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Nail Fail #1

You’d have thought that with a budget about 10,000,000 x the size of Best City Nails’, she’d be able to cook up a look at LEAST as good as ours.

Nope. Proudly-pouting Miley does not impress us with these plain black, stubby eyesores.

Perhaps she had ferocious talons, fit for a queen, but they got chipped and broken during THE CLIMB – hahahahahahah.

Oh well. Pro nails are probs not the best thing for herding cattle and playing geetar.

...SHE'S JUST BEING MILEY

2/10

A mark for the fact the’re painted, a mark for the fact they’re not chipped.

The generosity goes no further.

Hackney Nails Article “Filed Away: the Vietnamese heart of Hackney nail art.”

Read this interesting and funny feature from an East London news site about nail bars in Hackney, using a picture from BEST CITY NAILS!

CLICK HERE.

Lynn Enright is a good journalist.

Here’s some choice extracts:

“The workers hunch over their stations; little paper masks protecting them from the noxious fumes and floating detritus. Furiously they file and buff; there is no time for small talk.”

“Hackney-born Charaf is eager to chat away though. “We get all sorts in here,” she says. “A bit of everything – old ladies, young school kids, black, white, but never Vietnamese actually. The Vietnamese run the nail bars but they don’t get their nails done.” ”

“So from America to Hackney, with the help of the Vietnamese diaspora, and then onto Ireland, this is one trend that’s truly global.”

Week #2

AMAZING!

 

Here’s just a little something I whipped up, y’know.

The main colour is Rimmel’s 60 Seconds, in ‘Blue My Mind’ – delightful.

The second coat of this was liberally sprinkled with silver glitter of the coarse kind you can buy in an art shop, and sealed in with a top coat.

As you can tell in the main picture, there are two dividing lines – one hot pink and one glittery purple. This look would have worked better without the purple line because it is too close to the main colour, so it just looks like there’s a gap between the pink and the tips.

It spoils the strength of the look.

Zebra tips, always a favourite.

8/10

– losing out on full marks because of the purple stripe fiasco. So near, yet so far.

PRAISE!

Week #1

AMAZING:

 

WHAT WE USED:

L-R:

Saffron London ‘Ultra Nail Polish’. Colour 48 (frozen pea green), from eBay

‘Flexbrush’ – gold striping brush, from eBay

No. 7 – ‘Stay Perfect’ in Betty Blues (more then one layer and it’s pretty much black)

Seche Vite – Dry Fast Top Coat

And of course, SUPER GLUE!

[As you can see there is also purple and white used in the manicure, which were from a set of very cheap striping brushes/pens, available on eBay]

Step #1

Paint the green over the nail bed, using a curved stroke at the top to avoid the tip of the nail. If one nail is broken or shorter than the others, leave a bit of extra space unpainted at the top so that not all the nail bed is covered and the tips all look proportional.

Use enough polish for the brush not to drag and leave marks. Vertical strokes along the length of the nail are easier to control and give a better finish than horizontal ones, but you may need to vary your strokes to get an even, plasticy look.

This is two coats.

Step #2

Paint your tips. Don’t be tempted to go along the width of the nail – use three or four carefully-angled VERTICAL strokes, and it will be easier to control. It doesn’t matter if the line between the two colours is a bit raggedy because you’ll be going over it with the striping brush.

Step #3

Use the gold striping brush to put dots across the tips Start with three or four big blobs, which you almost drip on from the tip of the brush. Then scrape excess varnish off the brush and then use the blobs already on your nails to dip the brush into. This gives you the light amounts of varnish you need for your smaller surrounding dots.

These dots can take a while to dry, as it’s quite a lot of varnish. That’s cool though, because you still have to do the purple half-moons and white dividing lines.

Step #4

Then add purple half-moons using a purple striping brush, and white dividing lines using a white striping brush.

With the white lines, it’s best to go from the centre of the nail, and out to either side (if you go from the outside in, your two lines might not meet at quite the same height like this:  —__    and if you try to do it in one swoop, well, it’s your funeral).

Of course you better add a good TOP COAT. Waint until your nails are dry to the touch of your lips before using a top coat. If you have a fast drying top coat like Seche Vite, or you have time to kill, you better use TWO coats, for an extra-smoothe, acrylic look.

Ooohh yeah.

8/10

– because I am not 100% sure about the colours. It’s not the green and purple (that’s a classic satisfying clash), it’s the further combination of black and gold…am I trying to combine two worlds in one? At times I think so. So we lose two marks.

***

Stay tuned for more BEST CITY NAILS… 

Welcome to Best City Nails

Welcome to BEST CITY NAILS…

You’ve heard of CITY BEST KEBAB, and BEST AMERICAN PIZZA, and BEST CITY FOOD…well now it’s time to give London’s raggedy nails what they deserve – the best.

We’ll keep you posted on what we’re wearing on our talons week by week, PLUS:

  • How to achieve FIERCE Best City Nails-inspired looks
  • Celebrity nails
  • Nail street style (it could be you!)
  • Nail tips
  • Nail bar reviews
  • Nail product reviews
  • Cultural nail studies
  • Nail Fails
  • And more…

 

So get ready to SUBSCRIBE (for real), and let’s VARNISH London town – all the colours of the ‘bow man.

SOHO! RIHANNA! POP! NEON! FRENCH TIPS! STRIPES! NEW CROSS! SPOTS! STRIPES! BOW! FASHION WEEK! PARTIES! SHOREDITCH! CELEBS! FOILS! LONDON! GLITTER! KID SISTER! FIERCE! HOXTON! KATY PERRY! KEBAB! CHECK! CLUBBING! SEX! DOLLY PARTON! STARS! COOL! DALSTON! DANCING! HIP HOP! WHITECHAPEL! AMAZE!