Stripes.

I don't know if I ascribe to the concept of love at first sight in humans, but I sure as hell do when it comes to clothes. Every now and then you'll see something and you just know it was destined to be yours.
These sports leggings showed up in the second-latest H&M catalogue and my heart skipped a beat. I can't even explain in words how incredibly visually fantastic I think they are. Stripes! Black! Grey!
It's like they were designed with me in mind, and so I had to have them - and got them! They've improved my running by making me feel considerably more awesome. And I've done some nail art inspired this great new addition to my sports wardrobe.

I'm still a big fan of the accent nail, so that's what I went for. The technique used is good ol' fiddling with some striping tape. The bottom (or top, depending on your angle) row of stripes could have gone better.
The grey is my precious NYC's '003 Prey of Grey', which is sadly starting to go bad. Thinner doesn't seem to restore it to its past self any longer, so I'm hoping now that autumn collections are hitting the stores I'll be able to find a decent replacement for this baby. The black is Koh's 'Black!'. Succinct naming, that one.

Belle Émeraude

A mani from a while ago, right after an unfortunate break, argh.
The green used is Max Factor's '16 Emerald' and the gold is from YSL's limited edition duo 'Belle de Nuit'. What I like about this gold, as opposed to the other one in my collection is that this is more of a 'true' gold, a yellow rather than a pink-leaning. Especially in this colour combination, the yellow gold works much better to elevate both colours to an interesting whole.

Infrequent French.

There's a saying in fitness - that the exercise you're not doing is the one you should be doing.

I believe the sentiment of that applies to many areas - the thing you prefer not to do because you might not be good at it, is something you ought to do because it is an area in which you can improve.
And it never hurts to improve.

For me, French manicures are such a thing. I avoid them because I'm not very good at them (and they're not really my aesthetic anyway) and thus my skill in them stagnates.

Long story short, I decided to give them another go after lord knows how long to get some practice in. I used a sticker guide, Essence's '03 Cotton Candy' as a base, and Safari's 'No 56' as the tip colour.

And after all that work, they didn't survive
a single weightlifting session and thus
only lasted one day. Go figure.

Montevideo.

I had this pink - Herôme W.I.C.'s 'Montevideo 79' on the nails of my right hand during the Ladies Run.

I don't wear a great deal of pink, but I've been shown time and time again that it's good to keep a couple around because the right circumstances to wear them will present themselves eventually! Though strictly speaking, this is more of a magenta than a pink pink.

The application of this polish is excellent. Great coverage in two coats with a shiny finish.

I wanted to embellish it a little bit, so I covered the nail on my pinky finger in glitter!

Accounting Jokes.

Every now and then you'll see a pattern or a colour combination somewhere that just clicks with the part of your brain responsible for nail polish creations. In my case, it happened whilst watching an episode of Parks and Recreation, where the character of Ben Wyatt was wearing this snazzy brown-blue striped tie. I've previously mentioned my fondness for the combination, so I'll spare you the repetition of the same and get down to it.

This nail art done with Essence's '03 My Boyfriend's Jeans' and Miss Sporty's '455'.

And just for those that don't watch Parks and Rec and went 'huh?' at this post title, the character Ben is an accountant and kept throwing in accounting puns over the course of the episode the tie was in.

Run Like a Girl.

Yesterday was a special day for me, I participated in my first 5K race!

As it was a 'Ladies Run', everything was decked out in shades of pink and I felt that my nails should match, since most of my sportswear is either black or blue.

The weather was truly abysmal, it was in fact so bad I wasn't sure I would even go until about 10 minutes before my mother and I left home. Luckily, the weather got a little less harsh when the race began.
(Though it did start pouring again on the way back home, but it's never quite as bad when you know you're headed for a warm shower!)

The pink I wore (which went remarkably well with the medal) is Koh's '162 Passionate Pink'. I think it's definitely a most fitting name, since you definitely need to be passionate (or have something of a screw loose) to voluntarily run around in the rain!