Fashion Week Faves

Zac Posen

L.A.M.B

Victoria Beckham

I'm off home for a few days before uni starts again. Deffo looking forward to getting out of Canterbury! Hopefully as I see more collections I like I'll add more of my favourites. On a bit of a sidenote- I saw this picture of Solange Knowles today:

AND FELL IN LOVE! I think it's a great Fashion Week outfit. The top half is somewhat simple to balance out her bright purple maxi skirt and leopard print heels combo. I'm not her biggest fan music wise but in terms of fashion I think Solange can do no wrong. Her outlandish style certainly isn't for everyone, and I could never pull it off, but she wears her clothes with incredible confidence, which leads me to believe she would look good in pretty much anything.

Have you had your eye on anything during NYFW? xo

P.S.- I'm not the most 'tech savvy' person... I can't figure out how to get rid of the ugly white border around  pictures I post? Any help would be much appreciated LOL :)

JAM OF THE DAY!

Can't really get this song out of my head because it's on the radio at work ALLLLLLLL the time, but I love it. It's very much the kind of music I listen to after a long day when I need some 'chill out' time. I hadn't heard of Benjamin Francis Leftwich before I heard 'Pictures', but I will definitely be checking out more of his music when I get the chance. Enjoy lovlies! :) xo

That weirdo with 5 colours on her nails...

I think I need to up my blogging game a little bit. Lately it seems like even though there's been lots I'd like to write about, I haven't got round to doing so. Which means my posts have been like gold dust since I started getting into this. SO, from now on I will try my very best to post at least once a week, even more if I'm feeling inspired! Like I said at the beginning, I have no particular direction I want my blog to head in... so far it's been nail polish and moaning about life in general so I expect it will continue this way :)

Moving on, I thought I'd share with you guys 5 of my favourite nail polishes at the moment. It's a bit boring and mundane, I know, but I felt bad for abandoning this thing... and a boring post is better than no post at all.... right?!

With & without flash (all without top coat)

Sorry if they look a little messy, I was in a bit of a rush!

(L-R) Revlon Top Speed Nail Colour, Barry M (Berry Ice Cream, Instant Nail Effects, Mint Green), Ciaté Enamel and Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream

 Revlon Top Speed Nail Colour in 28 (Steel)

I actually borrowed this (without permission, oops!) from my mum- 7 times out of 10 I stick with darker colours on my fingernails because they're quite short, and light colours sometimes make them look a bit stumpy. I don't really have any metallic colours apart from this, and it's very good! This polish is smooth and glides on very easily. I only needed two coats, although I've found it does chip a lot... grrrrr.

 Barry M (Berry Ice Cream, Mint Green, Instant Nail Effects & Blueberry Ice Cream)

80% of my nail polish collection comes from Barry M. I'm yet to find a brand that can rival Barry M's prices, yet give the same good quality. When I started to experiment more with different colours a few months ago I thought that their collection was the perfect way to ease myself in. I don't think there's a colour under the sun that Barry M don't supply, and their 2 for £5 deals in Superdrug are definitely every nail polish fiend's dream. They were one of the first high street brands to bring out 'crackle' polish- I remember going to every Boots and Superdrug store I could find just to track down one bottle, they were literally flying off the shelves! And now major brands like OPI and Models Own are following suit you can find crackle polish in a range of different shades. They're a cheap and easy way to get the expensive nail art look- if you're like me and can only dream of being able to afford a full on manicure at WAH then this is definitely something you should be trying out. The only downside is that Barry M polishes sometimes come quite thick, which is great if you only want to apply one coat, but they may take a bit longer to dry. Apart from that I've found even with only 1 or 2 coats they are pretty chip resistant, when I add a topcoat I can go at least a week without doing any damage, which is great because I hate chipped nails more than anything!

 Ciaté Nail Enamel in My Fair Lady

The latest 'nude' craze isn't one that I was too keen on, but the first time I used this I was instantly sold. I got this full-sized paint pot free with September's issue of Marie Claire. Considering I only spent £3.60 when the individual paint pots retail at around £9, it was one of those 'YOU MIGHT AS WELL...' moments that I don't regret. To get the coverage shown in the top picture I used about 4 coats. And before you throw your laptop down in horror, I should say that this enamel is thin, but is probably the fastest drying polish I've ever used. I also love the design of the bottle, from the cute bow to the way it's shaped to make application easier. Now that they've managed to convert me to a nude colour, I will definitely be giving Ciaté another go in the near future!

What colours have you been rocking lately? Are there any new polishes being released soon that I should probably know about? xo

P.S. I am selling my ticket to see the wonder that is Britney Spears next month at the London O2 Arena. It's a standing ticket but unfortunately my concert buddy can no longer make it, and I didn't think I'd enjoy screaming out Britney lyrics and reliving my childhood days all alone, even up close! I'm starting the auction on Ebay at £40 so I'm currently running at a loss, there are 4 days left so if you know anyone looking for a ticket send them my way pleaseeee! MWAH! xoxox

It's been a long time since I came around, been a long time but I'm back in town!

HOWDY GANG!
It's been a minute since my last post so I thought I'd update you all a bit on what's occurred since my birthday wishlist!
1) I am yet to get anything that I wanted LOL! Well, I'm probably closest to getting the ombre hair thing done sometime this month. I'm still looking for PROFESSIONAL AND REASONABLY PRICED hair salons in Kent/London that are willing to touch afro hair.... if you have any suggestions that'd be great! I'm kinda scared of dying really expensive hair myself at home in case it goes terribly wrong, so I don't mind paying (A REASONABLE AMOUNT) if I know someone can do it really well.
2) Models Own sale! IT HAPPENED! They reached 50,000 likes on their Facebook page so they gave everyone 50% off when you spent £20 or more, and even extended it for a few days longer. I must say I was very impressed with the way they handled the sale- they took the time to make sure that the servers could handle the traffic and even though some people were being incredibly impatient and rude, they did their best to reply to any comments/queries swiftly. After the Sleek shambles I expected missing items and super slow delivery, but my complete order came through just two days after I'd placed it. GOLD STAR FOR MODELS OWN! Here's some of what I bought with my hard earned overdraft:

(L-R) Angled blusher brush, small angled brush, nail art pen and polish!

I also got a nail buffer, some tweezers and another eyeshadow brush! Today I decided to give the orange a go- I normally wouldn't go near a colour like this but I actually like it!  I felt like being Tony The Tiger for the day so this is the result:

I think one coat of the base colour could have done it- I used two just to be on the safe side but the orange was really opaque and bright! As for the stripes, not perfect, I know..... but I am getting there :)
Did any of you check out the Models Own sale? What did you get? xo

JAM OF THE DAY

I have no problem admitting that the novelty of a 'white boy' rapper will never wear off, because they make listening to Hip Hop that much more entertaining and bearable for me... at least more than any black rappers have managed to do in a while. I am the biggest champion of new kid on the block Kreayshawn (I made myself an honorary WGM member and I hold that title with pride), and Asher Roth's debut album 'Asleep In the Bread Aisle' is still one of my favourites. So when I stumbled across Mac Miller last year I was mostly just impressed that I'd found a Jewish rapper who, unlike Drake, is not a moist cry baby. Lyrically he's nothing we haven't seen before but his catchy hooks and large hipster/hormonal Jewish teen fanbase will no doubt ensure he's around for a while. Check out Mac's new video for 'Frick Park Market' below!

Image courtesy of Global

Did somebody say SALE?!?!?!

*happy dance*

I've always loved Models Own nail polish, so you can imagine my excitement when I heard they were doing a  MEGA SALE, similar to the Sleek sale that ended happily for some (eg ME), and tragically for others (eg those that are STILL ranting and complaining on their Facebook page *sigh*)

But back to business! If Models Own can get 50,000 'likes' on Facebook by 31st August, we can all get 50% off when we spend £20 or more! Plus if you are super lucky, you could win some of their polish collections or other AMAZING prizes in their giveaways! I dunno about anyone else, but that sounds like a damn good deal to me!

I've been eyeing up some Models Own products for a while... in particular the nail art pen, which WAH Nails played a major part in creating! I bought the first pen they brought out in black, and it has served me well over the months (see pics below). I am FAR from an expert but I found it pretty easy to use even though I don't have the steadiest of hands. This new and improved version is used by the WAH technicians in their salons, so hopefully my cheapskate tendencies will pay off and I can get one the sale!

So head here for full T&C's, and get LIKING! ;)

Make a wish!

Soooooooooo I finally turn 19 in 13 days. I'm not the kind of person to ever expect anything at birthdays, so I came up with this list merely for my own amusement.

1) Jeffrey Campbell ankle boots

In recent days/weeks I have mastered the ability to spot a Jeffrey Campbell shoe a mile off. I'm not sure about anywhere else in the UK but I know for sure that no shop in the countryside Canterbury has these, thus I am forced to love from afar with the help of zalando! Would I ACTUALLY wear them though? This is the key question. They look amazing, no doubt about it. I do think they're a bit too out there for me though. But let's be real, this is Jeffrey Campbell we're talking about- mundane is not in his vocabulary.  

2) WAH manicure

Obsessed. Does. Not. Come CLOSE.

I could happily spend HOURS drooling over WAH nail art. Yasmin tweeted this pic of her pimped out nails a couple of days ago and I fell in love!! The closest I've come to doing anything wacky with my nails is using a green Barry M polish which I had on for about 2 hours before I chickened out (I still have yet to experience the wonders of acrylic nails, yikes!) I'll deffo have to man up a little bit before I step foot in WAH :( But if you get a free minute check out their designs here! Their website has a full pricelist- full extensions plus nail art will set you back a bit but even though I have yet to go there, I can guarantee that it is 1000000000000000% worth the cash money.

3) Ombre Hair

*DROOL DROOL DROOL DROOL*

'Ombre' is sweeping the nation, and I am most definitely 100000000000000000000000000000% ON IT. Otherwise known as 'dip-dye', ombre hair is slowly becoming the new black. Now, if you can't tell from reading this post so far the I'll make it clear- I AM A WIMP. I don't think I've ever had any colours in my hair apart from various shades of brown/black, so the idea of having bleached tips gives me palpitations. I love this look on Drew Barrymore especially, but I am not Drew Barrymore........... basically, my skin lightening regime hasn't taken me to my desired MJ levels yet....

MIKE DON'T BE MAD, I ONLY SAID IT FOR THE LOLz!!

Anyone who knows me will know how anti-bleaching I am. LOVE THE SKIN YOU'RE IN!

Seriously though- I've seen blonde hair on some black girls and it just screams YARDIE. Beyonce does it well but:

a) Beyonce bleaches her skin. 

Who wants to argue pls? I'll wait..... *sips tea*

b) I'm yet to find myself a Jay Z who is willing to pay the millions of dollars necessary to pay a professional to dye or even TOUCH weave. Walk into a European hair salon and mention the word 'WEAVE'... they will quickly draw for the holy water.

So we can either do the black/brown/blonde thing, or we can get CRAZYYYYYYYY with it:

I found these beauties on the BLEACH website. They're based in Dalston and Topshop (Oxford Street) if I remember correctly, so I could get my dip-dye sorted then slide over to WAH, problem solved! I love all 3 styles. Which do I have the guts for? NONE. Moving forward...

4) Finger tattoos

Example courtesy of Hanna Beth- reigning finger tattoo queen and all-round cool kid. My issue with tattoos is that, other than the fear that my parents will disown me for real this time, I have no idea what I would get IF ANYTHING! I hate pointless tattoos. 

^^^^^^^^^^^THIS DISGUSTS ME. 

I'm not going to rant about how stupid this man is, this post has dragged on long enough. But I do think that meaningful tattoos (or at least tattoos that don't look like you got them from a man in a white van) are definitely worth the agony! But as we all know................ I am not on those risk-loving levels yet.

I might be adding to this list as I get closer to the 28th cos I have nothing else to do apart from work and kill mutant spiders in my bedroom. Till then, adios! xo

"I want to forgive you, and I want to forget you..."

As a die-hard fan of The Hills, and Lauren more so, that episode has always stuck in my head as a classic. How could two people who were once inseparable reach a point where their feud quickly became one of televisions most talked about fallouts? I remember hoping and praying that Heidi and Lauren could reconcile whilst watching this because behind the fake nails, Barbie hair extensions and 120 plastic surgery procedures I genuinely liked Heidi!! I, along with 100% of The Hills fanatics who took part in a survey* think that her relationship with Spencer messed her head up and ruined her whole life. Basically. 

*one person (ME) was asked the question 'Did Spencer ruin Heidi's life?'

The purpose of this post isn't to go on about how much I hate Spencer and his skin coloured pedophile beard, but a recent conversation with an old friend got me thinking about the concept of forgiveness in it's entirety. Our deep Skype call went from rating Beyonce's new album on a scale of 1 to 10 (I said 8, she said 7.5 and is therefore CLEARLY WRONG), to talking about a grudge she still held against a mutual friend over some stuff that went down 5 YEARS AGO. Without going into details, the argument did not involve a sex tape rumour- the severity of the situation is subjective as always but in my opinion, which I made very clear, this all should have been forgotten about just as quickly as it started. 

One thing I've learnt about myself lately is that I am 'sort of kind of alright' with the whole forgiveness thing. Depending on the situation I can probably get over it quite swiftly... Having said that, there are times when I feel that certain people don't really deserve forgiveness, especially when they show little to no remorse for their actions. Speaking as a Christian I realise that is totally wrong and hypocritical and terrible and just WRONG of me but I honestly can't help it sometimes. I consider myself to be a generally nice person until you screw me over. Unfortunately some 'friends' often abuse their screwing over superpowers to the nth degree which begs the question:

When is it ok NOT to forgive?

Again, my Pentecostal head says never. The ability to forgive is one that not everybody has, but we all need. The stubborn 9 year old inside me would try and find a way around this. Why should you forgive somebody that hurts you? And I don't mean hurt in the 'I sit next to her in Maths and she didn't even invite me to her birthday party at Wacky Warehouse' way. Serious 'OMG I can't believe she took my favourite shoes without asking, although she might have asked but I just wasn't listening' hurt. 

JK JK JK, but in Lauren Conrad's situation I thought her decision to end her friendship with Heidi was perfectly reasonable. Sometimes it's the people you think you can trust with your life who will be the ones to hurt you the most. If Heidi was just some random girl that knew nothing about everything then it would have been a non-issue. But this was her best friend, someone she trusted and loved and cared about. Which is where the problem lies- she cared. This is the one and only area in which I can relate to Lauren. I do care too much about people, especially my friends, and the naive side of me just assumes that the same feelings will always be reciprocated. I am the kind of person who would happily put my own feelings aside to help people I care about. Unfortunately I seem to care about almost everyone I come across, mostly because I just really like people. It may be hard to believe but I really mean that! It's worked well sometimes, and not so well other times. Do I forgive people who take advantage? For the most part, yes. Everyone slips up sometimes. But there's always something in the back of my mind that tells me not to get too close "because remember the last time so and so took liberties?!!?!?!?"

Here is where I get confused- does the fact that I remain cynical mean I haven't truly forgiven, or is it just that certain things happen that you can't allow yourself to forget about unless you want to get screwed over AGAIN.

I'll leave you with that. All this thinking/typing is hurting my head, so I'm gonna watch Basketball Wives and kill about 5 million brain cells in the process...

And this is why she will forever be a legend..

Rest in peace beautiful xxx

LONG ASS UPDATE

Soooooooo I haven't done this in a while and I'm a little bored so I thought I'd check in! A couple of things have changed since my last post- the most significant change being that EXAMS ARE OVER SO I DON'T FEEL LIKE KILLING MYSELF ANYMORE!
My first year as an Economics student really has flown by... to be honest I don't remember much of it. On the academic side, I feel like I've definitely surpassed any expectations I had in October of last year. When I failed my first ever class test I actually thought my life was over. All the time and effort spent getting good A Level results had gone to waste (my A Level trauma is a whole new blog post, let's not go there) because I never thought I'd be able to pick it all back up. When the next term started in January although I was doing MUCH MUCH MUCH better, my average mark for the coursework grade was below 50% because of the previous bad marks. To say that I felt like a failure was a f?!@*&g understatement. I was convinced that I would fail my final exams and end up resitting in August just to fail again, then I would eventually quit uni and get a job at Aldi (£7+ an hour ain't too shabby, guys). During the Easter holidays I reached a point where there were only two options- either stay completely depressed, hating life and being withdrawn from everyone because I was going to fail so I wouldn't see them next year ANYWAY, or get my bum into gear and do some work. So I decided to give the latter a shot. I thought that this way, even if I didn't pass at least I would be able to argue that I put a (questionable) level of effort in. Pretty much every day was spent deriving the ISLM schedule in my head, or trying to figure out T-distributions or watching Casados con Hijos to help with my Spanish.*

*sidenote- that is a pathetic excuse. I just love Luisana Lopilato.

By the time exams came around I felt totally unprepared even though I'd never worked harder in my life. The idea of failure has always been really scary to me (one of the never ending perks of having Nigerian parents) so I wasn't looking forward to having to break the bad news to the 'rents when results day came. I had to stay at home for a while after exams because the tenancy for our house didn't begin till July 1st, and every day my dad would ask me when my results were coming and I'd just ignore the question HA!

Fast forward- and the day finally came. I wasn't expecting them till the evening so when I logged on to Facebook around midday to see a plethora of status updates about exam results..... well..... this says it all really:

I swear I nearly started crying before I'd even got on to the Student Data System- I saw myself becoming one of those failure hobos that chill around Salford Precinct with all the crackheads... sniffing glue and eating dog shit, just wondering where my life had gone. So you really can imagine my surprise when I was greeted by THIS:

DISTI-WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!

So all the overdosing on Pro Plus, total eradication of my social life and tears were actually worth it. I said I would be happy with a 2:2 based on my work since September. A 2:1 seemed completely unobtainable. But a FIRST?! If you'd told Lamide circa April 2011 that she'd be getting a 1:1 she would have probably slapped you silly. This was better than the time my high school Maths teacher told me to my face I would never get above a B** (AND CONSEQUENTLY RUINED MY CHANCES OF GETTING INTO ONE OF THE BEST SIXTH FORMS IN MANCHESTER but again, that's another story) and I ended up with an A.

** sidenote- at the time I considered a B in Maths to be just as bad as a U.

This really does still feel like a dream! I know that second year is going to be INSANE with regards to my workload *insert sad face here*, but I'm happy that I can go straight into it knowing nothing is impossible *insert happy face here*.

My fun plans for summer have kinda faded away.... I'm back in Canterbury working close to full time, and living ALONE in a 4 bedroom house till the others arrive. Completely bored out of my brain, so you non-existent readers can definitely expect more of my unnecessary rambling on here. 

CIAO FOR NOW, LOVERS!

Summerball!

Was a reeeeeeeeally good night overall. Although there were about 50 fights and drunk people vomiting everywhere are McFly were 45 minutes late -_____- But the company was great and it was really nice going out with everyone before we disappear for summer.
It 1000% was not worth the £47- there were 2 rides, dodgems and hot dogs at the so-called funfair. Not even the coconut shy that they promised! I won't be going next year- it seemed like 70% of the people there were in their final year, so it's something you'd wanna do to celebrate with friends before going out into the big wide world. The music was pretty decent although it was quite annoying having 2 stages so close to each other because the music overlapped.

EXAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMMMMMMMMMMMS

JAM OF THE DAY

Just because I like her turban. Goodnight!

OH HI THERE!

This is exactly why I should never have made a blog- I completely forgot that I'd even made one till about 10 minutes ago. Nothing overly interesting has happened between now and Sunday..... I went to see some friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiends in Bathland which was nice. Boring, but nice (Bath was the boring bit, it was nice to see my friends again after so long lol). Now I am heading back to Canterbury and then going home till term starts. The journey home always puts me in a bad mood- I hate trains, and more specifically, the people on them.

So I drew dots on my nails, and maybe when I look at them tomorrow on the train(s) I won't be quite so sad.

2 posts in about as many hours- aren't you the lucky ones?!

I just stumbled across this video and thought it was interesting. Very interesting indeed!

PICK A COLOUR, ANY COLOUR!

Guess who's back back back, back again-gain-gain.

So this is going to be my first REAL post. And I though with it being Easter, we'd carry on with the theme of new life and a fresh start with some NEW FRESH NAILSSSS! Excuse me while I do a little dance in the corner...
A couple of weeks ago I found a video on good ol' Youtube about a really cool technique called 'marbling', here it is!:

So I thought I would try and copy that except my nails are really not that long and I CAN'T FIND A TOOTHPICK/CUTUCLE STICK ANYWHERE, which proved to be pretty problematic as you will see lol. If you want to give it ago you can watch the video (the first time I saw it I thought it was magic) or I've got some pictures below! Anywaaaaay, quick breakdown of what you'll need:

- Nail polish

- A bowl of water at room temperature

- Sellotape

- Cuticle stick/toothpicks/needle (anything with a sharp tip will do but all I could find was that triangle ruler thing from an old maths set, which is why the lines weren't as neat! :/)

-Cotton buds

- Tissue

So once you're ready to begin, pick your colours! I went for the three above, the topcoat is for laterrrrr.

I used the dark purple as a base colour, then wrapped the tape around my fingers leaving space for the nail. This bit was a little fiddly for me but I guess it doesn't have to look perfect, as long as it does the job!

Once the dark purple had dried fully I got the water, cotton buds, ruler (LOL) and kitchen roll ready....

Then took a blob of the lilac and dropped it in the water. Try not to drop it in from really high up- it'll sink to the bottom and it might not rise to the surface! After a couple of seconds the ring expanded, then I added a blob of green in the centre of the lilac and left it to expand, then went with the lilac again and repeated. I only did a few rings because I hardly had any polish left, but you'll really get a better result if you build up the rings till they cover the entire surface of the water like in the video above^^^

Theeeeen I took my ruler (LOLOL I'm such a failure) and drew a line from the inner circle outwards. Wipe off the needle/stick on a bit of tissue after each line because they'll come out a lot cleaner. The lines I drew were pretty far apart because the edge of the ruler (LOLOLOL) was too thick- if the lines are a lot closer together you'll get more of the pattern on your nail. Try not to take longer than about 30 seconds drawing the lines because the polish will dry on the surface and your needle won't be able to cut through it and you'll have to start again and you'll cry and your whole world will crumble before your very eyes!!!!!!

Draw a few lines and pick a section to dunk your nail into. Whilst your nail is still in the water, blow the surface gently to help the polish dry quicker and wipe away all the excess with a cotton bud.

Et voila! Mine did come out a bit messy around the edges because I rushed with the sellotape, but there's nothing that a cotton bud soaked in nail polish remover won't fix. I added a topcoat to keep it all shiny, then added a quick dry spray. You can tell the lines were VERY far apart but I don't mind too much. This was my second attempt at marbling- I tried it for the first time a couple of weeks ago when I had a TOOTHPICK *cries*:

  I think I prefer the first attempt because you can see more of the pattern, but oh well! Practice makes perfect ;)

I'm going to torture myself and do some maths now, Happy Easter kids! xo