Hello lovelies,

I've been very busy in the past week and apart from working at the London Fashion Week (read about it here) I have also visited Professional Beauty exhibition in London on Sunday. I've snapped some pictures for you so you can have a look what and who was there.

After an early morning I drove to Excel London where the exhibition was held. I was lucky enough to be given VIP upgrade that entitled me to an access to the show 30 minutes earlier among other things. I've used the extra time to have a little breakfast in the VIP lounge and after that it was madness! I met up with lovely Vic from Glowstars blog with whom I spent few hours browsing and shopping.

One of the first things I checked out was the OPI stand. This year it was very different than ever before. OPI focused on demos and showing the products rather than having majority of the stand taken over by rows of polish. As much as I love seeing demos I love rows of polish even more! I was very disappointed with the move because the only area where I was able to check out products and polishes was a CROWDED little square area with tiny stands and poor lighting. I didn't buy anything, I was losing my will to live in there :(

What cheered me up was seeing and talking to Sophie Harris-Greenslade aka The Illustrated Nail again. It's always so lovely to see her and she's such a sweetheart! I can't believe we forgot to take a selfie!

Another great nail techs at the OPI stand were Vu & Robert Nguyen. You might remember Robert from Nail'd It show. I couldn't resist and snap a picture with Robert when he wasn't busy.

Morgan Taylor brand didn't disappoint and they had their usual rows of nail polish and huge Cinderella poster promoting their new collection.

The very best polish rainbow pictures are always at the China Glaze stand thanks to their abundance of neon and bright shades. I didn't buy any but I was a bit tempted by their latest collection.

Next up was the Nsi stand where the very talented Gemma Lambert was demoing. Notice her beautiful nails that she does herself on both of her hands!!!

For the first time I've also stopped at Cuccio stand where I've purchased a duo pack of nude nail polish and topcoat. I've always passed their brand but now I'm absolutely intrigued. After a bit of research I've found very positive feedback about their products. Later on they were doing a promotion in one of the VIP lounges so I stopped by and their PR manager gave me a goodie bag of products to try. Since then I've tried the base and topcoat and nail polish in Costa Rican Sunset and Cuccio Naturale Milk and Honey Butter and honestly I want to try more because they were so good! They sell only to trade but you can purchase their products through various salons.

It's been a while since I've seen Leighton Denny stand at a beauty show so it was a nice surprise to see it there. They were also showing off what looked like new range of gel polish. Unfortunately they were surrounded by turned on UV or LED lamps so photos came out terribly.

Now comes the visual feast! There is a new French nail polish brand called Soigné which had absolutely fabulous stand! Everything was styled perfectly and even the boxes for nail polish were super pretty! I haven't tried their polish but I really like their style and imagery.

Next up was the boudoir-style All That Jazz stand. It really stands out at the show with its black sparkle & red colour-scheme and bright sign. Inside I found All That Jazz products including polishes, Bee bars and hand & nail care. I've previously reviewed All That Jazz products (see them here) and there will be more coming so stay tuned! So far I love and use their products regularly so if you'll get a chance, try something from them.

And of course I had to stop by and say hi to the lovely ladies at SpaRitual. Can't wait to see the new summer collection! Meanwhile, here are my reviews of the latest SpaRitual products.

The last picture is of nails of a lady at the BrillBird stand where I was buying a brush. Such a pretty one stroke nail art!

And last but not least, my haul ;) I got BrillBird small nail art brush, mini Orly polish, IBD black and white glitter topper polish, Kryolan concealer and tools from German company called Eckardtz. The tools were a lot cheaper than the ones from Tweezerman few stalls down and they feel really good quality and sturdy. I've already tested the tweezers and they work perfectly.

And then there are products from Cuccio I got to try. All were gifted to me except the beige polish and topcoat set which I've purchased. I will be reviewing the polish later of course.

I was quite underwhelmed with this year's Professional Beauty, I much prefer Olympia beauty in September. Even though I didn't want to purchase a lot of nail polish I still like to look at and go through the never ending rows of polish. But I was happy to meet many lovely people there so it was still worth going. 

Hope you've enjoyed the post and leave me some comment ;) Lucie x

Hello lovelies,

This is very exciting, I have been doing manicures at the London Fashion Week with The Body Shop! I've put together a report of what was going on and some manicures I've done so I hope you'll like it! I haven't had my digital camera with me so all pictures were taken with my mobile phone.

My day started quite early and with a train journey to London. I was doing my hair on the train so I got some weird stares as always :D Then I was heading to Freemason's Hall in Covent Garden where the Fashion Scout section and The Body Shop Nail Bar was located. People from The Body Shop have created an amazing nail bar that featured my own nail designs and photos. Needless to say I loved it and I was so proud to see my work out there!

I was also lucky to work with the talented Metta from Nails by Mets on Friday & Saturday, check her out (the manicures she did are on her Instagram).

I was working with The Body Shop Colour Crush nail polish range and their other products and tools so every single nail colour you'll see is from The Body Shop. We were doing express manicures that were basically file & polish so no cuticle work and all pictures are pre-cuticle oil as well ;)

As you can see my phone doesn't do great job with photos so please excuse the lower quality. Bu man, so many nails! I did even more but I didn't include all those one-colour manicures I did.

There was always somebody waiting in a queue to have their nails done so at times I felt like I should rush so to do as many people as possible I've been doing nail art mostly as an accent nail. Nevertheless I still very much enjoyed it and I hope I'll be able to do events like these again in the future.

There was also friendly and talented fashion & beauty photographer Andrew R. Moore (http://www.andrewrmoore.com/) occasionally taking nail bar and nail pictures and he was kind enough to allow me to share some of the pictures with you. This is the nail bar and nails through his eyes (and lens ;)...

How different are Andrew's pictures from my bad phone ones!? It was nice to have a second pair of eyes and some interesting photos so thank you, Andrew.

The day always ended with yet another train journey home but I would do it again! PLUS I finally got to meet the lovely Antonia who works for The Body Shop but she's also the face behind @nailsandpolkadots! Big thanks to The Body Shop for putting it all together and for having me on board! everyone was so kind and lovely despite the pressure and busy environment :)

So that was my experience of London Fashion Week - what was yours? And which nails are your favourite?

Have a lovely day! Lucie x