nail of the day - Integrate RD701

Integrate is a Japanese brand which comes under the Shiseido umbrella. So no surprise this was part of my mini Japanese haul, I had hoped to haul more but shopping was cancelled due to the abrupt nature of our departure. This was picked up in a 7/11 very late on the night before we left in a last ditch attempt to find some souvenirs. As you can imagine I was not expecting it to be up to much but what an absolute gem this little nail polish is.

The colour can only be described as a warm toned version of Paradoxal by Chanel. It is a slightly pinker beige purple and with a very light champagne flash instead of the lilac of Paradoxal. It is an absolutely beautiful shade, subtle but definitely interesting I am now wishing I had bought a back up.

On a second note this is the first time I had used Orly Bonder as an undercoat so I don't know if the longevity of this polish is down to the polish itself or the base (an experiment to follow) but I painted these on monday night and these photos were taken on Saturday morning. Check out the wear only minimal tip wear and a slight chip about to happen on the index finger. I can't believe how long it lasted and still looked pretty much perfect.

Indirect sunlight

direct sunlight - beautiful shimmer

indirect sunlight again

If anyone know where I can buy back ups of this online please drop me a line and let me know because I can't be without this in my life ;)

Japan experience and NOTD

So i'm back sorry it has been such a long time without a post but there has been a lot of processing I have had to do.

On Thursday 10th of March me and my husband boarded our flight to Tokyo for an 8 day holiday, We love Japan and have been before so were really excited to be going back and although we had no firm plans the possibilities were endless. After a 12 hour flight and 1 hour airport transfer we were at the hotel, they let us check in early and I set about unpacking and settling in for the week. We decided on a short nap then a shower and we were off out for some wonderful Japanese food.

We had been napping for about on hour when the room started to shake, my husband looked at me and said "what was that" "were having and earthquake I joked" but then it didn't stop. It got worse and worse the room shook, swayed, rattled and we dropped from the bed to the floor crawling into the door frame of the bathroom not knowing quite what to do. Finally the juddering stopped and only the swaying remained it was like being on a ship in a storm. We decided we should try and see what to do so we staggered out into the hall where the hotel staff told us we should remain in our room.

We could see people pouring on to streets as the aftershocks rolled through we flicked on the news and as the full horror of what had happened began to sink in we realised things were bad. Needless to stay we had a very different holiday until we were finally ordered home by my husbands company a few days early. My respect for the Japanese nation is immense and if anyone reading this can spare some money for the Japanese red cross please help the people who have lost everything other than their dignity.

Right so that is where I have been now on to the nail of the day! With crackle top coats being the main nail story at the moment so I decided to check out Boots 17 Nail Xtras crackle top and I think you will agree it's a corker. It is a very light gold colour and I think it will compliment a lot of different colours, it looks stunning over blues. You have to be extremely sparing with the application to get the crackling effect but it does crackle very nicely.

I have paired it here with a little nail polish I picked up in a family mart in Tokyo. The brand is MFC and the colour is either RS-3 or 07D but I don't read Japanese so I can't be sure. Anyways it's a nice beige pink colour and applied really well.

Direct sunlight

in the shade