and gold dots and stripes over the shells but I somehow forgot. I’m getting old 🙁 Base: w7 Neon YellowShells: Maybelline Keep Mauvin’, ulta3 Lagoon, Little Boy Blue (old) and Sweet VioletChick faces: …

Read more

NOTD: Triangle tips over Nails Inc Garrick St

Tipwear and regrowth annoy me so much, especially when I’m wearing a polish I don’t have much of! Nailside’s rightly famous cloud mani is stylish and covers up the tips, but I want a bit of variety, so you’re going to be seeing a lot of my experiments! Garrick St is in the artsy, theatre Covent Garden area of London, …

Read more

What is BB cream?

BB creams are popping up on shelves everywhere – but what are they? BB stands for beauty balm, blemish balm or beblesh balm, depending on which brand you’re looking at. BB creams are said to have originated from a cream that dermatologists recommended after cosmetic surgery to help repair skin and cover damage. They became popular in Korea after some …

Read more

NOTD: Black lace on nude

The refined yet sexy black-lace-on-nude look that Kate Moss etc. popularised a couple of years ago inspired these nails. The base is OPI Malaysian Mist, which I hate when sheer but love with 3+ coats, and might be my long sought after HG nude! It’s one of the polishes that got me into nails in the first place. The stamp …

Read more