nailed it

Since Instagram finally launched for Android I’ve basically just been using it as my personal nail blog.  (I’m ooohsaracuda if you want to follow me.)

Other adventures in manicuring lately include this glittery pink 3D fruit design:

A little kitty accent nail:

And these Muppety-feeling flocked nails, which I did following this tutorial from Cupcake’s Clothes:

Obviously I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands lately.  Uh, no pun intended.

this is a post about press-on nails

Yeah I’ve been a little bit MIA lately in complete flagrant disregard of my new year’s resolution to blog more regularly. I could talk about what’s up with that and about how I have no motivation to do anything and how I cry all the time but instead I’m just going to talk about press-on nails. SO.

As you guys may already know I have no problem with embracing the innate tackiness involved in wearing press-on nails. They make me feel feminine in a really over-the-top campy John Waters kind of way. Still, lately I haven’t been wearing them, but because I recently bit all my nails down to sad little stubs and then felt disgusted with myself every time I looked at my hands, I figured it was time to pop on a set again.

Usually I do kid-size press-ons from the 99¢ store because I am classy. Sometimes when I really want to get my elegance on I’ll upgrade to a set of Fing’rs petites from CVS. Because I’ve been feeling down lately I figured I would go ahead and treat myself, so I went on down to the drugstore last weekend to check out the selection.

Granted, the Rite-Aid on Bellflower and Stearns has some pretty righteous choices, providing you’re into super-long squared-off talons airbrushed with majestic goth-lite dragons which I think I have seen on the side of a van somewhere.  It was either that or your basic Revlon french tips — talk about the sublime to the ridiculous (you can decide which is which).  Then I turned around and discovered that Broadway Nails is REVAMPING THE PRESS-ON NAIL.

I guess the whole nail art craze and the Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail wraps and the do-it-at-home gel manicures forced Broadway, longtime purveyors of your basic press-on nail, to try to put a new spin on their old classic.  So these aren’t just press-on nails, OK?  They’re imPRESS.  They’re called a press-on manicure (which sounds, I guess, less trashy).  They’re endorsed by a person named Nicole Scherzinger, whom I understand is or was once something called a Pussycat Doll, so you know they must be good, because clearly who better to guide you in the ways of tacky femininity than a Pussycat Doll?  They retail for around $7.00 a set, but I’ve been seeing them on sale around town for about a fiver.

I selected a design called “Shout” (and at this point I will mention that the pattern names all seem to have been plucked straight out of nowhere — they have little to no correlation with the nail designs; i.e. a zebra-print set is perplexingly titled “Little Drumm’r Girl”), which without a doubt was the tackiest choice.  What can I say?  When I do things, I really do them.

I wasn’t really expecting to be all that impressed by imPRESS (woah!  See what I did there?), but you guys…I kind of am!  The package says they last up to a week “if applied properly,” but when is that ever actually true?  Well, in this case, it is.  They really are superior to the boxed press-ons I’m used to.  The above photos were taken after almost six days of wear.  The pattern stayed vibrant and I never came close to losing a nail.  Even things that would usually cause standard press-ons to threaten to pop off, like peeling open packages or applying the finger tension required to play a G chord on my guitar, posed no threat to my intensely tacky neon manicure.  Well played, Broadway!

This morning I applied my second set, a champagne-and-black lace pattern inexplicably called “Holla!”  (See what I mean about the stupid names?)

Each set comes with 24 nails in 12 different sizes, which is nice because I have kind of baby fingers.

Unlike traditional press-ons, you don’t use nail glue to apply these guys.  Instead they come with a cleansing pad to clean any crap and oil off your natural nails (nice touch), and each individual press-on has a strong, rubbery-kind of adhesive pre-applied on the back.

Usually my experience with this type of peel-and-stick nail is less than satisfactory, but imPRESS’s adhesive seems even stronger and more durable than nail glue, and there’s none of that noxious skin-bonding shit going on.  Plus when you’re ready to remove them you can just gently peel them off, and the adhesive doesn’t leave behind any funky residue the way nail glue does.  This is awesome.

Just peel off the back and press that sucker on.  Hold it down for about ten seconds and you’re golden.  It takes like ten minutes, MAYBE.

The thumbnails ALWAYS seem freakishly long and square to me, so I always trim them down with a nail clipper after applying.  (The other fingers are fine the way they are for me, but it’s easy to clip and file down false nails in the event that they are too long.)

I mean, really, we can call a spade a spade here — Broadway imPRESS are just press-on nails with cuter patterns at a cuter length in a cuter package.  I don’t know if this rebranding and Nicole Scherzingering is going to make girls who didn’t previously wear press-ons start wearing press-ons.  But as someone who already wears them, I wish Broadway the best of luck in their new endeavor.

AND I just wrote almost 900 words about press-on nails.  That just happened!  Sorry, not sorry!

the unemployment chronicles

Man, turns out being unemployed is a great way to do things you’ve been meaning to do but haven’t gotten around to.  Today I did two!

First off I made a couple of necklaces:

I’m going to be making more and selling them on Etsy, I think, because I’m really happy with how they turned out. The skulls are clay with melted glass eyes and they look better in person, I think.

Second of all I tested out the Konad French Manicure nail stamp kit Beauty Knockout sent me.  I’ve seen girls online with Konad-stamped nails, but this was my first time using the system.

It’s pretty cool — you apply polish to a special image plate and then stamp the image onto your nails using a little bingo-dauber-type tool.  My first try didn’t go so smoothly, but practice makes perfect and it still looks pretty cute:

more drawn style

Here are a couple more styling illustrations I did for my friends.  Thanks for all the feedback on my last drawings!  Those of you who emailed me asking for drawings of your own, I really appreciate the interest!  I’m pretty slammed right now but I’ll keep you posted, as in a couple of months I’ll be launching an online store where you can order hyper-customized personal styling illustrations like these ones for super duper cheap!  In the meantime here are a couple more of my test subjects:

Darcie didn’t really know how to define her style, but she loves her Frye boots and the color green, so I pulled together a fallish look for her that incorporates both:

MM6 Maison Martin Margiela knot necklace from Shopbop, ASOS blouse, Victoria’s Secret leopard trench, Moto skinny jeans from Topshop, Shop Suey Boutique satchel, Frye boots, Mark Pawson eyes badges from Tatty Devine, Zoya nail polish in Scarlet, pyrite knuckle ring from Urban Outfitters.

Brooke has cool, edgy style and selected a couple of pieces for me to build an outfit around:

Dylan and Rose denim jacket from Modcloth, Greatest Friend vintage dress via Etsy, vintage Thompson Twins button via Ebay, Low Luv x Erin Wasson evil eye cuff, American Apparel fishnet ankle socks, Deborah Lippman nail polish in Girls Just Want To Have Fun, Revlon Moon Drops lipstick in Hot Coral, Brooke’s own bag, Topshop creepers, star ring from Nasty Gal.

Check out more of my fashion illustrations at http://yournewoutfit.tumblr.com (and email me if you’d like to order one and you just can’t wait until the site launches)!