**Anyone who follows Lily Allen on Instagram will know that she is a serious nail-a-holic. She often posts pictures of her LOL-core acrylics on Instagram, from fluoro ombre manis to cartoonish illustrations. So it makes perfect sense that Lily has launched her own line of Sheezus-tastic false nails 'Lily Loves', in collaboration withElegant Touch. We sat down with Lily at the Chiltern Firehouse (as you do) to natter about, well, everything. Read below to hear how her little girls are already nail obsessives, how her hair is "about to fall out" and why being at home for more than five days freaks her out...
You change your hair colour so much - how do you keep it in good condition?
Lily: "Alex who does my hair – who owns Bleach- she was livid with me last week because she had bleached my hair but she didn’t have time to finish it so there were just a few orangey bits. It was really annoying me in the fringe and so I got a home bleaching kit and did it myself. She was like "you’re a popstar you can afford to get your hair done don’t use an at home bleaching kit!" Then my hair went blue which was weird and it's kind of falling out here on the edges [of the fringe], so in answer to your question I don’t keep it in good condition."
READ MORE: Lily created her signature look when she was TWELVE
Is your hair an expression of your feelings?
Lily: "No usually a rescue mission. Years and years ago I had pink hair, but the people who bleached it for me did a really bad job. It started falling out and I just had to let it grow back. Always as a teenager I played with colours. It's not really an expression of how im feeling because you feel different every day, you can’t change your hair every day. It’s just a bit of a LOL really."
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Your daughters are still very little, but do they already love nails?
Lily: "They are obsessed. Probably because they see Mummy doing it so often and it’s such a big part of their lives. Only in the last few weeks have we started to paint Ethel's nails sometimes. It's more because I might be at home for 3 days and they’re so little you can’t really explain to them how long it’s going to be until Mummy gets back. If I’m getting my nails done and she knows I’ve got to go in an hour I’d feel mean saying 'go and play in your room.' But it’s quite difficult to get her to stay still long enough until they are dry. But then we also build fake nails out of Play-Doh!"
Does she like playing with your make up too?
Lily: "She has been known to go into mummy’s special secret drawer that she’s not allowed to go into and come out with black eyeliner and lipstick on.
Actually the other day I went to the shop to get some of the Bleach hair products and I couldn’t find them anywhere. My little one is obsessed with all the colours of my hair dyes and she loves playing with them and I always keep telling her no she can't or she'll get stains. She went running around the corner and she came back with this bottle of pink hair stuff going ‘this Mummy!’ She can't even talk! She recognised it and knew what I was looking for, it was really weird."
Has your beauty regime changed now you've had children?
Lily: "Obviously children are quite time consuming but they go to bed at 6pm and I have the whole evening to maybe eat my dinner, maybe go out for dinner. I’m lucky that both my kids sleep through and have done ever since birth pretty much. I’m very lucky I have time in the evenings."
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Do you really ever miss being at home all the time or do you feel you now have a balance?
Lily: "I mean my dream is to be at home all the time, I love being at home but when I’m at home all the time my dream is to be working. So it's Sod's Law. At the moment I kind of dread being at home for long periods because I’m working so hard and moving so fast that I know that when I stop my immune system is just going to crash and I’m going to get ill. So actually if I’ve got like 5 days off it kind of freaks me out because I just know I’m going to get sick. So in answer to your question I love going home because I get to spend real time with my children. They come away with me most of the time, but if I’m working I’m working. They don’t really want to hang around in a photo studio - for about 5 minutes it’s interesting and then they want to go to the zoo."
Does your husband prefer you with natural make up?
Lily: "Yeah he prefers natural and he hates the hair colour. He's like "mid life crisis" - even though I'm only 29. But he doesn’t notice to be honest. He’d notice that [if she had just brunette hair], but he wouldn’t notice if I cut three inches off my hair. Wouldn’t have a clue."
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Are your daughters showing any signs of following in your footsteps and becoming a performer?
Lily: "The other day before they were going to bed the eldest said ‘You sit there I’m going to do a show and sing a song.’ It's like oh god. I just want them to be happy. Whatever makes them happy makes me happy. People are always saying in an ideal world what would you want your kids to do and I think that’s such an odd question. They are children, you’d be a selfish person going oh 'I’d like you to be a music lawyer' or a plastic surgeon."
Anyone you would give a makeover to?
Lily: Yes Harry Styles - I'd like to cut his hair off.
Tell us a bit about your Elegant Touch nails…
Lily: Obviously it’s no secret that I am obsessed with nails and so it just felt like a really natural pairing. They told me about what the colours are for this coming season and what the trends are predicted to be. It was about taking elements of what I always play with and just mixing that with what tends work on the market. It is taking a bit of nutter and reining it in. The LDN one - you know the silhouette of the city emojis that you can get? Well I found it so annoying that they don’t have a LDN one and I thought I know I’ll just put it on a nail.
READ MORE: Lily Allen goes on an A List spree
Where do you get your nail inspiration?
Lily: "I follow all the really good nail people on instagram. This girl Britney Tokyo who I follow. Clara H nails – she’s from Australia, Naomi nails from NYC, Michelle Humfries , Sophie Robson. I never copy - it's more about using other peoples techniques and adapting them. So basically it’s like 'I like that but in neon'."
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You’re obviously really interested in nail art, can you do it yourself? **
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Lily: "Some elements of it I can. There's this technique called foiling you can do which is where you put like a glue over the top of the nail and then you put the foil on top and then you rip the foil off. That’s quite an easy thing to do because its not so intricate - I couldn’t do like drawing characters and stuff. I could do an ombre that’s about it."