Olympic Nail Art! London 2012!

Hello!

Are you guys watching the Olympics? Me not really. To be honest the only sport that I'll sit and watch is football and that only if it's Chelsea or Barca playing. In the Olympics I like watching the opening and closing ceremonies purely for the spectacle but the actual games are somewhat in the back of my head as something I should probably watch but I most likely won't. However, what I do is read articles about them and learn who won and stuff. What I noticed this year though was the huge amount of articles about the athletes' nails. Apparently lots of them decided to rock patriotic tips and give a perfect finishing touch to their medals. So I went through several of these articles and now I'm showing you the best manicures I've found. (all the photographs belong to their rightful owners)

GREAT  BRITAIN

Aimee Willmott

Amy Oliver

Charlotte Kerwood

Laura Trott

Lynne Huchinson

Naomi Folkard

Rebecca Adlington

Victoria Pendleton

USA

Caroline Queen

Dana Volmer

Destinee Hooker

Elizabeth Beisel

Missy Flanklin

Sanaya Richards Ross

Venus Williams

AUSTRALIA

Emily Seebohm

Renee Chatterton

FRANCE

Emmeline Ndongue

GERMANY

Laura Ludwig

HUNGARY

Dora Csabai

Suzana Jacobos

ITALY

Stefania Pirozzi

JAPAN

Reiko Shiota

LITHUANIA

Ruta Meilutyte

RUSSIA

Olga Kerban

SPAIN

Mireia Belmonte Garcia

Aren't those nails amazing??? I love them! And I think it's a good statement for women in the Olympics showing that they are still feminine even if they are probably strong enough to kick your @$$...  joke... 

Maybe I should paint some random flags on my nails some time...

Love,

Kristine

OOTN Heraklion Girls About Town

Hello there!

I've been in Heraklion for about 10 days now and I've been going out a lot. I try to get photos but I don't really remember it all the time so I haven't taken enough for a proper blog post for each outfit. So I thought I'd pick out the best photos and make a post with 3 outfits together and I'll try to feature them in a video with some more outfits later this week.

OUTFIT #1 

Dress: Stradivarius

Shoes: New Look

Earrings: Accessorize

Ring: Primark

Lips: MAC Impassioned

OUTFIT #2

Dress: Anel

Shoes: New Look

Clutch: Accessorize

Necklace: Accessorize

Ring: Primark

Nails: H&M Rising Sun and Essie Coat Azure

Lips: NYX Amsterdam

And these are my best friend Christina's shoes which I initially didn't like but they look good on her so I wanted to show you them but she didn't want me to put a proper picture of her on the blog.

Nail polish Beauty Line neon orange and Essence gold glitter

OUTFIT #3

Top: Stradivarius

Skirt: Bershka

Shoes: Primark

Clutch: Accessorize

Necklace: H&M

Earrings: Tally Weijl

Flower in my hair: H&M

Nails: Beauty Line neon orange

Lips: MAC Girl About Town

My hair was done by Christina for the night. She sectioned the brown ones and did a french braid which ended up in a normal braid and the took the blonde ones and did another french braid and wrapped the blonde one around the brown one at the bottom and the I put a flower where the hairtie was.. She is really good at doing hair! 

And these are my friends Maria and Eirini when we were out. Eirini has her own show with another girl from her uni in their uni radio station and they put music and talk about random stuff during termtime. Here's the link for the facebook group if you're interested to check them out! Mind the g-UP! Up Fm 

I hope you liked these outfits and please comment if you want me to force my friends to let me put their outfits on the blog too!!!!

Love,

Kristine

OPI: The Show Must Go On!

Hello there!

Yes. The show must go on indeed. Even if this nail polish was not incredibly beautiful on its own I think the name would have probably sold it to me. And I know that this is from the Burlesque collection (which is 2 years old so you will probably not find it unless your Sephora too is ridiculously random at what it stocks) but I keep thinking Queen when I hear the title.

direct sunlight

So, the polish itself is a beautiful metallic red colour with a gold and magenta duochrome effect according to the lighting. That's why I had to take lots of photos so I could show you as best as I could how pretty it is!

noon, under shadow

sunset

The finish reminded me of hammered metal as it was not smooth or glossy (it could be because my topcoat is starting to dry out) but I decided I liked it because it's a metallic colour and it's unusual (you know how I love being different that the normal).

sunset

direct sunlight

I also decided to add some nail stickers on my thumb and ring finger to make the look a bit more girly and fun. Nail stickers are an easy way to glam up your manicure if you are not confident with nail art or you are in a hurry.

sunset

 incandescent lamp

I can totally see why this colour was in a holiday collection as it reminds me of wrapping paper and ribbons and presents. As much as I find it gorgeous I think I may save it for special occasions and parties and opt for my staple creamy red (Berry Love by H&M) for the rest of summer.

direct sunlight

Btw.. I know I said the show must go on but the show tonight (the Olympics opening ceremony) just ended and I just have to say.. how amazing was that? I loved it so much!

Ok, back to the point. I hope you liked this manicure and I'll see you on my next post!

Love,

Kristine

Kiss My Eyes And Lay Me To Sleep

Hey there!

So after the bright colours my mood went a bit downhill so I decided to go for a black. 

This one is called Kiss Goodnight by H&M and it was out around Christmas. It has shimmer in it and it makes me think of what a sparkly road would look like.

I liked the sharp contrast with the orange background which is also how it looks against all the bright summer outfits. For me it's all about making a statement with your nails so when neons are all over the place a black is perfect to stand against them and be bold.

Also because of the mood going downhill I didn't like the happy romantic kiss goodnight theme of the polish (yes you can see the polish as the night sky with stars after a nice date when your man takes you home and kisses you at the door but trying to deal with a breakup my heart sinks at that thought) so I decided to go for a more dark theme and chose this line from AFI's Prelude 12/21 as my title.  

I really do love this prelude and the song it moves into which is called Miss Murder. 

Give them a listen. See you next time!

Love,

Kristine

Rainbows Reversed

Hello! 

I feel I do apologise a lot for not posting enough but there are things going on and I feel a bit depressed. So what I'm trying to do is make sure I put my makeup on every day and paint my nails something cheerful. I do believe that colours can improve your mood so today I decided to paint my nails and my toes like a rainbow.

I thought it would be too much to try and put all the colours in one nail so I thought I could just put 3 and have the rainbow continue on the next nail.

Polishes used:

H&M Berry Love

KISS pink

H&M Coral Road

H&M Rising Sun

KISS green

BUTTER LONDON British Racing Green

MISSGUIDED Misstique

KISS electric blue

ERRE DUE EXCLUSIVE purple

So here's how the finished hand looks. The rainbow starts on the end of the nails goes to the middle finger and then the colours reverse so that you get 2 reversed rainbows in each hand!

And here's a single rainbow up close....

As for my toes I decided to paint each toe a single colour because they are small but the effect is also quite nice!

And how the toes look from a distance!

I hope you liked this look and that it made you smile! ^_^ Life needs colour even in the smallest things because the truth is that it's hard and the best each one can do is make sure the small details you actually can control are made fun and special.

Love,

Kristine

Golden Shore Manicure

Hello beauties!

Today I have a summery manicure inspired by the sea and the beach sand. 

Nail polishes used:

Essie Coat Azure

H&M Sunset Gold

The COAT AZURE polish came as an accident because I wanted another Essie colour and the order got completely messed up but since I'm not in America and I had a friend ordering it for me by the time he brought it to Greece and I saw it was the wrong one there was nothing I could do because he was not going back to america for months. At first I was not sure about the colour because in the bottle I could see a pearly shimmery effect that I didn't like but when I actually tried it it came much more muted  but with a nice sheen to it. Also it looks amazing on my skintone. VERDICT: I love it! I think it's going up with my favourite nail polishes because it looks so good on me!

SUNSET GOLD is a polish I have been pairing with yellow so far so there was not such a sharp contrast before. As it turns out it's much more grainy over a darker colour because the glitters are chunky. Still I think it worked for this look because it is as if I dipped my nails in the sand. Other than that I advise you to let each coat dry before applying a new layer because it may get a bit thick.

Also you can see I took photos against different things to check how the manicure looks with different colours you may have on your outfits. I would suggest pairing muted colours with bright ones to create contrast and make all the colours pop! 

Also I love roses... lol

Let me know what you think!

Love,

Kristine

Sweet Stripes and Dots

So, I spent a week with a french manicure and after it I needed to do something fun and colourful!

Polishes used:

white thin brush polish

My Lifesaver by Nicole by OPI

Rising Sun by H&M

A Lovely Secret by Essence

Coral Road by H&M

I painted fours of  my fingernail with different colours and made white stripes on them and then I painted my thumb white and made dots with the four other colours to tie the design and colour scheme together. 

I think it's a very fun design that incorporates brights and pastels which have been very popular this spring and summer and with the white it gives a vintage candy store vibe that makes me want ice cream.

I think stripes is a very fun and easy way to spice up a manicure and I love it very much!

Let me know if you try it!

Love,

Kristine