pinterest attempt: german manicure

Yesterday was Germanfest, the best of fests! For those that don't know, Milwaukee is the home of many ethnic festivals, most of them the largest of their kind in the US. Germanfest has always been special to my family; we are of German heritage, for one thing, and for another, my parents actually got engaged at Germanfest. We go every year, enjoy delicious food, great music, and just generally have a fine time.

This time, I had an idea for a thematically appropriate manicure inspired by something I pinned, so here is my very first attempt at bringing Pinterest into the real world:


Doesn't look too hard, right? So I picked up some red & yellow nail polish (I already had black because of course) and some stickers and set to work!

Okay, not quite as beautiful as Pinterest promised. But all in all, a fairly successful experiment! If you couldn't tell, I am not actually that good at painting my nails. I have shaky hands, and I haven't actually done them that often...back when I was living at home, my mom would paint them for me (I know, I know). But overall, I'm pretty proud for my first attempt at level 2 nail art. I love that it's such a flexible technique. The middle one with two colors would be great for any kind of sports team-themed manicure (or, perhaps, Gryffindor nails?), and well, it just looks cool.

My biggest problem was with the nail colors smudging (even after I waited until they seemed completely dry), but I think that's mostly due to the quality of my polish (the $3 Sally Hansen X-treme from Target). I also had some issues with the stickers leaving residue on the nails (which then were difficult to remove due to the aforementioned smudging problems). I'm not sure entirely how to fix that...decreasing the stickiness by handling them more would help, but I don't know if that would diminish how effective they are blocking the polish. It'll take some experimenting to get right, but I'm pretty confident! It was a lot of fun to have some German pride on my fingernails while I was enjoying spanferkel and Bavarian chocolate torte to the sweet sounds of polkas and German guys singing Gangnam Style. Yup, that happened. Ich liebe Germanfest!

product review: sally hansen salon effects

Confession time: I can't paint my own nails. Yes, I've done it, but rarely and poorly. My hands are just too wobbly; I make a mess even when I'm painting with my right hand, you don't even want to see what happens when I've got the nail brush in my left! With practice, I'm sure I could get better, but usually I just pressgang whoever happens to be around (a friend or my sister, usually) into painting them for me. It's always been depressing that the beautiful nail art I admire could not be mine...until now!


Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips; they come in a variety of patterns, little stickers that harden into a polish-like coat with no dry time or spills or effort!

The polish strips are pretty easy to apply; there was a little bit of fumbling, but I think that had more to do with my own low dexterity (obviously I need to get some safety scissors and work on my "small motor skills" like I made the toddlers do in play group) than actual difficulty. They looked pretty great once they were on! From close up, it's pretty clear that they're stickers, but from the normal distance that you view someone's hand, I don't think you'd be able to tell, especially if you didn't know it's not a fancy manicure.

Unfortunately, there were already a few small chips by the time I woke up the next morning. This pattern doesn't show chips too badly, but a different one would make it very obvious. The inital chips may have been related to poor application, but they continued to chip throughout the weekend, and I really wasn't doing anything particularly rough on my hands (as if!) - just some sleeping and shopping. Weirdly, most of the chips are on my non-dominant hand...mysterious! The other major downside? The sticker adheres at your cuticle but it isn't really ON your nail, so when it sets, it forms a hard ridge that's just slightly separate from your nail. Just big enough for, say, a few strands of hair? Yep, these things snagged my hair while I was trying to wash it in the shower:  not very pleasant.

Basically, these are really cool, but probably aren't a great long-term choice and definitely won't replace actually painting your nails. I think they'd be a terrific option for a special event, when you could apply them the morning of (or even later - no drying time!) and then not care if they chipped afterward. I have another set waiting for me (they were on a two for one sale) so I'll give another pattern a go and let you know if a (theoretically) superior application helps any of these issues.

Hooray, a terrible webcam photo! The nails, after two weeks. Impressive, huh?

So, I sat on this post for two weeks (as I do) and have revised my opinion somewhat. These little buggers have held on, for real! The chipping is definitely getting more significant, but they are really solidly on there and most are fine. The non-dominant chipping has continued...my right hand is almost perfect still. So, I'll upgrade these to a solid 4 out of 5. Try 'em out if you get a chance!

nails nails nails

I've been growing my nails out since middle school, and by now, they can get pretty darn long. I get a lot of questions about them, the most common being "Are those your real nails?" and the second most common being "How do you type?" The answers are: yes and quite quickly, thank you. But, much as I hate to admit it, they don't always look very well cared for, for one simple reason: I stink at painting nails.

When I was in high school, once a week my mom would paint my nails, usually while we were watching a movie. But then I went to college, and I felt silly asking someone to paint my nails for me. I can usually manage a half decent job on the left hand, but the right? Disaster area!

But the internet is a cruel temptress. I keep seeing these magical manicures popping up, just the right mix of glamorous and kitschy: right where I belong!


All images via Awesome Finds

I'm going to pick up some nail polish when I go out this afternoon, and hopefully I'll manage to figure a simple but attractive manicure I can do for myself for graduation. My current plan is polka dots!

Any manicure tips? What's your favorite kitschy manicure? (A girl in my class did Pokeballs once...it was pretty amazing!)



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a salute to america (with fabulous nails)

I don't paint my nails nearly as much as I ought to. They're long (well, half of them are) as you can see, and I'm mostly good at typing and not hand-eye coordination/doing things left-handed. But my sister was in the mood for patriotic mani-pedis, and I thought "What better way to show my love for my country than a symbolic reproduction of our flag on my fingers?" (My toenails are also painted, but I don't think it's appropriate to show your feet on the first date.) (Also: the picture is blurry because a) my camera is terrible and b) it's hard to take a picture of your own left hand. Harder than it might appear. Or maybe I'm just a terrible photographer.)

American flag manicure = kitsch. Welcome to Fickle Kitsch, a blog about fashion and puns and other things I like.