American Horror Story: Nail Salon

TV Shows Can Be Nail Themes..

I rarely like to have all my nails the same color. In art there are always themes. When basing nail polish designs off other art.. A #Freakshow in this instance, the collaborative possibilities are endless. The nail is my canvas and I'll be showing it off for a while. I love TV shows and movies and books as themes for my polished paintings. The last TV show theme was American Horror Story: Freakshow in the beginning of 2015. It got rave reviews! Also, I was able to wear crimson red without it looking feminine. Freaky, maybe.. However, that was my goal. ;)

I remember I prepped each nail with Wet And Wild Base and followed through with a couple of thin coats of N.Y.C. white polish. I read in several places that nail polish actually takes up to 24 hours to fully dry, so I left it to dry over night. I also read that it's good to have a white polish in your stash because when used as a primer, it makes the colors "pop". It's true! The only white I've used so far is the 99 cent one from N.Y.C. It's nothing to write home about, yet it worked well and looked good. I like the cheap 99 cent N.Y.C. collection for several reasons.. 

·Good variety of colors. 

·Ideal for those that only expect to wear the color for events or parties.

·Great for beginners.

·Use for nail art.

Don't let the salesperson be like, "Yeah.. That's our cheap line. You don't want that." Just be like, "That's exactly what I'm looking for." And give a nice L.A. smile. They're the best.

So back to the nails..

The next day I cut out my "Freakshow tent stripes" out of masking tape and then pasted them on each nail evenly, except for my two accent nails. After the tape was securely in place, I polished over with red (black for two nails), and let it dry over night. It was very hard to get the tent stripes completely even. What helped was my white French tip polish pen by #SallyHansen. This pen isn't designed for corrections, yet despite the fact that it needs a top coat to keep the color from washing off, it worked very well.

The next morning I peeled off the tape and it looked great! I used a tiny brush to correct any mistakes. Then, I applied a clear #topcoat.

The key is letting it dry naturally. You cannot use any quick dry methods on these nails aside for a fan, so unless you have quick drying polish, prepare to wait. Don't ever let your top coat bleed colors into each other. Your entire nail will be ruined if when you apply the top coat, red polish bleeds into the white polish. Talk about a Freakshow!

With the #accentnails, on my ring fingers, I decided to do #Twisty's mouth and a decorated "FREAK" nail with some rhinestones. Twisty's mouth was drawn on with the silver and red Sally Hansen "I Heart Nail Art" on the white mask, and adding in some black to separate the teeth.

I wanted to paint my darling, sensuous #JessicaLange on the other accent nail, but I'm not that advanced. Instead I polished the nail silver with Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Silver Sweep. I always give two thin coats. After I used the dark silver "I Heart Nail Art" to write "FREAK" (in the event people didn't know of the show or get the theme). I glued on a few rhinestones and topped them with a non chip coat.

I left this design on from the beginning of January to a week after the show's finale. Most people knew right away it was in reference to #AmericanHorrorStory: Freakshow. Others thought it was a circus and a tiny handful thought it was a candy cane. I saved the nails (yup, gross) to remember this great show with.