Zoya Crystal

Crystal is my one and only Zoya polish. I have nothing against Zoya, it's just not a brand that's easy to get hold of in the UK. I found Crystal in a random nail salon when I was living on the Isle of Wight (or The Island as I like to call it) last year.

Zoya Crystal was part of Zoya's autumn/winter collection a couple of years ago. It's a blue foil with gold flecks, and it. Is. Gorgeous. Applying it was a doddle and it was opaque in two coats. I took way too many photos of it; the first four are in the shade, and the last two are trying to capture the last of the evening sun from my bathroom window! XD

Random fact: Crystal was the name of a hamster I had as a child. My pets all had silly names when I was little: Snowy the hamster, Crystal the hamster, Snuffs the rabbit (prompted a lot of "Snuffs snuffed it" jokes from people when he died. I was not amused), Smokie the guinea pig, Owen the guinea pig (named after Michael Owen), Roxy the hamster, and finally dear Claude. It looks like over the years I've matured from cute names to human names for pets!

What do you think of Zoya Crystal? And have you had any pets with silly names?

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Erin go Bragh!

I don't know about you, but I'm celebrating St Patrick's Day in two very traditional ways: by having a lovely pint of Guinness, and by painting my nails green!

For today's manicure I started with two coats of China Glaze Holly-Day, which is from their Let It Snow collection that came out last winter. It's a deep green creme that covers perfectly in two coats. I then used a dotting tool to draw shamrocks on all my nails using the green foil Color Club Kiss Me Mistletoe, also a Christmas shade from last year. The shamrocks were surprisingly easy to do - I did three little heart shapes with the points all facing each other. I drew a large shamrock on all but my ring fingers, which got mini ones. In hindsight I wish I'd just done another large one, but oh well. The stalks were done using a striper brush.

Yes, I mucked up the stalks a bit. It wouldn't be normal for one of my manicures to actually turn out perfectly! XD In truth it's because I did this last night while I was watching New Girl, so only half my attention was actually on painting my nails (the other half was on Nick. I can't help it. I love him so!).