Hi everyone! Today I wanted to discuss a more serious subject: animal cruelty. Being a lover of animals I have been a vegetarian for over 6 or 7 years now, and I'm not planning on changing that any time soon. In all honesty, I'm nowhere vegan, but I am very conscious of the suffering animals go through, to serve us people.
Hundreds of thousands of animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in outdated product tests for cosmetics, personal care products, household cleaning products, etc.
And if there's one thing I cannot stand, it's innocent little creatures suffering for the sake of testing extremely silly products. And yes, in that case, I consider nail polish to be pretty damn silly too. 94% of animal testing is done to determine the safety of cosmetics and household products leaving only 6% for medical research!
The tests these companies perform are incredibly horrifying. There is a test, the painful Draize eye irritancy test, that involves placing substances into the eyes of restrained rabbits, then recording the eye’s progressive deterioration. Some also use the lethal dose test, forcing substances such as oven cleaner or nail polish down animals’ throats, pumping it into their stomachs through a tube, or injecting it into their bodies, until a percentage of the animals die.
But there is good news, thankfully! In 2013 all animal tested cosmetic and household products will be banned in Europe. And, after doing some research I found out that a lot of our beloved brands are in the green zone.
Let's have a look: In the first column you'll find brands that do test on animals. In the other columns you'll find the companies that don't.
Brands that do test | Awaiting confirmation @ | Cruelty free brands * | |
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| * = the end product AND ingredients are cruelty free | |||
| @ = these brands claim to be cruelty free, emailed them to ask about the ingredients - awaiting response | |||
Please note that companies do change policies, so if you spot a brand that shouldn't be on either list, please let me know! Also: I've seen this table being used on other sites, please remember I'm still waiting for a lot brands to confirm and I can only be hold responsible for information under the domain of www.lacquerized.com
This needs nuancing though: when a company is claiming that their products are cruelty free, they're talking about the finished end product! Their statement isn't saying anything about the ingredients that have been used, so keep that in mind. I've placed an * asterisk next to the companies that make 100% cruelty free products. When there isn't one, it doesn't imply they're not 100% cruelty free, I just don't know to what degree. If you happen to have more information, please do share!
Hi everyone! How are you all doing? For today I decided to write a short little post about how I shape my nails, since some of you have been asking me about this. I'm sure there are many ways to do this, but this is mine :-).
  | Shape up!Ok, first thing to decide, is your desired shape. There are about 5 basic shapes to choose from: pointed, square, squoval, round and stiletto. In the past women always went with a rounded or oval shape. Nowadays the square and squoval (stands for squared oval) looks are really popular. A new trend however is the pointed and stiletto look. The stiletto thing is not really my cup of tea, I've seen them once in real life and I wasn't that thrilled about it, they just don't seem practical to me. I might stab myself while I'm sleeping. On the catwalk we're seeing a lot of oval shaped nails, so I'm guessing that's going to be a trend as well. My nails are always hovering between squoval and square. They say nails are less weak if you file them like this, I'm not sure how true this is, but I've had way less breaks since stopped filing them round! |
Wear a dark colorI always try to shape my nails when I'm wearing a dark color. This way it's easier to see the actual shape of the nail. When I'm filing my nails without nail polish I always end up with crooked nails since my nailbeds aren't symmetrical at all.. And, they're not the same length either, so to end up with similar lengths, I'm ignoring my naked nails entirely ;-). I got this great tip from Kirsten from The Dutch Nail Blog, and I'm doing it like this ever since! Pssht this is Emerald Sparkle by China Glaze, don't you just love it? |  |
 | Step away from the clippersAlright, tt's time to dig up your file! I'm not a fan of clippers, every time I use them, my nails split. So, after messing up a 1000 times and ending up with really short nails, I'm sticking with just filing, *foolproof*. If your nails are more on the softer side, clipping might not be a problem. I can't stress this enough, but please invest in a glass file, they may be more expensive, but they last you a very long time. You'll have less risk of tears and splits, when you're using a glass file. I use a fine buffing file too. I use this when I'm done shaping, to soften up any hard edges you might have. |
Let's start!When you're filing your nails, please don't move your file back and forth, it can cause damage. I often hear you're not allowed to file the walls of your nails, but the rebel in me decides to do so anyway. If I don't, I won't achieve the shape I want. As you can see in the picture, I always file in one direction, and that's the center of the nail. This way the edges remain the smoothest. |  |
Tada, you're done! Now, I'm really curious to see what everyone's shape preference is! Please fill out my poll if you'd like to. I hope this was helpful to some of you, please take care and till next time!
