Nails Inc Giveaway – Winner!

Remember this post? (You should do, it was only last week, and I’ve been tweeting enough about it)
I finally drew a winner. Yay! The lovely Jen from A Little Bird was number 42 on my randomised list (can you tell I asked a geek to choose a number? Hi Bryn!)

There’s not much more to say about giveaways, except that The Girl and Tim thought that the giveaway rules were a bit too easy, and decided that you guys should have written essays about why you deserved it. The Girl was so bored at work one day that she decided to write the following:

“It’s all in the detail” people have told me. This is unfortunate given that I suck at the detail. I am happy to get all dressed up and looking nice for work, “Hello lovely smart pencil skirt”, “How do you do pretty heels?” but will then walk out of the door without a scrap of makeup on, knowing that I would look just that little bit better with it on. Or I will put make-up on but haven’t so much as put a pair of tweezers near my eyebrows in well over a year (and yes I am being serious). I’ll be nicely dressed, make-up on but will neglect to do my hair at the last minute.

I’m under no illusions as to why this is. I’m lazy. I get too easily bored. I just cannot muster up the effort to care when it comes to my appearance. I’d love to tell you that it’s because I’m a raving feminist and have no desire to paint myself like a doll to satisfy the hormonal lustings of the male of the species but really it’s just that I can’t be arsed. There is a little bit of the feminist in me, except I most definitely wouldn’t call her that, I really do hate the thought that I have to wear make-up because it makes me look a bit better. Wearing make-up doesn’t affect my day to day job of staring at a computer and analysing interviews/questionnaires/reading people’s blogs. However, if I’m going to a meeting or going to interview someone then the make-up will be liberally applied (although again it depends who I’m meeting, aaah the vagaries of research –Rule number one:  Always bear in mind what would make your subject feel comfortable).

It’s the same with jewellery. I love accessories, love them. I have piles of earrings and rings and bracelets and necklaces. Loads of them. Problem? I can never be bothered to put them on. Yes they may well “make” the outfit but I’m usually in that much of a rush that the last thing I’m thinking about is coordinating my earrings to my handbag.

If I do manage the Holy Trinity of clothes, accessorises, hair & make-up (yeah I count hair and make-up as one, the joke wouldn’t work otherwise) I get shocked looks from friends and colleagues. You get those comments that make you feel incredibly flushed and excited “Wow you look really nice” which are immediately replaced by self-loathing “Oh my god I must look like shit normally.” In short it’s all so stressful and life is far too short.

You would think that this laziness would permeate to all levels of my being wouldn’t you? It really doesn’t, just ask poor Dorothy who can’t sit still for fear of being vacuumed when I’m on a cleaning jag.

And I bet you’re thinking that if I can’t be bothered to pay attention to the detail when it comes to make-up I almost certainly won’t when it comes to other parts of my body. While it is true that sometimes I get a little behind on shaving my legs (hey, I normally wear trousers, it’s not on my radar!) and under my arms (which I only ever seem realise when I’m at the gym and stretching up to reach the weights and realise I resemble the stereotypical German lady), there is one part of my body that I can always be bothered to pay attention to detail to.

The nails.

I am freakishly attached to looking at my nails and checking that they’re not in too much a state of disrepair (although I wouldn’t go so far as to carry a nail file with me, that would be too organised). I have a complete addiction to having my nails painted, especially when it comes to feet. My poor feet, they really are ugly little beings – all scarred from the wearing of bad nasty shoes which have ripped them apart and left them blistered, freakishly long toes (or fingoes if you will), they’re great big giant size 8s, made to seem even longer at times because they’re freakishly narrow – it’s enough to make you want to chop them off at the ankles. But once I paint my toe nails (yes even that little non-nail that resides on my little toe) they are transformed into things of beauty. “My my those toes might be long but look at what prettiness resides on the end of them.”

My fingernails are no exception, I’m just completely and utterly convinced that my hands look immediately better once he nails are painted. There’s no rational thought behind this, it is just something I feel deep in my bones. And I’m really not that bothered about the colour of my nails either. I’ll have any and everything going. Some of my happiest moments in life have been spent at cosmetics’ stands looking at all the different nail varnish colours of all the different brands and making a mental wish list, “I’ll have that one and that one and that one and that one…”

At the moment however I seem particularly attracted to anything that’s a little bit mental. I could go for pretty muted pinks and a lovely understated brown but instead I want GREEN nails, or BLUE nails or, heaven forbid YELLOW nails. The recent promotion on Barry M nail varnishes at Boots has seen my collection increase exponentially and if I get one of those £5 off No7 vouchers I will look at the eye make-up and peruse the blushers but I know that deep down, I’m going to get another nail varnish because I just. can’t. resist.

But the laziness lurks in the background. My inability to pay attention to detail follows me wherever I go and this means that I am appalling at one thing in particular…

Taking the ruddy stuff off my nails.

I will let my nails get appallingly chipped before taking cotton wool and remover to them. I will make a mental note to myself to take it off when I get home and then five days later realise that I’m going to have to walk around with my hands in fists, such is the shameful state of my nails. There is only one thing and one thing alone that is guaranteed to make me take my nail varnish off immediately.

More nail varnish.

If it’s new I can barely wait to get it on my nails. I’ll paint it on post-it notes at work, I’ll try and find a bit of clear nail so that I can put it on and see what it looks like. And god help me if there are two new purchases to consider – that leads me to end up painting two colours on my nails (see attached picture), there’s no end to the craziness.

So in conclusion, I feel that I have demonstrated a great need for new nail varnishes, both in my love for having painted nails and in an effort to combat my extreme laziness so that I can dare to show my hands in public again.

So. You know. Gimme them.

THE END.

This pretty much is about how I am about makeup and that. I’m a crap girl really.

(Tim‘s contribution was to mark the above essay:

85% is, as we know, a 1st or an A. Hurrah!

Good use of the first-person non-narrative style; well supported by the attached image.
85%.
You lost 5% for going over the word count but gained 2.5 out of a possible 3 SPAG points.

Well done.

)