Phenomenail Ltd

Coral from tips to toes. 🧡

Our ambassador Stela Nails Navan went for the full matching mani-pedi and honestly, this shade was made for it.

Are you a matching mani-pedi girl or do you always mix your colours? 👀

Cat eye AND florals? 🌸✨ I couldn’t choose, so obviously we did both.

The way the shimmer catches the light with those tiny floral details… 😍

Would you wear these? YES or NO? 👇

Save this for your next nail appointment or send it to someone who’d love this set. 🤍

Labour Day felt like a very good excuse to give these another moment on the grid. 🇺🇸

Red, white, blue, stars, stripes… subtle was clearly never part of the plan. 😂❤️🤍💙

Created using Crystal Nails UK 🇺🇸 Crystal Nails USA | Premium Nail Supply | Education products.

Happy Labour Day to everyone celebrating!

September is IIH Awareness Month 💚💙

But what actually is IIH?
IIH stands for Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension

In simple terms, there’s too much pressure inside your skull, without another identifiable cause explaining why that pressure is there

It used to be called pseudotumor cerebri because the symptoms can mimic those of a brain tumour

But IIH is NOT a brain tumour.
And it is so, so much more than “just a headache”

I was diagnosed with IIH over a decade ago, and unless you’ve experienced intracranial pressure, I don’t think it’s possible to adequately explain what that “headache” actually feels like:

Imagine your head being crushed in a vice, while simultaneously someone is inflating a balloon inside your skull

Like your eyes are being pushed out from behind.

Except you can’t escape it.

It’s not a headache that comes along, ruins your afternoon and eventually goes away.
It’s there.
Constantly.

And lying down makes it worse

I know. How the actual f**k can it possibly get worse?…But it does

Then there’s the rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh in your ears, perfectly timed with your heartbeat. Pulsatile tinnitus

When you’re already in that much pain and there’s an inescapable rhythmic noise inside your own head, you genuinely start wondering if this is what madness sounds like

Then your vision starts noping out

IIH can cause papilledema swelling of the optic nerves caused by that increased pressure…which can permanently damage your sight

Mine did.

Everything can look like it’s in soft focus. Your brain tells you the step is there - except it isn’t quite there. Objects aren’t exactly where you think they are. That doorframe? Nope. Shoulda aimed a good 4” to the right, mate

You misjudge things. You stumble. You fall over….I’m now waiting for a 4th operation on my shoulder because I went arse over tit in 2022

So you’re told you need neurosurgery.

And there’s this tiny part of you that thinks: They’re going to fix it!

Except they don’t.

I had a VP shunt fitted in 2014. It did something incredibly important: it stopped things getting worse.

But “stopped it getting worse” and “fixed” are two very different things.

More than a decade later, I still live with the consequences of IIH. I have permanent optic nerve damage and significant visual impairment. The pressure headaches, visual problems and everything that comes along with this condition didn’t magically disappear because I had brain surgery.

And then, after all of that, you get:

“But you look fine!”

Or my personal favourites:

“You don’t look blind” and “How can you do what you do if your blind?!”

I’m still not entirely sure what blind is supposed to look like 🤣

Because that’s one of the difficult things about invisible disability; there often isn’t anything for somebody else to see

You don’t see what I see…or don’t see 😏

You don’t see the soft focus, the distortion or the things that aren’t where my brain thinks they are. You don’t feel the pressure inside my skull. You can’t hear the relentless whooshing in my ears. You don’t see the calculations involved in something as mundane as navigating a step safely.

Sight loss doesn’t have a particular look. Neither does IIH. Or any other hidden disability.

That’s why awareness matters.

Because somebody can look completely “fine” while their body is putting them through absolute hell behind the scenes

IIH doesn’t affect everybody in exactly the same way. My experience is my own. Some people respond well to medication, some require procedures or surgery, and the severity and long-term effects vary enormously

But one thing deserves saying very loudly:

IIH is not just a headache.

So if you’d never heard of Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension before today…

Now you have 💚💙

And that’s exactly how awareness starts

Please read it.
Please learn it.
Please share it.

Cookies and love to everyone for reading my rather long winded, frustrated rant
🍪❤️🍪❤️

Pumbaa deserved his own nail moment. 🐗✨

The expression, the shading, all those tiny details… painting a Lion King character on this little canvas definitely tested the patience. 😂

But look at him! Worth every second.

When your friend trusts you with her bridal nails… no pressure then. 😅🤍

A soft n**e with the prettiest touch of glitter for Sara’s big day. Classic enough to never date, but with just enough sparkle.

As for what I used? I’m behaving and keeping quiet. 👀

10 years ago today, I rode my horse for the last time (1st pic is that actual ride)

Obviously, I didn’t know it was the last time.

Horses weren’t a hobby for me. They were my life, my career, my plans for the future and, for a very long time, a huge part of who I was

Then my health started falling apart.

I desperately tried to cling onto that life for as long as I could, but eventually my body made the decision for me. Neurosurgery, deteriorating eyesight and mobility, joints that apparently consider staying in their sockets optional, organ prolapses, surgeries, ridiculous weight loss and a digestive system that has chosen violence…
EDS has a lot to answer for 😑

Seeing that Facebook memory today hit me harder than I expected. Not because I want anyone to feel sorry for me. I’m still here. I’ve built a completely different life and career, and there is a lot in it that I love

But I think sometimes we forget just how much we take our bodies for granted while they’re quietly carrying us through our lives

We spend so much time worrying that we’re too big, too small, too old, too wrinkled, too scarred, not toned enough, not pretty enough… whatever particular flavour of bu****it we’re being sold on SM this week

Meanwhile, that imperfect body is letting us walk somewhere, drive somewhere, dance, pick up our kids, ride a horse, go to work, travel, create things, hug someone we love

And you never really think about the fact that one day, some of those things might not be an option anymore. I certainly didn’t get on my horse 10 years ago thinking “I need to remember this. This is the last time”

I just got on.

So yeah. I’m allowing myself a little bit of ‘woe is me’ today, because f**k me, I miss it!

But mostly, I think that memory is a pretty good reminder:

Stop wasting so much time hating the body that’s currently letting you live your life (although I KNOW it’s a battle of wills NOT to 😬)

None of us know which ordinary little thing we’re doing today that we’ll one day wish we could do just one more time ❤️