A HUGE congratulations to our lovely Megan… 

This weekend, myself & Megan hit the road and went down to Birmingham for the Beauty UK beauty show, where Megan was taking part in TWO nail competitions!!

Megan is HUGELY passionate about all things nails and so she was extremely excited to take part in her first competition. 

The two categories Megan entered were student gel polish and student tip & overlay (acrylics.) Megan has only been qualified in acrylic enhancements for coming up to a year and is currently completing her level 3 nails qualification – I know, shes amazing seeing as she hasn’t been doing them for long!! 

We headed down to Birmingham on Sunday evening so we could settle in to our hotel for the night, prep my nails (I was being the model for Megan), sort out the kit needed for both competitions and so we could register for the first competition at 8.30 am on the Monday morning. All was going well.. we checked in, grabbed some dinner and sat in our hotel room with nibbles, a glass of wine (non alcoholic for me of course!!) and Megan prepped my nails ready. 

It was all going TOO well… I sat reading back through the competition rules once more to make sure we had everything we needed and Megan knew the points and criteria she was being marked and judged on.

OH NO…. “models must wear all black”… I had been so focused on making sure Megan was fully prepped and had everything she needed, I hadn’t thought of myself needing to wear anything in particular I had a bright orange vest top!! 10 pm in the evening and I am having a mini flap in the hotel room, BUT its all good.. there’s a Tesco 15 minutes up the road so I will get up and get there for it re opening at 6 am and grab ANYTHING black! Phew, sorted! 

So my nails are prepped, suitcase with the kit is packed and organised and we head to bed ready for a very early morning and a very long day ahead of us. 

5.30 am and the alarms wake us… I jump out of bed and whiz up to Tesco to grab black clothing and something for our breakfast. In and out of Tesco super fast and heading back to the hotel to get myself ready before we needed to check out of the hotel for 8 am to be on time for competition registration at 8.30 am.

TRAFFIC… god damn traffic!! A journey that should have taken me no more than 20/25 minutes back to the hotel took TWO HOURS!! You can imagine the stress I got myself in. Megan’s at the hotel getting herself ready and I am stuck (not moving), no make up on my face and convinced we were going to miss the registration for the first competition!!

Somebody was looking over us that day… we made it to registration by the skin of our teeth after Megan practically had to jump in the car whilst I flew past the hotel and we power walked from the car park to the NEC with a suitcase full of nail supplies AND they were running late- THANK GOD!! 

 

 Desk set up, competition briefing done and Megan’s first competition (gel polish) is under way. For this competition Megan had one hour to complete one hand of gel polish, thumb and pinkie in a creme red and the rest in a french manicure finish. 

 

 

Megan did an AMAZING job on her first competition and created these BEAUTIFUL nails…. Perfection! 

We had a small break in between the two competitions (time for me to slap some makeup on my face, grab ourselves a drink and to sit laughing at how the hell we had made it on time!!!)

The second competition was student tip & overlay (acrylic enhancements) and again Megan had one hour to complete one hand of enhancements finished natural with thumb and pinkie painted in a creme red. 

Megan coped AMAZINGLY under the pressure of both competitions, kept her cool, completed both competitions on time and created these beautiful nails…

So that was it, after 4 judges inspected (and I mean inspected!!!) my nails the competitions were complete, Megan could breath and it was a waiting game for the results ceremony at 3.30 pm. Off we went for a little mooch around all the stands, picked up some new glitters (of course) stock needed and took a look at some of the new products on stands. 

3.30 pm soon came around & the nerves kicked in for Megan a little!

But there was no need… Megan placed 2ND!!! for the student gel polish competition and I couldn’t have felt more proud!! Shes super proud of her trophy (I’m sure she will show you next time you’re in!) and should be extremely proud of just how well she did on the day, all without any “competition” training. It was great after the awards ceremony to collect Megan’s score sheets for both competitions and to speak to some of the judges to receive more feedback on her scores.

That’s it now, Megan has the bug for competitions and is already looking and planning her next competition… so stay tuned 😉