Coralicious!

It's not exactly been fun and games chez moi this week, the winter blues suddenly arrived unannounced and at the same time the boiler broke down. So what did I do? I painted my nails. Coral. Oh how I love this colour.... so vibrant, juicy and oh-so cheering to look it. I can honestly say that staring at my hands all week has saved my sanity, after all nail polish is the only make-up that we can admire on ourselves. All that slap on our faces is mostly for the benefit of others. Lucky them!
I have worshipped nail polish from a very young age, and always begged my mum to buy me that peel-off nail varnish that was sold in toy shops. She acquiesced on occasion, but more often or not it did not satisfy my curiosity for the real stuff. I knew the real stuff was better. It stayed on for more than 5 minutes for a start and the colours.... oh the colours! I wanted nothing more than fuschia pink, shiny nails, and one day I got them, much to my mum's disgust. I must have found a bottle lying around and I just went for it. She promptly removed the colour with acetone and told me that it was not right for me to have painted nails at my age (I think I was about 8). Of course, this just made me want them more. One of the first make-up items I ever bought was a bottle of pale pink pearly nail polish by Rimmel from the old Woolworths store in Camden Town. I agonised for ages over which colour to spend my pocket money on, and decided in my wisdom to choose a pale "natural" colour that wouldn't make my mum go ballistic. In reality the colour was horrible. A thick, white-y pink which was so pearly it was tacky. I didn't really understand tacky until I put this colour on my nails. I remember feeling a bit sick that I had wasted my money on something so unwearable. I'm pretty sure that after that incident I didn't buy another nail polish until my first visit to Harrods some 7 years later where I made straight for the Chanel counter and purchased a bottle of Rouge Noir. I think I still have the original bottle somewhere, all thick and gloopy, but of tremendous sentimental value nonetheless.
So back to this week, and my gorgeous coral nails, courtesy of Coralicious, by Rimmel. My, how Rimmel have improved over the years.

Now, I'm not sure if it's the polish or the base coat, but for the first time in my life, no exaggeration, my manicure stayed in an entirely decent state for almost a week. If I had been clever I would have painted my nails with another colour and the same base coat today (Boots Expert Nail Ridge Filler) in order to see which of the two was the miracle product but at the moment I have a strong feeling that it has something to do with the ridge filling base coat. It certainly creates the smoothest nail base I've ever encountered.

And it's good old Boots' brand, nothing fancy...
So completely enamoured am I by Coralicious that I put it on again today so that I can have another week of juicy, summery nails! Another first for me, sticking with the same colour. Usually I get bored after 2 days, or it chips off, and I always switch colours, however this time I think I have finally found my Holy Grail colour. It brightens up everything I wear and garners compliments everywhere I go but, above all, it makes me happy. Who says colour therapy doesn't work?