Friday, January 31, 2014

Flair Nails

Okie dokie, so I had never heard of Flair Nails until one of the cosmetology students, Juanita, asked me to do some for her and pulled up some examples off of Pinterest.  As you will see in the photos below, Flair Nails get wider at the tip and to me it looks kind of like small fans coming out of the end of your finger...

Oh - I purposefully didn't put these photos in with my January post because it was long enough already and I wanted to document my steps here so I can look them up in the future without having to wade through a whole bunch of other pictures that don't have anything to do with Flair Nails.  :D

Bless her heart, Juanita was a very patient guinea pig while I figured out how to do them AND I had virtually the entire school hovering around me and watching for most of it.  Including the brand-new teacher and the owner of the school.  Yes, it was a little stressful but I learned a lot that day!  I did not do a very good job on Juanita's nails (sorry girl!) but I feel much better about the set I did today on Gretchen's hand (see the photos after this set).  So here's my photo journey about learning Flair Nails...

First I glued tips to Juanita's fingers and then put my reusable forms under the tips

For the first hand I did I tried adding the acrylic over the tips and fanning it out onto the forms on the sides.  It was rather difficult and did not come out very well...

For the second hand I put acrylic on all the nails and tips like a normal set and then added the form underneath to add the edges


Here's a different angle


After the final filing, they are smooth and ready to polish.  The "Flair" isn't consistent from finger to finger :(


After the polish - Juanita chose a very light pink and green and they didn't show up in the photo very well.

Necessary tools of the trade...

Today I decided to kill two birds with one stone and practice the Pink and White technique AND Flair Nails, whoo hoo!  Using my faithful practice hand, Gretchen, I started with the sculpting forms and used my silver acrylic powder to sculpt the "white" part of the Flair Nail.

Then I filled in the "pink" part with pink #2 acrylic powder 

Remove the forms and behold, Flair!

After filing and a top coat

The thumb, after filing and a top coat.

Time for some bling!  You'll notice that some of the nails received extra filing to keep the Flair angle more consistent in between the Nail Art photos and the "finished with top coat" photos...







Ta Dah!  The only thing I don't like about using the flash was how glittery it made the silver acrylic powder tips look.  In reality, under normal light they just like like a slate grey with a small amount of metallic shine... like the pictures below:







And those, my friends, are Flair Nails!

Thursday, January 30, 2014

January's Nails and a New Work Schedule

Soooo...  my new schedule at work is 4 ten-hour days and on my week-days off I go to school from 9 - 5.  I get every-other weekend off.  The first weekend I had off in January was full of Birthday adventures for various family members and the second weekend I had off in January we helped a friend move.

...Therefore I haven't had much time to update my blog, ugh!  So here goes, I'm aiming for short and sweet with mostly photos, enjoy!


Allie stopped by the house for clear gel nails with white tips and peacock decals.

A close-up of the peacock decal/sticker
I LOVE Butterflies!  I gave myself a full set of clear gel nails with pearly blue tips, butterfly "tattoos" with light blue rhinestones.  This is one of my favorite sets of nails so far, whoo hoo!

My thumb...  :)
Jenn stopped by the school for a full set of  clear gel nails with white tips

Me again, clear gel nails, silver tips and clear rhinestones.


Allie came over for a fill, I think these are still gel with gel polish and pearls
Jenn came back for a new full set of clear gel with natural tips and silver glitter

Allie visited me at school and this time we did a full set of acrylics, pink powder, red painted french tips with silver polish accents

Gretchen's back!  Gretchen is my practice hand and I thought this picture was the finished product, however it is not, sorry!  These are sculpted pink and white acrylics before being filed into their final shape.

And then I went home and did a full set of pink and whites on my daughter, Rachel.  

I didn't sculpt these, they are tips with pink and white acrylic overlays.

I did really thick whites on purpose and focused on making crisp smile lines.

And today at school - nobody came to see me :(  So I amused myself with nail art...

These four were the best, and yes, I did the flowers on the red nail free-hand!