Nail Art: Konad Stampers review

I'm a big fan of nail art. When I had a lot more free time I would sit and freehand designs onto my nails and I could easily waste 3 hours or more on doing my nails. Not that what I was doing would take a professional 3 hours, I was just a bit rubbish!

So because I just don't have the time to spend on my nails any more I started looking for a quicker way to get the designs I wanted onto my nails. After doing a bit of research I stumbled onto Konad stamping. Seemed like a simple enough idea, you paint the special nail polish onto a stencil and then scrape off the excess and stamp. I ordered the Gold set but I got it off Ebay because it's quite expensive (it retails for about £47 on Amazon). There are a lot of other kits ranging from the really small which come with two polishes and plates up to the gigantic pro sets which have around 20 polishes and all the image plates. 

The kit comes with 7 large bottles of polish, 8 image plates with a variety of different designs on them, a stamper, scraper and image plate holder. You also get some bonus rhinestones.

Please excuse my messy plates and scraper, I decided to take the pictures after I'd had a play!

So it took a bit of getting used to before I could get the technique right, I suggest having some cotton buds on hand so that you can remove mistakes and smudges from your nails. It suggests in online tutorials that you should roll the stamper across your nail, when I tried this I kept stamping way off centre and ended up with some pretty wonky designs! So after trying for a little while to get the knack this is what I came up with.

Still a bit wonky and a bit messy but overall I'm pretty pleased with them. It took a bit of time to get the knack of doing this but once I'd got it sussed it really doesn't add very much onto the time I would spend just painting my nails plainly. If it wasn't for the high price I would recommend this product whole heartedly and if you stumble across it on Ebay for less I'd say go for it! It is a lot of fun!

Good shampoo on a budget

Good Afternoon to you!

I know it's a bit of a hot topic but I'm going to throw my two pence worth in on the Salon vs Supermarket shampoo debate. I was sceptical at first but after studying the effects on the hair and trying them for my self I have come to the conclusion that salon shampoo is the way forward. For me, the biggest factor was that the cheaper shampoo contains silicone which coats the hair to make it shiny and isn't strong enough to get into the cortex of the hair and properly clean it. 

However as I discovered the process of changing to a high end shampoo is one that takes a little perseverance. For the first few washes the silicone was coming out of my hair and my hair didn't feel so great but after sticking with it I now have lighter feeling, soft and manageable hair.

The shampoo I currently use is Absolut Repair by L'Oreal, which is designed for hair which has been damaged either through over styling or too many chemical processes. It's the strongest of the repairing shampoo's that L'Oreal make and really nourishing to my hair, I would highly recommend this to anyone who maybe bleaches their hair or people who straighten or curl their hair a lot.

So onto the budget part. I know how expensive salon shampoo is and for me particularly it's hard to justify buying luxury items. I'll not go into much detail but essentially both me and my partner have to live off his student loan which is not a lot at all. So I had to do my research when it came to buying my shampoo, I worked out that my old shampoo lasted me about a month to a month and a half and cost about £3. I went to my local Sally's and discovered that I could get the L'Oreal professionnel shampoo was £21 for the big salon size bottles. It's expensive but the big bottles last me about 9 months to a year. You use so much less with salon shampoo as it's a lot more concentrated and the bottles really are huge so I'm actually saving money over all by buying the expensive shampoo. I would encourage all of you to go to your local Sally's (on their websites it tells you which ones are open to the public) and have a look at the shampoo on offer. You might just save some money. :)

Oh My Goodness!

I only got the place on the creative team! I was out in town sock shopping, because I live a super exciting fast paced life, and my phone went off. They company left me a message saying I had made it and gave me all the dates that we will be meeting. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of the process and when we go to the competitions!

So excited!!!!

Nervous Times!

Good afternoon to you all,

Very exciting and nerve wrecking day today. I had an interview for a creative team run by the salon that owns my training school. "What on earth is a creative team?" I hear many of you cry, in essence it's a small team of hairdressers who are considered to be at the top of their game who design all of the promotional pieces for their brand. So like all the posters of models in salon windows and pictures for hair magazines as well as entering the big hair competitions like the L'Oreal Colour Trophy.

So I was very nervous but my interviewers were very nice. They told me they really liked my application and asked me lots of questions about my ambitions and where I want to get to in life. Hopefully they were suitably impressed by me and I should here back in the next few days so fingers crossed!

Updo's with a difference

I love pin ups.

I love dreaming up new ones. I love doing them. I love taking my time over them and fussing over every little detail. Whenever I get bored I like to sit with my dolls head and try out new things, I would try on real people more often but my models need a lot of time and a lot of patience!

Currently I am recovering from a cold and on a recommendation from my tutor I got some Sudafed tablets and after taking them I have been climbing the walls all day. I know the caffeine is supposed to boost you back up to your normal energy levels but it's catapulted me way past that. So in my caffeine induced mega-hyper state I got out the dolls head and I was determined to replicate the butterfly hair/headpiece I had seen on Jean Paul Gaultier's latest runway show. I haven't figured out how to use images with out getting sued yet so unfortunately you'll have to Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about but trust me, it's fantastic.

Five hours later.... I realise that I just do not have the resources right now to make this hairstyle happen. So kind of sticking with the butterfly theme, my long suffering dolls head ends up with Papillon dog style ears.

Not my finest work but definitely a good insight into the very crazy things that Sudafed can do to your brain...

Good afternoon and Welcome

Good afternoon and welcome to my blog,

I have decided to put some of my daily thoughts to paper (or word document in this case) and start a blog focussing on hair, beauty and anything else that takes my fancy along the way. As a hairdresser I'll be adding in a few tutorials along the way so let me know if there is anything you would like to see. 

See you anon!