GuestPost - Wacie

Fun With Pink and Coral 

Hello, Secretary's Nail Art readers!
I am Stacie from wacie.com, and I am your guest blogger today.
I have mani for you that combines many nail art techniques to create one cohesive mani.

 For this look, I used Essie's Pink Glove Service and Tart Deco, Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer's Too Close to the Flame, OPI's Live, Love, Carnaval, and a nameless pink glow-in-the-dark polish I got at Rite-Aid. Each nail is topped with Dream Polish's Gem Glam top coat in the Melon Baller scent, and Essie's Matte About You matte top coat.

(The white spots are from the matte top coat)

As I mentioned, I employed many different styles for this mani.
All nails have a gradient done with Pink Glove Service and Tart Deco, but only one, my thumb, has the gradient alone and unfettered. The index finger has a coat of Too Close to the Flame under the gradient, while the pinky has it over the top. The middle two nails have the water marble done with Live, Love, Carnaval and Pink Glove Service. It's harder to see on some nails, but it is there.

Pink Glove Service is the workhorse of this mani, and I chose it because it's so sheer and so neutral that you can barely tell it's there. I definitely recommend a polish like this for everyone.

I used it here for all my negative-space needs, it watermarbles, and it's soft enough to work on every skintone.

Each nail also has a dose of the no-name glow-in-the-dark. I applied it at a different time on each nail, dependent on what nail art was done.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to get a really strong glow. I'll definitely use more if I attempt this again.

This photo was taken in complete darkness.

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquers are sold in their online shop.
You probably already know where to find OPI and Essie.

Thank you so much for guestposting for me Stacie! Be sure to check out her work over at her blog wacie.com. Preparing for life as a new mom is keeping me busy, and I am looking forward to be getting back to blogging and getting the hang of having a baby around.

GuestPost - Keely's Nails

FUN Lacquer Shana with Rainbow Connection

Hi everyone!  I'm Keely from Keely's Nails, and thank you to Dina for letting me guest post.  I've got a swatch of a FUN Lacquer collaboration shade made with Rainbow Connection, which is one of a set of three inspired by the cartoon Jem and the Holograms.  This is FUN Lacquer Shana.

FUN Lacquer - Shana with Rainbow Connection

Shana is a purple crelly polish packed with tiny square holographic glitter and irregularly shaped silvery flakes.  In these swatches I used two coats and top coat.  I think that really thin coats show off the glitter in these types of polishes the best, as you can see the glitters peeking through the different layers, and you see much more depth.

FUN Lacquer - Shana with Rainbow Connection

This was a tricky polish to photograph, and it looks a bit more blue here than it does in person. It does dry fractionally darker than the bottle though.

FUN Lacquer - Shana with Rainbow Connection

I love this macro photo! It really shows the shape of the glitters and flakies, and just how many there are.  It's packed!!

Fun Lacquer Shana

I can highly recommend this polish, it's beautiful and definitely attracts compliments.  It would be lovely in the summer too, I can imagine that the sun would make it sparkle so much. Even though my photos aren't totally colour accurate, I think anyone would like this polish.

If you've never tried any FUN Lacquer before, they are a beautiful indie brand from Singapore.  There's always lots of glitter and sparkle in one of these polishes. If you want to see more, have a look at Cepheus and Ursa Major, both inspired by constellations, and made in collaboration with French blogger iParallaxe.

Thank you again for letting me guest post for you Dina!  Good luck with the newest addition to your family.

Untried Indie Polish - Happy Hands Nail Polish - Sandcastles in the Sand

3rd trimester is rapidly approaching in my pregnancy, and while I am waiting for baby I wanted to dive into some of my untried polishes. 

One of the things I really love doing is looking for interesting polishes from indie companies. 

#itrustindiepolish

and all that ya know. 

Happy Hands Nail Polish - Sandcastles in the Sand is a gorgeous glitter polish with a pale beige base, blue and yellow square glitter and smaller yellow hex glitters. 

It reminds me of Easter...

The Happy Hands Nail Polish shop was set to "Holiday Mode" back in January 2014, so I don't think this brand is around anymore. I am sorry about that. 

I choose to pair this with Moyra - Damask and Barry M - Gelly - Blue Grape 

Happy Hands Nail Polish -  Sandcastles in the Sand stamped with  Barry M - Gelly - Blue Grape  using Moyra - Damask

Happy Hands Nail Polish -  Sandcastles in the Sand stamped with  Barry M - Gelly - Blue Grape  using Moyra - Damask. Closeup to really show off the glitter polish. Stunning, right?

Royal Polish - Shining Armor

Very rarely do I go for solid black polish, but this polish from Royal Polish packs just enough of glitter for it to not feel "too black" for me. Being somewhat of an Office-Goth it's a bit strange that I don't like black nail polish, I suppose that I find it all just a bit "too dark" altogether; with black shoes, black pants, black jacket, black stockings... Most of my wardrobe is black, grey or navy after all.

Today I am showing you Royal Polish - Shining Armour.

Royal Polish - Shining Armour has a black jelly base and is packed with round silver glitters, some small and some slightly bigger. It covers completely in 2 coats, thought I did find it to drag a little of the first coat when applying the second coat. With a topcoat over it feels smooth, and sits nice and flat on the nail. When looking at it with the naked eye it almost looks as if there is a grey tinge in the slightly larger silver glitters.

Royal Polish - Shining Armor

Now that I have gotten accustomed with using UNT peelable basecoat, I am starting to feel more confident in using more glitter polishes from my stash. Left unloved for so long, and finally getting to see the outside of my Helmer.

Since the polish is so packed with glitter it leaves little room to incorporate nail art with it. I wore it for a couple of days, and then decided to change it up and make an accent nail using this polish.

OPI - Crown Me Already and  Royal Polish - Shining Armor 

I also added some stamping using Wet n Wild - Black Creme and Moyra - Damask stamping plate.
Love the finished look and I hope you did too!

Royal Polish - Shining Armor

Freckles Polish - I'm the Fairest

Back in November I had purchased a Paint The Rainbow box.
Paint The Rainbow is a monthly box filled with specially made polishes from indie nail polish makers based on a theme that changes every month.

Since I was so busy with my "24 Days Of December" count down to Christmas Day with nail art, I completely forgot about it, and it went unopened for a long time. 

I pulled out the first polish, Freckles Polish - I'm The Fairest. A gorgeous purple glitter polish. Happy with the polish I closed my Pain The Rainbow box and it's been like that since. I still have no idea what the other polishes are...

Next time I want a new polish I can just open the bag. Hehe.

This was a very chunky glitter polish, and I needed to go in with a bit of dabbing to cover any bald spots, but a generously amount of topcoat and it looked divine. 

The following morning I took my suitcase to the shuttle bus to the airport and noticed a chip on my thumb. From there on, the chipping got worse and by the time I had arrived at the birthday party, mere 3 days after I had applied the polish, there was barely anything left.

I spoke to the maker of Freckles Polish about my experience and she kindly offered me a discount to her store, if I was willing to give them another try.

Ended up ordering a couple of polishes from her site, because I believe in giving second chances, and that a first impression does not tell the whole story.

This is not the last you will see from Freckles Polish on my blog. The customer service that I received from her was great, and she was very understanding and easy to talk to. I did not have any problems with chipping on any of the other polishes that I bought from Freckles Polish.

Freckles Polish - I'm the Fairest

Freckles Polish - I'm the Fairest

Check out Freckles Polish Etsy Store over here. 

Tentalicious Octopus

You might have seen this look on my Youtube channel already if you are subscribed there, as I had added some quick pictures of this at the end of my Vivid Laquer review of VL042 stamping plate. If you haven't seen it, here is a handy link for you.

I started out with two coats of Emily de Molly - Dark Depths. I can not believe this has been stuck in my untried box for this long! 

I did not have an issues with application, but did notice that some of the glitters did stick up a little, but nothing a bit of topcoat can solve.
Also... this is my first Emily de Molly polish! 

Emily de Molly - Dark Depths

I wanted to have some fun with this plate, and since I was talking so much about the tenta-liciousness of the Vivid Lacquer - VL042 I decided to use the tentacle images and the cute little octopus. I used Sinful Color - Snow Me White for the stamping, and then added another twp coat of Emily de Molly - Dark Depths over. This is my first time doing a pond manicure using a glitter polish and I have to say, it turned out really well. The octopus did smudge a little bit on me though, but it is hardly visible under all the glitter and blue jelly.

Octopus stamping test for Vivid Lacquer - VL042

Emily de Molly - Dark Depths, stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White and Vivid Lacquer - VL042

For some reason the light ended up looking awfully yellow-ish today, we have been having some bad weather, so was playing around with my setup a little, but just couldn't get it right this time.
Really need to standardize my setup and do the same every single time, so that my pictures are spot on when I take a picture.

Oh Christmas Tree

Today I have skipped the stamping nail art, and rather gone for a look everyone can achieve.
2 polishes. That is all there is to it.
I am super happy with how this turned out, and I can see myself go back to this combination again.

When I walk to work in the morning it is still dark outside, and I can see Christmas Trees in the windows to the houses that I pass, and in the morning light they look like this. Blackened Green.
So this is a look inspired by the Christmas Trees out there, lighting up my walk to work.

I started out with Barry M - Black Pistachio I chose this polish because of the the blackened green shade. also a sucker for the Gelly range from Barry M. Gorgeous.

Then I layered one coat of OPI - Snow Globetrotter. I was so lucky to come across this polish in a bargain section on one of my many travels around the UK. I always make sure to check any local shops that might have nail polishes for some good deals. This was one of them.

Barry M - Gelly - Black Pistachio with one coat of OPI - Snow Globetrotter

Do you see a Galaxy, or a Christmas Tree in this manicure?

For a complete list of my Christmas themed nails follow this link.

Christmas Decorations

A polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing further to disclose.

Today I have for you a silvery look. I thought to myself that if we were doing Gold, we had to do Silver as well. So here it is.

I started out with my new peelable basecoat from Ünt, and very keep to see how this is going to work for me. My previous attempt on using this basecoat was not successful, so maybe third time's the charm. That's a saying, right?

I started out with 4 coats of 'Ard As Nails - Radiance. I used super thin strokes, as I wasn't sure how this would be to clean up if I messed up with my new basecoat so I was extra careful and had some bald spots on the third coat. Normal application, you would only need 3 coats. As that is what I did on my cindy hand (dominant hand), 3 coats and no fancy base coat.

'Ard As Nails - Radiance is a true silver holographic polish and I absolutely adore it.

To keep things interesting I did 3 coats of China Glaze - Mistletoe Kisses as an accent, and stamped using L'oreal - 819 - Sublime Platine with Über Chic - Plate 3-03.

 'Ard As Nails - Radiance with accent in China Glaze - Mistletoe Kisses stamped using
L'oreal - 819 - Sublime Platine with Über Chic - Plate 3-03

For a complete list over my Christmas themed nails so far this year.


A polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing further to disclose.

Sparkle all the way

If you follow my Facebook page you have already seen a sneak peak of today's look. If you are not already following me there and wants more sneak peaks on upcoming posts, you are very welcome to join.

While I was out shopping for nail polishes a while ago, I was gifted this great little pouch with makeup brushes in it from the Seventeen brand. I didn't really care for the brushes, but the pouch makes a great clutch for outings. And it is large enough to fit my credit card, phone and keys. So that's what I have been using it for. So one day I decided to match up with my pouch for a night out.

Ciate - Blizzard with an accent in Ciate - Naughty Or Nice?

This is the look I ended up with.

I started out with a peel off base, and gave each nail a coat of polish before going back using the dabbing method to cover any bald spots. Ciate - Naughty Or Nice? was really gooey and thick, while I had better luck with Ciate - Blizzard with little to no dabbing needed. Which also why Ciate - Blizzard is taking the main focus and Ciate - Naughty Or Nice? is only starring as an accent.

I ended up checking Ciate's webpage and tried finding the polishes from the Advent Calendar 2014 that I had bought, and could only find one: Ciate - Ringmaster , a mini bottle containing red, blue, silver and green hex glitters. Which has yet to make an appearance on here.
The other Ciate polishes are sold for 5 £ for the mini bottles and you can do a "Pick And Mix" 3 for 12 £ and full sized are 9 £.
Bit steep for polishes that can not be measured in quality to other polishes around the 10 £ mark.

After a lot of dabbing this is what it looked like. I also used the Ciate - Suspension Topcoat for this, and think that it did a great job smoothing everything out. So far it's the only thing that came in the Ciate Advent Calendar that I really liked. That being said, I might have to include Ciate - Blizzard on that list as well...

Ciate - Blizzard with an accent in Ciate - Naughty Or Nice? 

Ciate - Blizzard with an accent in Ciate - Naughty Or Nice, stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White, and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays

I finished the look with some snowflakes using Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays. For a full review, check over here. I stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Miss Mistletoe

I am trying to cater to everyone this holiday season, whether you are into stamping nail art, or not.
As the last couple of looks have been snowflakes, stamping and water decals, I thought I would go back to basics, and rather do a much cleaner look with a glittery accent.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Today I have attended to the annual Christmas Show by the Ulster Orchestra preforming The Snowman. If you do not know The Snowman, I would highly recommend checking it out.
It is one of my favorite animation movies for the holidays.

To be honest I always cry when I see it. It is that beautiful.

For this look I used Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe, and Ciate - Boudoir. On my nails you will see four coats (!) and there are still visible nail lines (VNL). Ciate - Boudoir is very sheer, and I prefer it topped over another red for a lush look. On its own it is not to my liking at all.
I'd much rather have a one coater than another crelly red. I sure got enough of those in my collection already.

Since the Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe has such small glitters I decided to dab them on instead of doing a glitter placement. Some days you just don't have enough time to do a glitter placement, and this still looks cool dabbed on.

Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe has gold, red, pink, and lavender hex glitters.

Ciate - Sequin Miss Mistletoe, and Ciate - Boudoir

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

BornPrettyStore D264 Water Decals

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

As I have mentioned before I am aiming this year at giving you one new Christmas themed / festive look each day in December all the way until the 25th. It's like my own little Christmas Calendar for you guys.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

... and when we first are talking about Christmas Calendars I wanted to tell you quickly that some of these products that I will be showing you here on the blog will be coming from the Christmas Calendar from last years Ciate Advent Calendar. I will attach a tag to this post if you are interested in seeing all the different designs only using the Ciate Advent Calendar. This will give you an idea as to how it can be used. I picked mine up at a sale at Tk Maxx and heard of several others who have done the same, so I will do my best to not have any spoilers as to what it contains, but I can't promise anything. I might get carried away.

I think the Advent Calendar was highly overpriced at 50£ considering the quality of the content. It is more worth the 20£ that TK Maxx was asking for it.

Today I have polish that was behind door nr.3 and a glitter polish that was behind door nr.2. So no spoilers today.

The whole look took 2 coats of Ciate - Chincilla, which might be a dupe with China Glaze - Pelican Gray, and 1 coat of Ciate - Glitterball. While Ciate - Chincilla was a bit tricky, Ciate - Glitterball behaved like glitter polishes should act. Smooth application, in one easy stroke. Giving that little lift to an otherwise boring shade of grey.

Stick some water decals on it and you are good to go.

Ciate - Chincilla with Ciate - Glitterball over, and D264 Water Decals from BornPrettyStore

If you will be picking up the Xmas Nail Art Water Decals White Snowflake Snowman Transfer Stickers D264 from BornPrettyStore, they are at the time of writing this at sale for $0.99. Standard price being $2.36. BornPrettyStore gives free worldwideshipping, and if you are sending an order fell free to use my discount code RAMG10 for 10% of all full priced items.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

Something Green

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

I promised you girls greens, and Christmas is all about bringing home something green. So today my nails are Christmas Green. Today's product reminds me of the European Silver Fir (Abies Alba), so since I can't go to Norway this year for Christmas like I normally do, I am bringing some of Norway to my nails.

The product I am talking about is this loose glitter from BornPrettyStore in #1209

First I applied my peel-off base coat, then a generous amount of clear polish, and used a funnel to add the powder to my nails, and dabbed with my finger to make it stick better.

The texture of this product falls more on the flocking powder side of things, than glitter. If you are unfamiliar with flocking powder you might recognize it as "crushed velvet" instead. Same thing, just different name, and different target group. While flocking powder is being sold for Miniature War Gamers, "crushed velvet" was sold to nail art geeks like us.
This feels like a more milled version of flocking powder to me. The glitter is very fine.

This means that it doesn't take much for the product to end up everywhere, and the smallest breath or wind will take it away, so turn of your fan when doing your nails.

That being said, I really like how it looks on my nails, and gave me a strange sensation when I stroke my fingers over it.

Green Matte Powder for Nail Art Decoration from BornPrettyStore #1209

Wouldn't it be totally cool to do a Christmas Tree using this powder as an accent?!


1Box 10ml Green Dazzling Shiny Glitter Powder Super Matte Powder Nail Art Decorations
At the time of writing this product is currently on sale for $1.99 and for a 10ml box that is as cheap as it gets. BornPrettyStore gives free worldwideshipping, and if you are picking up this, or other products from there, feel free to use my code RAMG10 for 10% off all full priced items. 

For more Christmas themed nails, check out my other designs over here. 

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

Very Berry Christmas

This year I decided to do things a little different than previous years. As I finally have a nail station, and a dedicated room to nail art and crafts, I wanted to bring you a bunch of nail arts for the holidays. To see all the posts gathered check out this link, whenever I post a new look it will be added to this link. So I am aiming at having one new look every single day in December all the way until the 25th of December. After that I think we are all ready for New Years.
Some of the looks will be festive, some will be jolly, but I promise you there will be nail art
..and maybe even a tutorial or two (?), who knows.

I started it all with my Merry Christmas -look.

Today it all started out with 2 coats of Barry M - Berry Cosmo (I think you are all familiar with that polish by now), then a quick coat of Maybelline - 230 - Undress to Impress from the "Stripped Nudes" collection.

For those of you attending Christmas dinners with the office, I would highly advise against following this tip from Maybelline. Undressing will not impress your new bosses. Keep the clothes on, and remember to have fun.

Barry M - Berry Cosmo topped with Maybelline - 230 - Undress to Impress

Then I grabbed my holiday stamping plate, Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays. For full review of this plate, check out this link

For other manicures using this plate, check out this link here. 

I stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

Barry M - Berry Cosmo topped with a coat of Maybelline - Undress to Impress, and stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White with Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays

I hope you liked this Berry Christmas look, tomorrow I am going green. How green? Well you will just have to wait and see.

My Garden is full of... Carrots

I love carrots, and when I was a little girl I would sometimes pretend to be a bunny.  With two large front-teeth, carrot in hand I would imitate bunnies better than anyone I know. Except for actual bunnies. This is Squee Ember and is probably the most famous bunny that I know in all of UK.

Used with permission from Squee, and Sam Ember.

For as long as I can remember I have always loved carrots.
This is why I decided to make Carrot-nails. Squee approved.

I had been dying to use Ard As Nails - The Chunk from "Here Comes The Boys" Collection from Soap Dodger.  this hunk of a polish is only 3.50£ for a mini or 6.50£ for a full size.
All Soap Dodger polishes are 5-free.

I had bought the full size, which is what I normally do. I always get so afraid of using polishes when they come in mini's as they will run out faster, and thus end up not using them at all...
Logic, right?

I used two coats of Ard As Nails - The Chunk, topped that with one coat of Nayll - I Found Loot, a franken I had made for me a while back.

If you like the idea of Frankening your own polishes, check out this post for a little Frankening 101.

I did the stamping using Bundlemonster - Secret Garden Collection - BM-705, and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 7 - Home Sweet Home (link to review of said plate). My stamping polish was Essie - Little Brown Dress.

'Ard As Nails - The Chunk

'Ard As Nails - The Chunk with one coat of Nayll - I Found Loot 

'Ard As Nails - The Chunk with one coat of Nayll - I Found Loot, stamped with Essie - Little Brown Dress with Bundlemonster BM705 and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 7 - Home Sweet Home.

'Ard As Nails - The Chunk with one coat of Nayll - I Found Loot, stamped with Essie - Little Brown Dress with Bundlemonster BM705 and Cheeky - Jumbo plate 7 - Home Sweet Home

What is your favorite vegetable? Do you love carrots as much as I do?

Glitter holo-roses

Today I will show you a look I did a year or so back, that was lost in time and space. It was all...

Source: WaywardDoodles

Let's get our heads out of the Dr. Who show and back to the topic of nails.

This look was inspired by another look that I did using Kiko - 493.  I did one of my coworkers nails while I lived in Madrid, Spain, back when I worked for Electronic Arts. We stamped with a rose stamping image using Kiko - 493, and I wanted a similar look just for an accent.

So this time I chose another rose stamping image, Cheeky - Jumbo plate 07 - Home Sweet Home.
I painted all nails except ringfinger with Kiko - 493 and the accent ringfinger with Kiko - 400.
Stamped using Kiko - 493.

I like how the glitter looks over the gunmetal holographic polish. Think it turned out very well.

Kiko - 493, accent Kiko - 400, stamped using Bundlemonster - BM323

Kiko - 493, accent Kiko - 400, stamped using Bundlemonster - BM323

Discovering this look in my archive was great, and I have many good memories from my time in Madrid, Spain.

Zombie Love A Pretty Serious Production

I have never been a fan of "all things scary", I am the person that hides behind the couch when the big orcs in Lord Of the Rings comes on... to my defends I was 13. My imagination is far too good, and I scary myself on a daily basis, don't need the help from scary movies.

I am a fragile little butterfly. You may call me a wuss now. It's okay. 

When I saw the Uber Chic Zombie Love stamping plate I knew I had to own it. I am not sure exactly why, as I don't really like Zombies...

During my  #51in15 (a challenge in which you try to play 51 games in 2015, that I completed in June), I came across a lot of boardgames with a Zombie Theme. This warmed me up to Zombies, so while I am still not okay with the movies (except Warm Bodies), I am starting to see the fascination.

If you want to see my review of this plate, check it out over here. 

I recently got my hands on some Pretty Serious nail polish. This is an indie brand that I have been wanting to grab for awhile now, and they got some pretty awesome stuff. Today I have Pretty Serious - Gruesome Groom for you. A mossy green with red hex glitters, and there was no need for fishing, and applied like no other. I used two coats. 

Sections used from Uber Chic - Zombire Love LTD stamping plate

I stamped using Maybelline - Bleached Neon - Citrus Collide, as I just got it from Poundland, and was on my desk. I am pretty happy with how well it stamped. 

Pretty Serious - Grusome Groom stamped with Uber Chic - Zombie Love LTD stamping plate

Pretty Serious - Grusome Groom stamped with Uber Chic - Zombie Love LTD stamping plate, posing with Zombie Dice a Steve Jackson Game

I had to pose with my favorite Zombie Game, Zombie Dice by Steve Jackson.

What do you think?

Get ready for Autumn / Fall with me

It is that time of the year again. The weather is getting colder, and you start longing for tea or a cup of hot cocoa, cosy sweaters, and scarves.

You might find yourself reaching for more orange and brown shades in your manicures and clothes.
Maybe you prefer more vampy shades on your nails now that it is getting darker around us.
Make plans for movie night with the girls, or board games night with the kids.

What ever you have planned for this autumn I wish you the very best. May your nails never chip, your cuticles be soft and the weather not too cold.

Coordinate your manicure with your favourite take-away coffee cup.

The preparations 

As I live in Northern Ireland now, and no longer in Norway, it means that the preparations for autumn are a bit different that I have been used to.  I still have to pull out all my scarves, and I practically live in my parkas, and wear woolen socks at home all the time.

I always make sure I got plenty of moisturizers around the home, office and in my bag. I use argan oil whenever I can and got a bottle in my bag and one at my desk at home. I have decanted some Lush - Lemony Flutter in a sampler sized jar that I use with the argan oil. First I apply Lemony Flutter and after that has soaked in, I apply the oil.

Lush - Lemony Flutter - Cuticle Butter

As it is not always practical to use oils in the office, since I more or less use the keyboard all day, I have a jar of Burt's Bees - Hand Salve Baume Pour Les Mains. I apply this maybe 1-4 times a day depending on the humidity, if any of my coworkers are running a fan, or windows being left open.
The struggle is real. I will sit here with woolen socks up over my knees and someone will sit across me with a fan on them in a T-shirt.

I find that if it is raining, I dry out a lot more, and the only thing that can save my hands from cracking up is Body Shop - Hemp Hand Protector or if it has already started to crack up Body Shop - Hemp Intensive Hand Protector.


Autumn / Fall manicures

I know some of my readers are published and unpublished authors, and hobby writers. Last year I did a manicure that I named " A Writers Manicure". This is for all of you attending NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year. November is fast approaching. My dear friend Mishka has found a book that can help you write a first draft in 30 days effectively. 

NaNoWriMo manicure - A writers choice

I have been diving in my Archive and pulled out some forgotten designs that will take you in to Autumn. From a Movie Night manicure, traditional autumnal colors like burnt orange, mustard and green, to brighter choices with swirls and free hand flowers (Prado Red Sunflowers).

Autumnal manicures by Secretary's Nail Art

If stamping is not your choice, I also gathered some that only requires a dotting tool, like this fruit basket manicure, two polishes and a sponge for this green chrome with golden tips or just a glitter topper. Maybe these will get your ideas spinning. 

Autumnal manicures by Secretary's Nail Art

Sometimes we don't have the time for nail art at all, and opt for single colour instead. For those of you, I gathered my favorites for Autumn in this collage. Dark greens, vampy shades, or simple black with glitter.

Autumnal nail polish shades by Secretary's Nail Art

Let me know in the comments below what your favorites are!
If you want to know which polish was used for any of these pictures, just ask and I will answer as soon as I can. Make sure you click the "notify me" box to the right when adding your comment, so that you will see my answer.

The Peanutized Secretary version