About me
I’m Claire Kerr and I’m addicted to nail polish. I was posting pics of my manicures to Facebook, really as a way of documenting them for myself, but I was filling up my timeline with the photos and most of my friends weren’t interested. So in November 2012 I thought I’d start up a blog for them instead.
I’ve called the blog “Kerruticles” (kerr-you-ti-kuls) as a play on my surname and the word cuticles. (I also run a marketing consultancy called Kerrmunications, so while the name is probably weird to everyone else, it felt very natural to me!)
So, by day I’m a marketing consultant, but I make sure I find time to fit in a manicure every few days. I live in South Croydon, UK with my husband and teenage son. Besides nail polish, I also enjoy genealogy, building websites and watching Shakespeare plays.
Quick FAQs
- Number of polishes I own: 1,128
- Number of stamping plates: 448
- Top coats: my favourite top coats are Sally Hansen Insta-Dri and Glisten & Glow HK Girl and Moyra Stamping Polish Top Coat (which doesn’t smear stamping). Others I’d recommend are No. 7 Stay Perfect and Seche Vite.
- Base coat: My two favourite polish base coats are Essie First Base and Beauty UK, and I also like No. 7 Stay Perfect. I tried Rimmel’s base coat for a while, but my manicures always seemed to chip. For a while, I used a base coat of clear gel polish. The awful yellow staining on my nails grew out and my manicures seemed to last longer. But I only managed to keep it up for a year or so.
- Polish removal: acetone (with a touch of glycerin added, so that it’s kinder to my Kerruticles)
- Kerruticle treatment: I use Lush Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter; Dadi’Oil; and also my own cuticle oil, made with jojoba oil and a few drops of essential oils (bergamot and lime currently)
- Favourite polish colours: pink, blue, purple, red, black, orange. (My least favourite colour is green and I’m not that keen on gold, either).
- Camera: For the first few months of blogging, I used my mobile to take photos. But since buying a light tent and some proper lights in March 2013, I have been using my old DSLR camera – a Canon EOS 400D which I’ve had since about 2006.