Goody Bun Spiral

Hi there, Lovelies!

I actually already gave this the very briefest of overviews in my 'Payday Beauty Gifts' post, but it's such a great product, I felt like I needed to share the love a little more.

The Goody Bun Spiral looks like this...

So you're basically looking at a pretty sturdy coil of metal with a diameter of around 2-3 inches, this one is a sort of dark, gunmetal colour, but it also comes in a lighter gold-ish colour that's better for blonde hair. The base of the coil has two little purple-ish nobbles on the ends.

You can do a basic bun in one of two ways:

You can sweep all your hair back as if you're doing a ponytail (high, low, middle, side- whatever takes your fancy), but just twist it all into a bun, then twist the bun spiral into it, in a clockwise direction and with the purple nobbles facing your scalp. That's fairly straightforward!

The way that I choose to do it is to actually secure my hair into a ponytail first, using a hair elastic, THEN sweep it around itself to make the bun and add the bun spiral in the same way as before. I also muss the bun up a little, for a dishevelled look, but use a couple of little hair pins to control any chunks of misbehaving hair.

The only reason that I do choose to style in the second way is because my hair is quite fine, flyaway and is cut in layers, so for me, the bun itself isn't quite dense enough to make me confident that the spiral would stay in. That said, I do usually use this right after I've washed and dried my hair, so my hair is obviously quite shiny at that point and provides a lot less resistance.

After this, all I do is ad a quick couple of spritzes of hairspray - I favour TRESemmé 'Freeze Hold' spray to tame my crazy flyaways and I'm good to go! This is a great way to quickly- and I really do mean 'quickly' -  style your hair for work or play, and it's equally at home as part of a more formal look!

I'm going to a wedding in a couple of months, and I'm thinking of going for a full head of tight-ish curls, then using the bun spiral to create a soft, messy updo. I will definitely be road-testing this look before then, so I'll keep you posted on how that goes, and perhaps do a quick photo-tutorial if you're interested? If you are, or you'd like to see a variety of looks done with this, let me know! You can comment below, or tweet me at @CharleyShadow - I'd love to hear from you!

Have a beautiful day!

Charley xx

Beautiful Nude Nails

Happy Saturday!

Today, I thought I'd share my latest favourite nail look. First of all though, I'm going to give you a quick explanation for a couple of things.

If you've been reading my posts, and/or have subscribed to Charley Shadow, first of all THANK YOU! I really appreciate your support. I'm so new to this particular world of blogging, and it means so much to me that you've chosen to be part of my little journey :) Secondly, you've probably noticed that I've been quite inconsistent. I don't yet have any regular features, and I don't post at the same time every week. I really don't want any of you to think that it's because I can't be bothered. Some of you may know that I run two blogs, and my other one- 'Charley Says', which is a general/lifestyle blog - has been suffering too.

On top of trying to keep up my commitment to both blogs, I have been going through a fairly stressful time at work. The last few weeks especially, I seem to have been doing nothing but going in and out of various meetings, where I get told I 'might' be made redundant but 'nothing's set in stone, business as usual' e.t.c. It's fairly unsettling. On one hand, I don't want to lose focus and drop the ball at work, but on the other, I've definitely been preparing myself for having to find a new job. With this in my mind constantly, I've been updating my wardrobe to include more 'interview-appropriate' options. I've also been experimenting with my day-to-day style, just trying to polish up my image a bit. When the weekend comes around, I'm spending so much time trying to update my CV, trim any fat from my online presence and keep an eye on possible employers' websites, that I've just let my blogging slip.

They say that the first step is admitting you have a problem. So I AM going to try to be more consistent in posting, but as I've put myself on a no-buy until the end of March, there are unlikely to be any hauls, aside from Birchbox (writing up my February Birchbox breakdown later today, for anyone who's interested). Now that THAT is all out of the way, I'm going to crack on with what was supposed to be a 'short and sweet' blog post!

The first and most important thing is that I am addicted to Barry M nail varnishes. For any nail varnish/polish junkie, they are an absolute must. I follow no trends with my nails, I just paint the colour or design that appeals to me that day! So a couple of months ago, I was in Boots, raiding the Barry M stand, and saw a beautiful pinkish-beige nude (If you want to pick it up after reading this, it's called MNP4 - 'Nude Vanilla'). I'm such a fiend for brights, that it's never occurred to me to have a nude nail. Anyway, I was pretty taken with this one, so I grabbed it. When applying it later, I realised that it was from the Matte Nail Paint collection, which I hadn't noticed when I grabbed it, which is silly because it's written on the bottle fairly clearly. I was a tad disappointed. I LOVE a matte bright colour, because it definitely adds some interest. However, I felt that with a nude, it might look -from a distance- as if I have no fingernails!

This fear turned out to be unfounded, it looks lovely, but I feel like I hit the jackpot when I paired it with my SUPER GLOSSY SHINY WONDER that is my Nails Inc. Caviar Topcoat (which featured in my 'New Year Favourites' post. The pictures below aren't great (sorry, I'm currently sat in Starbucks, writing this, and realised I'd failed to take decent photos beforehand, what a silly sausage!) but I think you can see what a gorgeous - and interview-friendly ;) - look you get with these little wonder-paints! I used the corresponding Nail Caviar basecoat underneath, two coats of the Nude Vanilla, then two coats of the topcoat.

Please excuse the state of the Caviar Topcoat bottle. I recently had a bit of a handbag-nail-varnish-breakage situation, and poor old Topcoat got covered in turquoise glitter polish (I almost cried, it was my favourite nail varnish, which is why I was carrying it around with me), so I've tried to clean her up the best I can!

ANYWAY, that somewhat long-winded post is just about done I think!

Thank you for sticking with me through that saga, and have yourself a beautiful day, Lovelies!

Much love!

Charley xx