Nailene Fake Nails and Ultra Tabs* Review

Sometimes, just sometimes, I don't have time to paint my nails.  I know, shock horror - but i'm BUSY ok?

Anyway, I used to wear fake nails a lot as I used to bite my natural ones and have horrible horrible bleeding stumpy miniscule fingernails.  That was before I got horrifically ill in Egypt, causing me to become a reformed character and refuse to bite my nails anymore.  This lead to me opening myself up to the beautiful world of shit loads of nail varnish.

Anyway, I used to go to the bog standard nail shop and get one of the lovely chinese ladies there to put gel tips on.  Looked nice (if not a bit Essex) and lasted a while.  All was great until you took them off and saw the actual state of your nails underneath.  Another option were the temporary fake nails on sale in Boots etc that you put on yourself with glue.  All good for 1 night but anymore than that and they just wouldn't last, pinging off at really inappropriate moments (or if you are me into a glass of water claimed by the person who was interviewing me for a new job - not good).

So, as I said I now have long nails so don't ever really need to use fake nails, but I was curious.  I was sent a full set of the Nailene Studio Nails to try from the lovely Nic at Sparkle PR, along with a set of the Nailene Ultra Adhesive Tabs to stick them on with.

I have a bit of trouble painting my nails, I am not the cleanest person in the whole world so it's a bit of an ordeal for me.  I have to paint them and then clean all the nail varnish off from around my fingers etc, so these nails were welcome as I knew I could put them on and my hands would instantly look perfect.  I was sent a pack of nails that were already painted red, so all I had to do was apply them and they'd be ready.

I thought this would be a bit of a struggle, but I was super impressed.  There are 24 nails in the pack in a range of sizes so you can make sure you have ones that fit your fingers.  The red was a lovely colour, and I liked the shape of the nails, quite square and not massively long.  The tabs were the things that I thought were AMAZING though.  I wasn't sure if they were going to work very well but they were brilliant.  You literally peel them off a sheet and stick the sticky side onto your nail - then you pull off a clear bit of plastic on the top of the tab and then just push the nail down onto it once the tab is on your fingers... basically they are like little bits of double sided rubbery sticky tape.  They are super easy to apple and super sticky - the minute the nails were on they didn't budge at all and felt really secure, like they weren't going to fall off.  I had to file the nails down slightly as they were still a bit too long for me and I was finding it hard to type, but a small nail file was supplied in the kit which was another touch I really liked!

I took some nail glue to work with me the following day just in case, but those tabs are BRILLIANT.  I applied these nails on a Monday night, and I had to TAKE THEM OFF on Saturday and they were still showing no signs of falling off at all.  I did wonder if the tabs were going to ruin my nails as they are super sticky, but even taking them off was brilliant.  There are instructions on how to remove them properly but I kind of did it my own way, so probably did it wrong.  I just lifted the nail up with a cuticule stick and pinged it off (most of them were hard work as they were still 100% stuck).  Once the nail was off you just rub your fingernail from bottom to top and the tab kind of sticks to your finger and you can just pull it off!  Once I did that I just went over each nail with a bit of nail varnish remover on a cotton wool pad just to get rid of the stickiness, but it really wasn't that bad and there was literally no trace of the tabs on my nails at all.

I wasn't really fussed about fake nails before, but having experienced just how easy and quick they are to put on (the thing that used to put me off before was the messiness of the glue), how long they last and how perfect your nails look I would definitely consider using these again.  I was a bit wary of leaving these nails on too long as I was worried they would make my own nails fairly weak underneath, but again they were fine when I took them off.

If you are going to an event or know you need nice nails with minimum fuss and effort, then I totally suggest using these.  The mini nail file was a nice touch and I had lots of comments on my nails and people asking where I had got them done - they were shocked when I said i'd done them myself at home in about 10 minutes!  I'd definitely use these nails again, it's just so easy!

If you want to get some for yourself, head over to Nailene's website HERE or go to Boots and nab some for yourself.. oh, and get me another set while you're at it :)

xx

Bourjois Pop-Up Boutique

Exciting news!

To coincide with the beginning of London Fashion Week, Bourjois are pulling out the big guns are opening a pop up boutique in Shoreditch.  As you can see from the flyer they have lots of interesting things planned, and best of all it’s all free!

The boutique will be above one of my favourite Shoreditch bars, Beach Blanket Babylon and will be open from 16^th – 20^th February.  They will have heavily discounted products available, as well as free makeovers, manicures, nail art and personal fashion illustrations... They are also running lots of competitions and T4 are filming their new show there for the duration of this.

It’s part week part weekend so there should be a suitable time for everyone to attend – I’m going to try and shoot down there but not sure what day i’ll be there yet.  Have to take advantage of the offers!

If you do go, enjoy!

Morsh's Musical Memories

This weekend I was at my friend Charlie’s house and she found the Backstreet Boys Greatest Hits CD – we got super excited and put it on, then spent the next half hour singing along to all the tracks we didn’t even realise we still knew the words to - I forgot how much I used to love the Backstreet Boys haha!  Anyway, this kick started a whole week of music nostalgia, I love it when that happens!  During my epic drive this morning I listened to my Backstreet Boys playlist I made when I left Charlie’s on Saturday and it got me thinking about all my greatest memories with music and how pretty much every song I have ever liked has a memory attached to it.  It’s not surprising really, I listen to music all day every day;  every morning on the way to work, at my desk while i’m doing a big project, on my way home from work, when I get in and am pottering around in my room – in my car, on the train, at friends houses, in clubs.  I am constantly surrounded by music and have been since an early age and this is probably why music is one of the most important things in my life.

One of my earliest music memories involves Madonna.  I remember when I was a kid my sister LOVED Madonna and she had her Immaculate Collection album on video.  It was basically all the music videos in the same order as the album, and it was AMAZING – It had songs like Borderline, Lucky Star, True Blue, Like a Virgin, Vogue, Material Girl... all of Madonna’s best songs.  I can still remember sitting in my front room watching the videos and even now when I hear the songs I can picture the music video because we watched them so much!  I think my favourite song of hers is Open Your Heart, I LOVED the video for that!

My parents used to listen to music a lot when I was a kid.  UB40, The Carpenters and The Beautiful South are all bands that stand out in my memory.  Just hearing the opening bars to Lessons in Love by UB40 instantly reminds me of my Dad!  My parents also had The Carpenters Greatest Hits on tape, and I used to steal it and listen to it over and over again in my room – I used to love Rainy Days and Mondays and Top of the World haha!  The Beautiful South’s old work takes me right back to my childhood, I LOVED ‘Song for Whoever’, especially the line “I love you from the bottom of my pencil case” – I don’t even know why, I just did!

As I got a bit older a lot of my music tastes were influenced by what my sister used to listen to.  She was probably old enough to go out and buy her own music whereas I wasn’t, so the new music I would hear that wasn’t on the radio would be coming from her room.  I remember her having ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ by Oasis on tape, and I was fascinated because the tape case for that was cardboard and shaped like a cigarette packet, with a lid you had to lift up – actually quite clever, but would totally be banned now!  My sister was also into Garbage, No Doubt, Marilyn Manson, Blur, Placebo and Republica – Hearing ‘Ready to Go’ always reminds me of sitting in her room watching her while she was getting ready to go out.  It’s strange that just thinking of these songs and not even hearing them makes me feel 10 again, and brings back lovely memories.



I started in the middle and have recapped the beginning, now to continue onto what started this whole post in the first place.  As cringey as it is, ‘Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)’ by the Backstreet Boys was the first single I ever bought on tape!  I remember getting it from Woolworths in Barkingside and walking the whole way home just looking at it, desperate to get home and play it haha!  I was never really a fan of Westlife or Boyzone – I didn’t mind Take That but was never obsessive over them.  Then the Spice Girls came on the scene and blew all my previous musical tastes out of the water.  The music my sister was listening to was out around the same time as the Spice Girls, so I was splitting my time 50/50 between being the Ultimate Pop Princess with stupid platforms trainers (I even forced my mum to buy me a green vest and some massive flares from Peacocks that looked like Mel B’s outfit in Wannabe) and being a cool rocker listening to the sort of music my sister listened to.  Regardless of all this, I did TOTALLY LOVE the Spice Girls and had all their albums and any available merchandise going.  Unfortunately for me, I was always ‘ginger spice’ when we played Spice Girls at school, although much to my delight when I performed as them with 5 other girls at our school assembly there was another girl who was much more ginger than me, so I got to be Posh Spice – touch!

So, I had a few years of loving pop music and then I got back into the rock music scene, and this brings me onto my first ever concert.  I can remember it like it was yesterday, how I felt, how excited I was.  Limp Bizkit had just released their ‘Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water’ album, and they were playing Wembley Arena on the 7^th June 2001.  I begged and begged to get tickets and in the end my sister and her boyfriend at the time took me there.  I was on the brink of hysteria, not just because I was totally in love with Fred Durst and the entire band, but because I had never experienced anything like it in my life.  It was amazing, and was the perfect choice for my first concert and I think to this day it’s why I prefer rock concerts to any other music genre – there is just so much energy and excitement.  While watching Limp Bizkit do their thing, Fred jumped off the stage and wandered around the arena.  We were sitting to the left hand side of the stage, with no one in front of us, just the doorway below into the arena.  I remember Fred disappearing and a few minutes later walking through the door directly below me – before my sister or her bloke could do anything I had valuted the barrier and jumped down and ran after him!  Security stopped me but it was worth a shot... my sister nearly had a heart attack because I was only 14 and she thought she’d never get me back haha!

Clearly with Limp Bizkit I was already loving the American rock music scene – Sum 41, Alien Ant Farm, Offspring, Papa Roach, Blink 182, Cheap Trick – I loved it all!  I totally got obsessive over Eminem too, I loved all of his albums until he got too involved in D12 and the music turned a bit rubbish.  I remember my sister going to see him in concert and I couldn’t go, I was GUTTED.  My sister called me when she was there and played Stan down the phone, and I remember sitting in my friends room crying because I could hear him and nearly having a heart attack – that’s devotion!  This sort of music reminds me of summer holidays and sitting in my house watching all the music videos on MTV.  This was probably the first entire genre of music I really really loved and obsessed over.  In Too Deep by Sum 41 is still one of my most favourite songs and I loved Alien Ant Farm’s cover of Smooth Criminal – still makes me smile when I hear it J

Fast forward a few years – I’d met my first proper boyfriend and mainly due to him and what he listened to, I started to get involved in R&B – Puff Daddy, LL Cool J, Ja Rule, Ashanti, Alliayah, Nelly, Brandy... I remember listening to the radio late one night and they played the entire Ashanti album from start to finish.  My boyfriend at the time text me and told me to listen to it about half way through and I told him I already was and we both said how much we liked it and went out and bought it the next day.  That entire album just reminds me of being in love for the first time and the awesome summer of 2003 (before everything went a bit wrong).  After I split with the boyfriend, I didn’t really listen to music for a while, it just depressed me.  I had always associated music with being happy because it made me happy – at that moment in time everything was a bit dark and grim.

I soon snapped out of it though, and after a year or two of being mental and not really knowing what I was doing, I met my next boyfriend.  It was the summer of 2005, and it was heavily sound tracked by more R&B – the standout album for me at this time was Let’s Get Lifted by John Legend.  That summer was spent driving around with my boyfriend, my best friend and her boyfriend (her boyfriend was MY boyfriends best friend... confusing?) and listening to that album.  I didn’t have a job at the time, but they all did – even so we’d drive around and then park up listening to this album until the sun started to come up and then we’d go home.  That summer they must have got about 2 hours sleep a night before they had to go to work, I don’t even know how they did it haha!

A few more years on, this time another new boyfriend and another new genre of music I had been introduced to; house music.  I had been going to a club near me called Pacific Edge which was the first real club at this time to play funky house.  I loved it and joined a website called Mujao which resulted in me making lots of new friends as I worked for them doing club photography.  It was at this time I experienced London clubbing, heading to places like Turnmills, Egg,  Heaven and Fabric.  I met my last ex boyfriend doing this ‘job’ (I say ‘job’ because it wasn’t my PROPER job, I used to go and do it in my spare time in return for free club entry and drinks), and my love for house music was born.  For the 5 years to come i’d head to Ibiza, see Tiesto do an epic 8 hour set at Brixton Academy and generally just fall in love with house music, a love that would never really die..  I loved Yoji Biomehanika, Fischerspooner, Dark by Design, Tiesto, Smokin’ Jo, Tim Sheridan...  there were lots of ‘one-off’ songs I loved, such as Dark Side of the Moon by Ernesto vs Bastian, Emerge by Fischerspooner, Traffic by Tiesto – loads of one off songs I can’t even remember the names of now!  The album Nasty Dirty Sex Music by Smokin’ Jo and Tim Sheridan was one of my favourites, and if I hear any of these songs it reminds me of just going out and having a laugh in sweaty dirty clubs with lots of people pilled off their nut, while i’m running around drinking water and taking their pictures – one of the best things i’ve ever done J

And now we are up to present time.  The last few years I have heavily got back into Rock and Indie music.  Some of my favourite bands are Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters, Kasabian, Muse...  I compiled a list years ago of all the acts I had to see before I died and have been adding to it more and more... I have pretty much covered the list now, the majority of it is done.  I’ve watched Arcade Fire on a hot sunny day in Hyde Park, I’ve watched Foo Fighters headline Milton Keynes Bowl.  I’ve screamed along to Muse at Wembley Arena, been to a secret Kasabian gig with only 199 other people.  I’ve danced around to Babyshambles at V, i’ve wangled tickets last minute to see Blur, seen Red Hot Chilli Peppers at the O2.  The only bands I wanted to see before I died that I haven’t yet is Oasis and Coldplay, and i’m seeing Coldplay in June J  All I need now is Oasis to reform and i’ve pretty much completed one of my life goals!

Not bad for a Tuesday eh? ;)

Morsh's First Massage

The other day I was pondering on Twitter about whether I should go for a back massage.  I am a very clicky, tense person and I find it hard to relax my body - most of the time without even realising it I am all hunched shoulders and clenched jaw (sound FIT don't I?)  Anyway, I get bad back pain sometimes and I also get really bad pains when I drive where all the muscles in my back totally seize up and it's like I click my hips out of joint.  I sit forward in my seat in the car and it feels fine until I get out, but when I do step out of my car sometimes I am in AGONY and I can't even walk.  I have to force myself to take a step and then after a few seconds of agonising acrobatics my back will make a really loud crunching sound and then it'll be fine and I can walk again.  It doesn't hurt afterwards, the minute my back cracks the pain is gone but while I am waiting for it to crack it is really painful.

Anyway, I used my Twitter as a vent for all this and the lovely Leily of The Tanning Shop in Waltham Cross invited me into the shop for a massage.  I know they are super relaxing and convieniently enough I had a half day booked off work that coming Friday, so I decided to take her up on her offer and go in for one.

I was a bit unprepared for what it would be like, but was pleasantly surprised.  When I walked into the room it was lovely and warm and there was some nice chillout music playing.  The room smelt nice and was lit with candles to create a bit of AMBIENCE (Micky Flanagan style).  Jo, the lovely massause asked me to undress from the waist up and lay face down on the bed, THEN for the next half hour she pressed, clicked, rubbed and poked my back - I didn't think it would be painful (don't get me wrong, it wasn't PROPERLY painful at all but there were a few moments where I was thinking "eeek" as she popped a part of my back), most of all it was a nice pain, where it's 100% bareable and you know it's doing you a world of good.  I also found it quite relaxing (I must have as even though she was popping all the different tense parts of my back, I still managed to nearly fall asleep!!!).  At the end Jo told me that later that night I might feel a teensy bit bruised, but the next day I should feel better....

Probably asleep!

Understatement of the century!  The minute I got up off the bed I felt instantly better.  I felt genuinely relaxed and COMFORTABLE for the first time in ages.  Normally all I have to do is lay in 1 position for longer than 10 mins and I get an achy back anyway, it doesn't take much, but the difference it made was really good!  I was going out that night and I was prepared to feel a little bit battered but I didn't at all.  Another plus to having this done was when I got home that night, I had one of the best nights sleep I had had in a while - I slept like a baby!  I think I can put it down to just being made to feel more loose and like all my muscles were more relaxed, probably making me more comfortable laying in bed.

I thouroughly encourage any of you that might have minor back pains or aches to go and have a massage.  I honestly thought it would just be nice and relaxing but not really *do* much, but it was a great way to relieve yourself of any symptoms you might have (even if it's just for a while).  It did really help me a lot, it's just nice to not feel so tense and it even makes you feel a bit more chilled out and relaxed, a bit like you've been on holiday :)

The Tanning Shop are on Twitter, the one I go to is Waltham Cross.  If you want to contact Leily and the team and book your own little slice of relaxation, then contact them @thetanningshop or call them on 01992 653 235.

Nail Rock

A few days ago I got sent a totally exciting email, showing me all the new Nail Rock designs they have coming out soon - I might be a bit late now as I think this is on the Nail Rock site but excuse me, I have been preoccupied!!! - I became an Auntie again for the second time yesterday!  <3

Anyway, I have used Nail Rock nail wraps before and although I can never seem to make my nails look perfect with them on, they ARE relatively easy to use and can make your nails look amazing quickly without having to bother going to the salon or sod around with tricky nail art.

First up, the new nail wraps they have got are UNREAL, some of their best designs yet. 

They have bought out a couple of special Valentines day editions, the gold with black hearts being a bit more subtle then the pink multi coloured heart, but both lovely in their own way :)



Spots and Stripes Mixed Pack




Tattoo Mixed Pack

  

Tribal Mixed Pack



Next, the mixed packs.  The spots and stripes and tribal gold are the ones I am in love with!  I do wish that the packs weren't mixed though, and you could get 1 pattern for all 10 nails but i'm not going to knock it at all.  I am not really a fan of the tattoo's pack, it's just not the sort of designs I would have on my nails, but the tribal gold is perfect for holidays and the spots and stripes mixed pack is what I have my eye on for the festivals this year.

Moving on, Nail Rock are now breaking into territory other than Nails, and bringing out their own line of Lip Transfers, called Lip Rock.  Taking a leaf out of Violent Lips' book, they know that these transfers have the potential to be HUGE, so have started off their range gradually, going for 'Holographic Bronze, Gold, Pink and Silver' - I am a fan of these lip transfers and as much as I like all the patterned ones (Violent Lips have a huge range of OTT patterened ones) I think I would only have the bottle to go out in one of the pretty much standard ones, at least until I got used to them.  I'l break myself in gently by going with the metallic pink.  I can't even imagine what these must feel like on your lips, I don't know why because I keep imagining they would be really heavy but of course if they are just transfers they would have the same weight and texture as temporary tattoos so shouldn't be that bad...

This now brings me on to my favourite part of the new collection, eye transfers. 

Nail Rock have briliantly produced some transfers that go over your eyes and give the appearance of ace eyeliner.  If you are anything like me once in a blue moon you pull of the perfect winged eyeliner, but can't do it that often - if that's the case then this is the perfect solution for you! 

Moving on from the bog standard eyeliner transfer, they have also bought out some amazing patterened eye transfers- there is floral, lace and blue stars and I LOVE THESE!  The lace ones would look amazing if you built it all up with an epic smokey eye and amalgamated it all together so the lace didn't look seperate to the eye make up.  The floral one is just SCREAMING to be worn at a festival this year so I am definitely going to stock up on them, bit of an alternative to the overdone floral headband!

NR have also bought out lots of crystals to wear around the eyes, again not sure if this is something I would wear but it's a great idea none the less.

When I first got this email it made me so excited - I think as well as pulling it out the bag with the fresh new nail wraps, they have also cottoned on to some of the big potential up and coming products in fashion and put their own stamp on them.  Well done Nail Rock, can't wait to try the new designs!!!