How do you make holographic nail polish?

I have often been asked how I make my holographic nail polishes. Obviously I can not reveal my secrets. I can tell you following.

Holographic nail polish is the most difficult nail polish to get right. First of all holo pigment is grey and it makes it super difficult to get right amount of holo pigment adjusted into the nail polish. If you add too little holo pigment you almost get no rainbow sparkle. It will show sparse bits and pieces of holo effect, kind of a top coat. You gain no intense rainbow sparkling effect.

If you add too much grey holo pigment somehow the holo pigment makes the viscosity of the nail polish too thick and it will not glide on the nails nicely. As well the nail polish doesn’t show any holo rainbow glitter it gets dull and matte on the surface.

Right amount of pigment is crucial.

How to get it right? Yes, it is a mix of nail polish base with just right amount of holo pigment. And, didn’t I experiment, before I was happy with the right result.

You find all my holographic nail polishes right here.

How to save time and money on nails?

Next time your nails are in need of attention it’s time you recover the at-home manicure. Skip the nail salon and buy yourself a nice bottle of nail polish instead.

You can simply groom your hands, perfect your cuticles and paint your nails in less time than it takes to go to a nail salon, with results that look as polished.

Getting regular manicures and pedicures at a nail salon can start to get really pricey. Especially if you are on a student budget or simply money is tight. The indulgence of doing at home manicure in total privacy with your favorite music and a lovely cup of tea makes you in control. It’s all in your hands, literally, when you bring your nail polish to your bathroom, bedroom, kitchen or back porch. Whereever.

The attention you bring to yourself for a given time can be so rewarding. If you think back, as a little girl, you must recall the feeling while you watched your mother dap tiny spots of colour on the end of her fingers.

These are memories and emotions I want you to feel and bring back to your mind next time you do your indulging manicure or pedicure at home.

I am super fun of anything natural.

Sometimes doing like your grandma or using old household recipes can be very useful to you. If you think, to smell something has a very strong impact on your memory.

Often from childhood a rose garden full of roses will remain strong in your mind. If you close your eyes for a moment I am sure you can feel the breeze of summer and the smell of roses, just by focusing mindfully.

Here are my natural tips to you for hands and nails. Try when you do them to really put your focus into the activity.

Tip/1

Before bedtime make time for tiny massage ritual for hands and cuticle. Apply and massage lavender nail oil on your fingers at the same time keeping the awareness towards your breathing. Lovely and peaceful way to fall asleep. Bonus: The smell of lavender has calming properties.

Tip /2

Especially at winter dry hands can become a problem. Try to massage your hands with salt crystals mixed with water. This is a great natural softening hand scrub.  After apply softening oil on your hands, good oil can be almond oil. Additionally when your hands are super super dry – sleep with thin cotton gloves overnight – doing a hand mask. In the morning your hands will feel extra soft and well moisturized.

Tip/3

If you love making food and being in your kitchen garlic is not a very pleasant smell on hands. A natural way to neutralize the smell of garlic, use lemon juice to massage into your fingers. To do it mindfully first smell the garlic afterwards focuses on the smell of lemon on your hands. An easy tip to do.

Join me – show me your #nailyoga.

I believe in today fast paced world we need to create tiny loopholes for ourselves. Create your own space of being. We as humans need to be more aware and control the connection between our body and mind. Rather than pace along on autopilot make sure to get quality time on your own, it sounds a bit scary but it’s actually very beneficial to you.

Last year I attended a mindfulness seminar at Copenhagen University by lector Frans Orsted Andersen in which he stated following: Brain scientists now know and have proven being able to either meditate or doing any flow activity is very good for our brain since you calm down and you kind of reset your brain.

Two ways to actually mindful slow down is either you meditate or make a flow activity.  It is super essential and very restorative for our brain to take a pause. To be in a flow activity means you are deeply engaged in a hobby activity like reading, knitting, crocheting, painting, drawing. Usually you are dealing with a hobby activity which makes you so involved you tend to forget your basic need of eating. You tend to forget time frame spend and place. I guess you must have tried once or twice to be so involved in a hobby activity you didn’t realize 2-4 hours had gone rapidly.

I started to think literally when I apply nail polish I am always super mindful in doing so. I always enjoy it and love “my time” off daily duties. I make time for coffee or tea and I sit straight up at a good table height.  This is actually how I have done my nails always. Suddenly realizing I am super mindful and in flow I really want to emphasize this to you.

I want to inspire you to do the same – next time when you apply nail polish really take your time out and use your manicure as your time to yourself.  If you have a boyfriend tell him – I am doing my NailYoga. And if you have children – your husband will have to babysit for you.

I would love to see you doing NailYoga – show me using #nailyoga on your social site.

Join me in 2017 – we show how we do #nailyoga

No doubt summertime is pedicure time.

If you suffer from ingrown toe nails you know how hurtful it is.

I used to live in Seychelles obviously due to the great weather conditions and the heat I mostly wore sandals but closed shoes and especially pumps for evenings started to become a huge problem to me. Pointed pumps used to cause me immense problems on my left toenail with an ingrown toenail. It was so hurtful and I had a great amount of infections and bleeding on that toenail.

I used to dip my feet in the salt water in the sea to have relief and cool down. I started always wearing a piece of cotton under the edge of the toenail for prevention. It could help me on/off. But no way it took the problem away.

They say proper trimming is the best way to prevent ingrown nails. I am not sure. Today my son also suffers from ingrown nails on both his toenails. We regular see a podiatrist. Even if she uses a nail rasp to smooth the edge of the nail along the nail groove and the right cutting of the nail straight across, the problem seems to come back.

I am a firm believer we simply have too much skin on the edge of the toenail and the toenail lays too deep inside the skin.

In Seychelles after much stress and pain I found an Indian doctor who cut the side away so the edge is completely straight now. I have never had the problem again. I am about to get the same done for my son.

With awareness we can help save our planet.

Did you know that tiny mircobeads are present in so many beauty products and that they are ruining our environment?  These cheap plastic tiny microbeads are used heavily in beauty products like face scrubs, body scrubs, soap, toothpaste and makeup among.

In one cleansing product for example, you might find thousands of tiny microbeads which end up in the ocean vanishing down through your sink and bath slowly but surely we are ruining our environment, our marine life and our oceans. We are killing fish and shellfish they eat these microbeads thinking they are food.

It is now, as consumer, you need to react! Take action! Look at your beauty products see if they contain microbeads. Right now internationally there’s a huge debate going on as we become aware of the dangerous of microbeads as to whether they should be allowed in cosmetics or not. In Denmark today, where I write from, no legal restrictions or ban have been enforced.

I am happy to report you in USA; Obama has already banned and enforced a law prohibiting use of microbeads in cosmetics effective mid 2017. Last September the UK was even faster when, within days, a total ban was enforced. Effective end 2017. Even the Australians are having issues.

I hope together with our consciousness and awareness we will stop buying cosmetic products containing microbeads – as of today. In my personal opinion we need a total ban worldwide now. As much as I love my cosmetic industry, using micro plastic beads is a No Go. I know my industry’s use of mircobeads has to do with cheap price.

To help you, as consumer out there, you should look for natural alternatives like jojoba beads, apricot kernels, ground nutshell, sugar and salt. Probably beauty products you find in the natural cosmetic segment. Act now save our environment, our oceans and our marine life.

Ban the beads.

#malepolish latest hot topic among men.

Since Marc Jacobs posted a picture of himself with #malepolish this has turned into the hottest new men’s beauty trend everyone is talking about. For a while we have seen beard oils been a must beauty item among men and part of the macho long beard trend.  Far from standing out, bearded men have become almost boringly normal. And we start to see a more streamlined shorter look on beards. Right now it is a hot topic on instagram if you search #malepolish.  It seems both the gothic black look, dark purples and even nailart is trending among men.

My bet nail polish for men will never become every man use. I think corporate offices are still far from accepting a guy turning up for a sales meeting wearing nail polish. My bet it will remain among the urban, creative youth. It shows is a way to express you without worrying about what other thinks it is cool. It shows men and beauty are evolving and I think it is great if men start to have more attention on clean nails and cuticle for a well groomed look. Who knows this might lead to several MANicures in nail salons.

Way back we used to see David Bowie and other musicians wearing nail polish back in those days we didn’t have instagram or other social media where they would show. Try to #malepolish it is cool to watch how men express their nails and hands. I look forward to seeing better groomed male hands.