Stiletto Nails

So today was fun!  I did my first full set of Stiletto nails - or "Pointy Nails", as I call them.  One of the cosmetology students at school brought her daughter in to get them done and here's the results!

To begin with I glued on the tips (see the pinkie finger) and then cut them with scissors to the approximate length and shape (see the ring finger) and then filed the tip into the exact shape and length she wanted (see the pointer finger and the middle finger).  

After all fingers are filed into shape I used the electric drill and blended the edge of the tip into the natural nail.

I then applied pink acrylic powder, same as always.

This is the completed set of nails with only a clear coat of polish.  She had to leave and go to school so we didn't have time to apply a color...

A close-up of the Stiletto Nails - although it looks like there's a hair in the polish on one of those fingers, oops!

She came back after her class and her mother applied the polish while I worked on another client
but here is the finished look, too fun!

Drag Art - or - Marbling Technique for Nails using Gel Polish

Alison was my model for this experiment, thank you Allie!
First I put the purple gel across the tips of the nails and dotted the ends

Then I dotted the nails with light purple gel and then a light blue gel.  I discovered that it is better to have slightly too much gel on the nails than not enough.

I used a dot making stylus to "drag" the colors together, creating a marbled look, then used the french tip brush to make the smile lines.  The best part about using gel polish over regular nail polish is the polish won't harden until you cure it under the UV light so you have lots of time to play with it!

Tah Dah!  "Drag Art" or Marbled nails, fun, fun fun!

These were fun to do and super-easy - I love gel polish!

In fact, after doing Alison's nails I had to do my own in blues, whoo hoo!  Sadly they are super-short because I had a lot of typing to do but they sure are fun!

February's Nails

So February was a crazy month, it seemed like I was everywhere and I was nowhere, all at once.  Here's what I accomplished in the Nail Tech arena!

Allie got a set of acrylic nails with Pandas!

Close up of the Panda I did - the other one was done by a fellow student to show me how!

I did my own mails - ignore my hangnails - I used clear gel and added blue and silver glitter to the gel for just the tips.

Examples of "Drag Art" using gel polish.  These polishes had glitter in them.

More Drag Art - I added glitter on top of the polishes for these examples

Final Drag Art examples.  The left nail has glitter added, the right nail had glitter in the polish.

A sweet little high school gal came in and let me play wither her nails!
I gave her gel nails with shimmery bits and glitter mixed into the gel on the tips.

I tried to get a close-up of the shimmer and glitter but it is hard to see :(

This was the first of a three-set day!  Jill came in and got Pink-And-Whites on top of tips.

A walk-in got a set of acrylics with a gold and black french gel polish job

A close up of the gel polish.

Kelly provided me with a fabulous learning experience - I did sculpted pink and whites with a more translucent pink than my regular powder and for some reason I started the white part where her natural nail ended, and she had nice, longer natural nails, instead of where her natural smile line was.  Oops!  But Kelly was a good sport and to fix it we did a black french gel polish over it - see below.

And viola!  Kelly loved her classy new look!  After three sets in a day I was totally worn out though and I realized I need much more practice because each set took me about 2 - 2 1/2 hours.  Kelly's was the only set of sculpted nails and so 2 1/2 hours is not unreasonable for a full set of sculpted nails but the other two sets used tips and I should have been much faster!

I bought some colored gel pots off of eBay and was playing around with them.  These both have the same base color but I used  purple shimmery pieces on one and blue-green shimmer pieces on the other.  The photo doesn't do either nail justice, they came out really cool!