Bubblegum Bliss Nails

     I've been wanting to do a set of girly light pink nails for a while, but I didn't want to do anything too complicated. I was using my non dominant hand and I was on a time frame, so I needed to keep it as simple as possible. So I decided to do a glitter fade.
    I used 01 and 03 from Nail Factory's Forever Pink Collection, as well a mix called Hot Mess that I got on Ebay from a fellow youtuber (lemonkiss84). #01 from the Forever Pink Collection is a pink based transparent glitter mix with stars, iridescent hearts, diamonds, and a ton of other elements. It's actually my favorite mix in that collection. #03 from the Forever Pink Collection is a light opaque pink with chunky iridescent glitters. Hot Mess is a very chunky iridescent glitter mix with light oranges, blues, pinks, and greens. I used this mix just to add a little contrast to my design. I don't like Hot Mess on its own, but on top of another glitter mix or a pretty color acrylic, it's gorgeous!
     I used my own mix on the nail bed just to give some color to my extremely light nail beds. Then I used #03 from Nail Factory's Forever Pink Collection on the tips and faded it up the nail. I then took 01 from the Forever Pink Collection and spread it all over the nail as thinly as possible. Lastly I took a little bit of Hot Mess and spread that on top of the nail. I encapsulated everything with clear acrylic, filed, buffed, and used Young Nails Finish Gel for my topcoat. And just to add a little more sparkle, I added a big 3D bow with acrylic.
 

Check the vid out below :)

Neon Rainbow Nails

     I did these nails as part of a group collab with a bunch of other nail girls on youtube (yay!) and I had so much fun doing these. I wanted a nice simple design with bright colors, so I decided to use the acrylic mixes in the Sundance Collection from Organic Nails and a nice white and clear glitter mix. The mixes I used from the Sundance Collection were Boox, Chak, Chakan, Samchak, Tunich, Kan, and Yaax. I also used a mix from the Circus Collection (also from Organic Nails) called Elephant.
     The mixes in the Sundance collection are all neons and bright colors which went perfectly with the theme of the collaboration (Bright Neon). These mixes have large chunks of nail art in them. There's peace signs, squares, clovers, and a bunch of other things. And it's these chunky pieces of nail art that make these mixes so hard to work with at times. They are GORGEOUS mixes but they can be time consuming and difficult to use at times when you are doing reverse application.
     The other mix I used, called Elephant, is a sparkly white glitter mix which has, unfortunately, been discontinued along with the rest of the Circus Collection. I only used a little bit of this mix at the tip just to give a nice fade at the end of the nail.
     I knew I wanted some hand painted designs on the nail, but I had to think about whether to do different designs on each nail or do the same thing on all of the nails. I decided to keep it simple and just do the same simple design on each finger. I used Organic Nails Synergy gel to put my Swarovski crystals on, and used Young Nails Finish Gel as my topcoat.
     Check the video out below and let me know what you think!

Throwback Thursday

    

     I was going through some old photos of my work, when I happened upon this picture of a client I had awhile ago. I remember this particular client quite vividly even though she only came to me once because: a) she was a referral of a friend of mine   b) she unintentionally made things difficult (more on that later) and c) she didn't tip even though I gave her a discounted price
     Before I tell you what happened, let me explain something. I've done hair, makeup, and nails professionally for years and I've found that there will always be clients who feel the need to micromanage me and the service I'm performing for them. These same clients will complain about how long the service is taking, when its their own fault that it's taking so long! Stopping me every 3 minutes to see exactly what I've done since the last time they stopped me isn't going to get them out of my chair any faster!!! But I digress.
     So this particular client had an appointment VERY early on Saturday morning. She came in, sat down, and I started working. So far, so good. I prepped her nails and everything was fine. But once I started to lay the lay the acrylic, shit got real. She wanted a full set of glitter nails, so I was doing reverse application. I knew it was her first time getting her nails like this, so I made sure to explain the process to her! I had her wrist propped up on a large hand pillow (fancy! Lol) so that her nails would be pointing down, thus making my job easier and making her visit more relaxing. All she had to do was rest her hand on the pillow and let me work. But she wasn't about to let me get off that easy. Every few minutes she would raise her hand up to see what I had done. This not only took up extra time, but interfered with my application of the acrylic which resulted in more filing and took even more time! (Having the client's finger pointed downward keeps the acrylic from running into the cuticle.)  If she had questions, she should've just asked instead of constantly moving her hands. Things would've gone much smoother if she had just LET ME WORK! Because the bottom line is WE CANT BOTH LOOK AT THE SAME TIME! 
     I know that some nails techs will get rough with you if you dont hold still, but i dont believe in that. People get their nails done to look good and relax, not to get their fingers broken if they dont hold still. 
What should have been a simple set of nails took me 2 hours! She seemed a little annoyed about the time frame, but it was her own fault! She loved her nails, and I was happy about that. But I wasn't happy that she didn't tip. I gave her a discount off of my already low prices because she was a referral from a friend, but got no tip. Never again. 
At least I got a picture I could use though........

Nail Art + Thieves= Disaster!!!

     Now I realize that social media is a good way to advertise, get your name out there, and find inspiration. BUT social media is also a good way to have your hard work stolen and claimed by someone else. I think people on Instagram are the biggest culprit of this. Even if you watermark or put your logo on your photos, some people will go out of their way to crop your watermark out and claim the work as their own, KNOWING that they can't actually do what's in the photo!!! 

     So not only do I feel bad for the nail artist who isn't getting any credit for their work, but I feel bad for the client who saw the photo and booked an appointment with that thieving bitch. The client thinks that she's going to walk out of that nail salon looking and feeling like a million bucks. In reality she's going to walk out of there feeling like a fugly slut (word to Regina George) because the nails on her hands don't look like the nails she saw on Instagram.

     I've seen so many cases of stolen nail art that I can usually tell if it's stolen or not. I notice that a lot of people who don't do good work in the first place are the ones doing this the most. If you look on someone's social media and the work they usually post is mediocre then ALL OF A SUDDEN they're posting masterpieces, 9 times out of 10 its not their work (unless they took a class or something). 

     Now I've seen a few people say that it's OK to use someone else's photos as long as the quality of their work is just as good, but there's a problem with that. If the thief in question COULD do the same quality of work as the artist they stole the pic from, then THEY WOULDNT NEED TO STEAL THE PICTURES IN THE FIRST PLACE!
This shit is getting way out of hand! I think it's a damn shame that everyone has to put 2 , sometimes 3, watermarks on their work just to keep someone from claiming it as their own. Ridiculous.......

Moonlight Masquerade Nail

     
        This design was partly inspired by Bethany Griffin's Red Death Saga, which is a retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's Masque of the Red Death. I enjoyed these books and the protagonist Araby (who loves glitter and has purple hair!) so much I decided to do some nails inspired by the book. So when bornprettystore contacted me to do a review of some of their products, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. The moon, the mask, and the large black pearls were sent to me and I absolutely love them!
         To do this design I used clear acrylic on the nail bed to keep the glitter from sticking to the nail (I know its fake hand, but its a habit lol). Then I used my own glitter called Arabian Nights at the top of the nail and faded it down to a little past halfway. Then I used a purple glitter mis from The Glitter Nail Shop (if I remember what it's called I'll put it here) and faded that up from the tip. I encapsulated the glitter with clear acrylic, filed and buffed the nail. I decided to use gel to secure the 3D nail art since I didn't quite know how I wanted to place everything. Gel will give you plenty of time to move things around if you don't like the way they look, unlike glue. Once I had the larger pieces in the gel, I flash cured for about 20 seconds to keep the nail art from moving around so much. Then I used nail glue on the nail and placed the rest of the nail art. The reason I used gel AND glue is because I feel like gel isn't strong enough to hold larger pieces of nail art on its own (just my opinion).
        This is definitely one of my favorite designs. I'm seriously considering doing a full set like this. The review of bornprettystore.com and the tutorial for this design is down below. Please check them out and let me know what you think.


                                            My review of bornprettystore.com:

The tutorial for this design: