OOTD: new haircut

With the sun finally hitting the UK, I decided my long hair of previous was getting too unmanageable, and thus, in trimming it, I've gone from Alicia Vikander in The Light Between Oceans length to Jessica Chastain in Miss Sloane length! And, in keeping consistent with the Chastain look, I've duly painted my nails black, like Liz Sloane had!

Dress: Marietta dress from Hobbs

Earrings: Amazon

Glasses: Red or Dead

The Marietta dress is now  the third dress from Hobbs I own (the other two: un et deux). Their dresses are perfect for the kind of aesthetic I'm going for at work: elegant and demure.

I find clothes definitely help with the 'fake it 'til you make it' mentality, by which I mean, even if I'm in a sub-optimal mood, if I'm at least sharply dressed at work, I feel better about myself. This then helps to improve my frame of mind, and how I carry out my work.

Mark Twain absolutely nailed it when he said 'clothes make the man'.

OOTD: You promised me Kate Spade, but that was last year

Ever since I heard 'No More (Baby I'ma Do Right)' from 3LW when I was ten, I've wanted my own Kate Spade handbag, because it gets name-dropped in the song (I'm very easily influenced when it comes to rap songs mentioning brands, ha). Now, some 18 years on, I've finally been able to treat myself to that very thing. Baby I'ma do right!

Dress: Ted Baker

Handbag: Kate Spade

Earrings: Christmas market stall (Leicester Square)

Cardigan (under handbag): H&M

Glasses: Red or Dead
Nail polish: Essie

Weekend in New Forest.

I spent the weekend in the New Forest, Hampshire, this weekend, and it was so rejuvenating to get out of the city and soak in the verdant environment!

Some photos:

I have black nail polish on, in honour of Jessica Chastain's bitching performance in Miss Sloane.

Nail polish combination & OOTD.

I used the one on the left as the base coat and added the pink sparkles on top. 

Here's how they look:

Dress: ESPRIT

Earrings: New Look

Glasses: Red or Dead

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You may have noticed that I'm now accepting sponsored posts on Anna, Look!. If you'd like to get on board with the gravy train, read my policy here.

Chelsea Girl.

Last Saturday, I got to sport my new Chelsea strip at the home game vs Leicester. Being the snap-happy young woman I am, I thought I'd post a picture on the blog.

Earrings: Monsoon

Headband: Accessorize

Bag: Primark

Ring: Accessorize

Jeans: Oasis

I'm wearing an uncharacteristically feminine nail polish in the picture. It's this shade:

I had to overlook my dislike of Rita Ora to buy it, but I think it's totally worth it! The longevity is surprisingly long, and it's just a gorgeous, muted pink.

Product review: Starter kit set (SensatioNail)

I got this kit last year and whenever I want to give a long-lasting, quality finish on my fingernails, I use it. The packaging says your nails will stay unchipped for up to 2 weeks, and unusually, this product actually did what the advertising promised.

Graduation nails.

Our graduation robes are the standard black, but the sashes/ribbons down them are yellow and green, so I thought I'd paint my nails accordingly.

Thankfully, as I have quite the arsenal of nail polish colours, I didn't need to buy any new colours to fulfil this, instead drawing on supplies from existing reserves:

 

Colours: Rimmel London in Green Grass, Missguided Mislead (free with magazine years ago) and The Works topcoat

 

I painted four nails yellow, with the ring finger green:

 

I'm undecided about this. As you can see, the Missguided nail polish has sparkles in it, where the green is just a solid block of colour. I actually have Rimmel London in a similar shade to the yellow, but just without sparkles, and I figure I probably should have gone for continuity.

 

Oh well, what's done is done, I ain't removing it! :p

 

Nail polish experiment: mixing No7 So Neat with No7 Daisy Darling.

In theory, I didn't expect these two colours to go, as their tones are completely different: teal with sparkly pieces of pink:

 

 

The end product was surprisingly good though!

Daisy Darling provides a useful topcoat to So Neat, as I find that No7 nail varnishes chip far too easily for my liking. I'm my third day in to wearing my nails in this colour and so far there's been no chipping, so I'm delighted I've found a functional and fashionable way of jazzing up my nails slightly! Daisy Darling is the first glittery-type nail varnish I've bought, but it's so pretty and now I think I'm in the market for a multi-coloured sprinkles type nail polish as well.

I think, on a night out, I will pair Daisy Darling with an even more daring colour and see what the end product is. If it looks bad, I can just palm it off as #experimentation.

An awful attempt to give myself a French manicure.

I've graduated!~~~ I got a 2:1 in Economics, which means all those endless nights of studying Taylor Rules, logit and probit regressions, memorising elasticity equations, solving mathematical problems pertaining to moral hazard and auction theory, pretending to give a damn about the stock market, reading the FT, deriving Hotelling formulae and memorising facts about tax evasion have amounted to something.

To celebrate, I went on a bit of a splurge, buying a tonne of girly crap I didn't really need. One of these things was a Bourjois Paris French manicure kit, because I'll be entering the working world next month and I want give the semblance of a ~classy lady~ in worldplace, even if I'm anything but. The kit was £9.99 for three things:

It's classily packaged stuff, and extremely functional. I can imagine that if applied correctly and accurately, it will give the look that you can get in the salon. However, I'm a completely nail polish n00b and so my attempts were rather amateurish, to say the least:

This is somewhat of an embarrassment: uneven application, chipped at parts, smudged... I definitely need to train.

I'm a big fan of this product though, and will continue to use it until that elusive day when I actually get it right!

Product Review: CLUBBING COLOURS QUICK DRY NAIL POLISH (Miss Sporty)

I’ve developed a bit of a re-birth in my love for bright red nail polish. This is due to two things – my adoration for Vladimir Nabakov’s Lolita and Dolores wearing red polish, as well as having recently watched On the Road. I wasn’t totally enamoured with the film, but I noticed Kristen Stewart’s character wearing bright red nail varnish, and even though it was heavily chipped, just the fact that Kristen Stewart was wearing it automatically made it a fabulous colour. 

So, taking on some fashion tips from those two characters, I chased some red of my own.