The happiest girls have the prettiest nails.

Nails, nails, nails.
There's two kind of girls in this world - the ones whose nails are always spot on perfect, manicured, moisturised, healthy, shining and long. Then there's the other side, who could not care less about how their nails look. They're unpainted, uneven edges, messy cuticles and they're probably been chewed to their minimum length. I'd like to think I'm in the group mentioned first, but realistically thinking I'm somewhere in the middle. I try to look after my nails but the fact that no matter how carefully I apply my polish and let them dry, max two days later the polish has chipped. 
No matter what group you belong to, you can probably grab a few tips from here!

• Keep your nails and cuticles moisturised with oil. It can be a special nail oil which is made for the purpose or I've noticed that coconut oil is very good for it too, and castor oil, which I mentioned in one of my previous posts. I also mentioned eating Biotin to strengthen your nails and for the last couple of months that I've been religiously taking my tablets every day, my nails have become so much stronger. They're not significantly longer yet, but much better than they were before.

• Don't pick your nails. Those super annoying strips of skins by the side of your nails, or a chipped bit at the tend that you're super tempted to just pull off...don't do it. Instead use proper tools and even then do it carefully to avoid infection or bleeding. Oiling the nail and the skin around it helps to avoid them too.

• Always use a base coat, especially if you're using a strong coloured polish. I remember one summer using an amazing bright orange shade, but not using a base coat, and my nails had a orange-yellow hue to them for a several weeks after, yuck. 

• File your nails in one direction. This is such an old tip, but I can guarantee we all do the mistake of filing our nails with a sawing like motion. 

• Wear gloves when doing dishes or touching hot water, or handling chemicals while cleaning. Such an easy way to avoid harming your nails and your hands altogether, but I have to admit I very rarely do that.

Another great tip for painting your nails is to use a fast drying top coat. I could not live without one any more! Gone are the days of sitting down for 15-20 minutes feeling totally useless, waiting for your polish to dry and when you finally think it's dry and get up to do things, you stub your nail onto something and smudge your new polish straight away.  My two favourites are Deborah Lippman's Addicted To Speed Top Coat, or Sally Hansen's Insta- Dri, they're both very good. Sally Hansen's got couple other good ones too, to strengthen your nails.


In general, OPI is my favourite brand for nail varnishes, which reminded me that I need to stock up on few new ones next time at the airport in New York - the price at the duty free was so so much cheaper than on the high street shops! Barry M does nice ones too and are very affordable. 

There's a lot of women who keep on top of nail trends and choose their varnish colours by what ever is the latest trend. Personally, I couldn't care less. I'm more of a go-with-whatever-looks-nice-for-the-moment kinda girl. In the winter time I usually use dark shades, either black, very dark purple, dark reds, dark greens or greys. Lately I've also really grown to like very natural beige or nude shades, or a very light pink. Apparently one big trend for the moment is a matte white polish, which I personally am not very keen on, but might give it a try!

Summer time is the time for neon pinks, corals, bright greens and other bright colours. When I used to have long acrylics and got my nails done at the salon regularly, I experimented with colours and decorations and little details, but nowadays for my own natural nails, I just go with the plain colour which I find much more classy and simple, and more suitable for every occasion. Sometimes it's nice to add a little sparkle or a little diamond on the nail, but let's face it... who's got time for that? 

What's your favourite shade?

Run fast, run slow, run far, run close.... just run!

So I've never been the most sportiest type of person. Even as a kid in school, I didn't mind PE classes but it was never my favourite time of the day or week. By the time I was a teenager, and towards my late teens, my mom was very into exercising and sports and with her encouragement I did a bit too but mostly cos she pushed me to do it. 

I've always had a love and hate relationship with running - since I was much younger I've found it quite hard and exhausting and the memories of school running tests, where I never did particularly well, really put me off running. During my years in London I've always tried to pick up running as a regular thing but then after a few weeks or months something has put me off it again. Now, for the last few weeks I've become really into it again so I thought I'd write down a few tips that I've found to be working quite well for me. You could call it "Running for dummies" as I'm not any sort of a specialist in it!

• Running gear. I know it's not all about fancy clothes, or the newest running shoes but they do help! I find it very motivating that I can put on my nice running top, my coral coloured leopard printed sneakers ( I know they're awesome!) and even socks that match the shoes. You can go running in your old sweatpants and t- shirt if you like, but for me it gives a little extra buzz that I know my clothes and shoes are spot on for their purpose. With shoes I wouldn't cut corners though, it's important that you have decent running shoes and for women a good sports bra makes a massive difference.  My shoes are from Adidas (though for long I was a devoted Nike fan), my favourite sports bra is from Victoria's Secret and so are my running pants. VS and PINK do really good sports bras and yoga pants,which are perfect for running, and for gym too. I tend to buy them from America, whenever I go, as once again the price is quite a lot cheaper there than in the UK. H&M have recently added a lot of nice sports wear into their collection, I've bought really cool running socks and a nice little belt for my phone and keys from them, I haven't tried their actual sports clothes yet.

• Music. A good playlist on your phone or Ipod makes a HUGE difference, so you're not just alone with your thoughts counting how many damn laps to go till you can go home. I'm constantly adding new songs to my list and Spotify has a whole selection for workout playlists, which are worth checking out. I tend to listen to all sorts of songs, but I have started to prefer drum and bass, house, heavy hiphop and afrobeats as my running tracks. Chase and Status, Rudimental and a bit of Calvin Harris take me a long way, alongside bit of Future, Drake and a Fetty Wap.

• Track your run. Keeping track of your speed, the length of your run and your route is extremely helpful too. It's also great for keeping an eye on your progress. There's a ton of apps for running in the app stores, which I haven't even tried, but I've been using a Nike running app. It's good, it lists down all your runs, marks your fastest and furthest runs and you can tag your mood into each run, whether you felt good or bad. I used to have a lot of sad faces but now I've been giving myself happy smileys too! It's got a lot of other features too which I haven't even paid attention to, I'm keeping it simple.

• Variety in your running routes. This is something I need to start paying attention to. As much as I like the circling route in my local park, it is getting extremely boring! It's not a very long route and you have to do several laps to run the 45mins that I tend to run. For some reason I tend to be the only one running clockwise in that circular route, this morning every single other runner was running anticlockwise! 

• Make enough time for it. This is another difficult one for me, but I've noticed I enjoy it a lot more if I'm not rushing to go back home and to take a shower and get on with my day. I don't know how people go for their runs in the early morning before work! I rather go, do my run and come home and stretch out and shower in peace. Obviously this is only for the weekends now, winter time if difficult for running as by the time I come home from work, it's way too dark and late to go out for a run.

Let's see how long this running bug lives in me this time, but I'm pretty hopeful that I will keep up with it and learn to enjoy it even more. I'm still slow and don't run long routes, but I'm noticing small steps towards the better and I'm sure my marathon running mother will be happy for me! Never mind the fact that a bit over a week ago I took a major tumble in the middle of the road, fell flat on the ground and my knee is still hurting and sporting a nice bruise. 

Are you a runner, what's your best tip for a beginner?

New year, new me... Or new year but just the improved version of the old me!

If you take part in any social media website, there's no way you have missed the hundreds of 'new year, new me' posts and memes. Whether it is someone boasting to start a totally new life style, someone swearing to lose 20 pounds, finding a new job or dumping that useless boyfriend of hers.. we've all heard it before and being the cynical, half empty cup - kind of person, it's easy to just laugh at all these New Year's resolutions and wait for the people to give up and carry on with their old habits.

Yes it is a major cliché to make resolutions and say 'This time it's going to be different!' every year when we get to the end of December, but what's the harm in it? If you know you're most likely not going to stick to your decisions or promises, you might want to keep quiet about it, rather than posting it to all of your Instagram followers, but then again, a little bit of peer pressure from your friends and family (and strangers, let's face it, our social media pages are full of them) might not be that bad! Compassionate comments, support or even admiration of you doing a positive change in your life is never a bad thing, or even the doubting comments that try to put you down can't be that bad - in fact they should push you to try a little harder!

The beginning of a new year is always a great point to try something new in your life, or to give up on something that might not be good for you. Also, after the food and drink binging over the Christmas period there's no better time to try and be a bit healthier than January.

When it comes to setting goals for you for the new year, try to remember to be realistic though, especially if your resolution is something you haven't tried before or if it is particularly hard to achieve. It is obviously good to be ambitious and set yourself good targets, but there's nothing more depressing that the fact that you just simply can't achieve your goal. Same thing that applies to lots of other things - baby steps are the way go. 

I'm not massively keen on New Years resolutions or promises but I always try to find something to try in January, usually trying not to have any alcohol for the first month. It's been tough but I've succeeded in the past, so I'm trying it again. I've also read a few good benefits of cutting down dairy usage in your diet, and as I'm a devoted lover of Greek yoghurt and cheese, to the point that I pretty much live on them sometimes, I decided to try 

and be dairy free for January too.
It creates a massive challenge for my breakfasts though, as I have a proper military style schedule in the mornings anyway and I tend to have a quick bowl of yoghurt with muesli and fruit or berries, or porridge but I have armed myself with loads of boiled eggs, avocados and rye bread! We shall see if this experiment makes any difference but the fact that Khloe Kardashian lost 18 kilos with cutting dairy off her diet and basically living at the gym are giving me hope! Not that I'm trying to lose 18 kgs nor do I have time to move my life to the gym, even the 2-3 times a week is a bit of a struggle some times, but let's see! On top of that I have a list of things I'm hoping to achieve this year and make changes in my life, but those are more of a long term goals. Right now my only goal is to survive through the first day, and first week, back to work after the holidays and try to get my sleep routine back to normal. Sleeping till 10-11 am and then taking a two hour nap in the afternoon, and then staying awake till 3 am is not the way to carry on. Alarm set for 6.30am tomorrow! 

I'm also going to try to complain about life a little bit less, try to stress a bit less and try to stay more focused in things that are important and try not to waste time on people or things that don't really matter that much. I think those are all pretty good promises to anyone. 

No matter what your promise for this year, or for this January is, the main point is to stay positive and focused! Happy thoughts and positive vibes all the way!

What's your goal for this year?