Chloe Kelly sent a subtle but powerful message to fans with her pre-game beauty ritual
Chloe Kelly isn't just a footballing powerhouse, she's a beauty girl too. During last night's nail-biting England vs Spain Euros final, all eyes were understandably on the pitch. But if you zoomed in even slightly, you might have noticed something subtly powerful about the Lioness forward's manicure: a delicate two-tone butter-yellow and pastel pink polish, perfectly neat, slightly glossy and very intentionally chosen, we think.
In a world where women in sport are often expected to tuck away their femininity, Chloe's manicure felt like a needed reminder that you can be both– powerful and polished, strong and soft, fierce on the pitch but still into nail art.
We know from her past interviews that Chloe loves her nails, and her go-to is BIAB (builder in a bottle). If you haven't heard of it, this salon-favourite manicure is known for being ultra-strong yet still natural-looking. It's widely considered to be the mani choice for those who really don't want to risk chips, especially for those who need to concentrate on slamming footballs into the back of the net.
It's not the first time Chloe has used beauty to make a statement, either. At the 2022 Women's Euros final, Chloe scored that winning goal against Germany, all the while sporting a sleek blonde ponytail and a flawless nude manicure that fans instantly clocked. Since then, she's embraced beauty as part of her game-day prep, showing that being competitive and caring about your hair, skin or nails aren't mutually exclusive.
Buy the new Lionesses Euro 2025 kit
Various
Fanatics
See the range
Product Description
It's a great reminder for women in sport. For so long, women have had to dull down anything remotely feminine for fear of not being taken seriously. However, when male athletes groom, it's usually seen as a show of status. Take Cristiano Ronaldo 's impeccably gelled hair or Jack Grealish 's signature Alice band, for example. The two pro players are rarely, if ever, criticised for caring about how they look; rather, it adds to their brand. Their grooming choices tend to be framed as confident or stylish, not vain or distracting.
Still, female players like Chloe are often scrutinised for their choices. When they embrace beauty, whether it's a fun manicure or a thought-out hairstyle, it's sometimes raised as a contradiction to their athleticism, or even a signal they're not serious about the sport. The fact that the forward proudly displays her feminine pink and yellow nails on the pitch proves she's refusing to bow in fear of being called an unserious player because of her beauty choices.
Chloe's most recent yellow set was done by @lulusnailszurich, who used The Gel Bottle colours to create the look. The exact yellow shade is called ' Queen Bee ', and it's a buttery yellow that has reigned supreme this summer in beauty and style trends.
If you're wondering whether you can get Chloe's favourite BIAB-style mani without booking in, you absolutely can. Gel kits have come a long way, and with a decent builder gel, a buffer, and a UV or LED lamp, it's never been easier to DIY a set at home that won't snap off if you so much as look at your car keys funny.
Shop DIY gel and BIAB polishes and kits to save on Chloe's go-to manicure
Though there's an initial cost to buy a kit, you could save yourself hundreds of pounds on salon manicures, like our head of beauty Zoe did, by learning to do gel and BIAB manis for yourself...
Mylee The Full Works Complete Gel Polish Kit
Shop it for £129.99
I'd recommend spending on this Mylee The Full Works Complete Gel Polish Kit, because it includes a base coat, a top coat, polish remover, polish prep liquid, cuticle oil and eight gel polish shades. You'd have to buy these individually anyway, so you're getting a great deal by investing in the full kit.
Mylee has also just launched Builder Polishes for £14, which can be used to give a home BIAB manicure.
14-Day Manicure Builder Gel At-Home Kit
Shop it for £94
A full builder gel kit to give you long-lasting nails like Chloe. You can buy individual shades if you need more, but this kit comes with two (and you can select them). Their hema-free formulas also minimise the risk of skin irritation, making it a safe way to do DIY cured nails.
The Gel Bottle's BIAB Start Kit
Shop it for £102.75
Long-lasting formulations with no chipping or lifting for up to 4+ weeks. This kit comes with 10 polishes and tools to get you going. The lamp comes separately for £119.
*It's worth noting this is a professional product, and while anyone can order it, it's advised you sign up for a course to learn how to use products safely and properly. You can see the brand's course options here.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
11 minutes ago
- The Sun
Love Island star goes public with new boyfriend three years after disastrous stay in the villa
A LOVE Islander has gone public with her brand new boyfriend - three years on from a disastrous stint in the villa. Blonde stunner Mollie Salmon has been showing off her hunky new man on social media after failing to find love in the eighth series of the show. 4 4 Mollie has continued to keep her Instagram followers updated with the goings-on in her life and has now revealed her new man for the first time. She posted a loved-up selfie of the pair from a recent outing with each other. It is understood to be the first time that she has ever shared a snapshot of her handsome mystery man online. Whilst Mollie did not tag him in the post, 25-year-old Olly Wilson replied to the post with a love heart before Mollie replied the same - seemingly acknowledging their connection. One of her fans commented underneath the photo: "YOU GUYSSSS." As another shared under the former reality TV star's post: "Unbelievable moll." Mollie lasted less than five days during her time as a Casa Amor girl on the show. She failed to find any connections in the villa and was largely mocked online for seemingly going missing and failing to be seen in any scenes on the programme. Following her time in the villa, she embarked on a controversial cosmetic surgery journey. Mollie underwent the dangerous fox-eye procedure in a bid to alter her looks. Awkward moment Love Island's Harrison calls girlfriend Lauren by his EX'S name live on TikTok - hours after coming face to face with her She revealed that the cosmetic procedure involved lifting the eyebrows to target "droopy" eyelids. Her cheeks look noticeably more taut while her eyes appear raised at the ends, changing their shape entirely. On her Instagram account, she revealed she went under the knife at Mono Cosmetic Surgery in Turkey. Despite clearly being excited for her new look, trolls were quick to claim Mollie's surgery choice wouldn't end well. 4 One wrote: "Bug eye surgery." Another remarked: "I'd never in a million years get an eye surgery." But Mollie wasn't going to let the haters win as she posted another clip revealing the final results of her surgery. She penned: "Reading through all my comments saying I've ruined my face with fox eye surgery." Wearing black sunglasses she mimed over the sound: "I had a little cry earlier, and I had a big cry last night, but I'm not crying now and I think for that, I'm doing so well." 4
Telegraph
11 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The history of cricket in art is up for sale – this is why it will go at a loss
With perfect timing – just as the gripping Test series between England and India concludes – Dreweatts auctioneers announced the sale of what it describes as 'arguably the finest cricket-themed art and memorabilia collection in the world'. No actual bats, bails or balls, but 146 lots of period paintings and prints that provide a visual record of the game going back to its earliest days. The collection was formed by the late Mark Antony Loveday who died, aged 80, last September. The son of the chairman of the London Stock Exchange, Loveday became a senior partner of Cazenove – the Queen's stockbroker – where he staunchly resisted change until it was merged with the American bank, JP Morgan Chase in 2004. Cricket, however, was his greatest love, having been captain of cricket both at Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read modern history. Loveday's collection was 50 years in the making and considered sufficiently important to have parts of it displayed in the MCC Museum at Lord's Cricket Ground. But its import was not in terms of its art historical or commercial value. The most expensive portrayal of a formal cricket match was a 1907 painting by Albert Chevalier Tayler of a Kent v Lancashire match in Canterbury, commissioned by Kent County Cricket Club, which sold for £680,000 in 2006. Bought by the philanthropist Andrew Brownsword, it hangs in the Long Room Pavilion at Lord's. But Loveday's whole collection is only estimated at nearer £40,000. What drove him was not financial or artistic value but a Wisden-like desire to compile contemporary visual records of the history of the game. It's a record of who played (the early 19th-century roundarm bowler William Lillywhite is the most frequently depicted), as well as when and where, together with characterful anonymous sitters and locations regardless of who painted them. One of the joys of this collection, which clearly gave Loveday pleasure in assembling, is the action sighted in an almost encyclopaedic range of historic cricket pitch locations up and down the country. From Lord's and the Oval, through Kent and Surrey in the south, taking in Moulsey Hurst where cricket was first recorded in 1731, it moves on to Eton, Harrow, Oxford, Cambridge, Sandleford Priory in Berkshire with its sloping Capability Brown landscape, then north to Worcester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Durham and up to North Inch in Perth. And Loveday's compass did not stop there, rotating to Switzerland, Canada, Philadelphia, Melbourne, Egypt and Calcutta, where a cricket pitch within a military fort shows soldiers at play in their pith helmets in 1874, showing off to the locals. Some of the locals came to play in England. A handsome portrait is of Colonel Kumar Sri Sir Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji II, known as Ranji, who came to Britain in 1888 at the age of 16 to study at Cambridge and became the first person of colour to play Test cricket for England, before returning to India to become the ruler of the princely state of Nawanagar. Curiously, some of the works for which Loveday paid the most for are now estimated at far less. In 1995, he paid £10,000 for a 1740s drawing of the double wicket version of the game thought to be by Francis Hayman whose original painting of the subject is in the MCC collection. Now downgraded as 'after Hayman' it is estimated at only £2,000. An early 19th-century portrait of a cricketer in stylish white kit, button-up jacket and a red kerchief holding his bat under his arm cost Loveday £11,750 at Christie's in 2002 but is estimated at just £1,500. In the same sale, he splashed out £5,875 on an English school portrait of a casually dressed young man in a landscape leaning on his bat. The painting now comes with a vague attribution to the circle of Francis Grant, the Victorian artist, but a reduced £1,000 estimate. One reason Christie's don't hold traditional sports sales anymore is because that market is not what it used to be. The Loveday collection will go on view at Dreweatts in Newbury on Friday week (14 August) to be sold by live auction on Aug 19 An unmissable highlight of the Edinburgh International Festival The Edinburgh International Festival is with us once again this month. And Lyon & Turnbull auctioneers are out on their own with a contemporary art sale that will test the market for the recently deceased Jack Vettriano, the late great rock'n'rollplaywright John Byrne, and the venerable Scottish artist Victoria Crowe, who is reaching the peak of her observational powers in her 80s. The odd one out – because he's not Scottish – is John Kirby, an unsettling figurative painter of ambiguous gender subjects who died this year. In the 1990s, Kirby was hot property – bought by Madonna, and used for album covers and film props. His most memorable screen appearance was the Mike Nichols/Robin Williams comedy, The Birdcage (1996), in which Williams tells his son he can't disguise his father's gay relationship by removing a suggestive picture before prospective in-laws arrive 'because it's art'. Kirby's work was also chosen to illustrate the covers of both Frank Delaney's 1989 novel My Dark Rosaleen, and the 1980s paperback edition of Jean Genet's The Miracle of the Rose, a fictionalised version of his years in a penal colony. Over the years, his fan club of collectors has grown to include actress Whoopi Goldberg, David Hockney, Pet Shop Boys' co-founder Neil Tennant, the fashion designer Thom Browne, and the sculptor, dancer and performance artist Nick Cave (not the Australian punk rocker, that is). Kirby was discovered in 1985 by the art dealer, Angela Flowers, who bought a work from his St Martin's School of Art Degree Show and then staged regular exhibitions for him. Her son, Matthew Flowers, will hold a memorial exhibition for him at his Cork Street Gallery in November. Few works by Kirby have been sold at auction, the highest price being £37,000, though gallery prices for Kirby can range from £5,000 to £150,000. Lyon & Turnbull have several Kirby's for sale this month from the collection of the actor Stephen Jenn, who starred opposite David Bowie in Gunslinger's Revenge (1998). Some are unknown even to Flowers, who describes Kirby as 'intensely private'. His relationship with Jenn, who was Kirby's partner and muse for 10 years, was also kept very private. Estimates for Kirby's work at the sale range from £500 to £5,000. He may not be Scottish, but if Kirby's fan club is anything to go by, his work may well appeal to the theatrical types that frequent Edinburgh during the festival.
Daily Mail
11 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Chelsea poised to recoup £65m after breakthrough day of sales - with three players on the brink of exits to Premier League clubs
Chelsea have had a day of breakthroughs in sales with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Lesley Ugochukwu and Armando Broja all closing in on permanent departures to fellow Premier League clubs. Everton entered into talks over Dewsbury-Hall with a deal worth an initial £25million plus add-ons quickly worked on. The 26-year-old midfielder cost £30m when Chelsea signed him from Leicester City last year as he became a squad player under Enzo Maresca, starting twice in the top flight. Ugochukwu, 21, and Broja, 23, are also on the verge of signing for Burnley, sources close to the newly-promoted club have said. Their exact fees have not yet been confirmed, but they are believed to be around the £20million mark for each. Both players are understood to have agreed five-year deals with Scott Parker 's side. Chelsea are continuing to work on other outgoings, with Borussia Dortmund in talks over bringing back Carney Chukwuemeka after the 21-year-old spent the second half of last season on loan there. Tyrique George could yet join Chukwuemeka in Germany after an enquiry from RB Leipzig, while fellow 19-year-old Marc Guiu is expected in the North East to finalise a loan to Sunderland barring any late hiccups. Chelsea's players returned to Cobham for pre-season training on Monday after a three-week break following the Club World Cup. Sources have said that those actively up for sale, such as Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell, are expected to continue to work separately to Maresca's main group as Chelsea work on finding new clubs for those deemed surplus to requirements.
