Beauty Swellness: Beachy tribal nail art

March 25, 2015

These nails, though.

I’ve been Instagramming my nails more often rather than blogging (you can find me on Instagram under @healthandswellness, and I just joined Snapchat, by the way, under HealthSwellness), but I thought you loyal blog readers needed to see this nail art. Because, well, look at it!

I initially booked my manicure as I get “marathon nails” when I run a race, and I was set to run the Around the Bay 30k this Sunday. I’m now traveling to work to the Caribbean and am skipping the race, but I kept the manicure appointment as a treat to myself.

Since I’m heading to a beach, I wanted something tropical and bright and I love Mara Hoffman’s prints, so I showed the incredible Naomi Misu (you can find her on Instagram under @naomi_misu where she posts some of her incredible nail art) at Tips Nail Bar a few pics and noted that I wanted an eye as the main nail-art focus (and told her that the rest of the nails could be simpler — the Tips team spoils me by creating labour-intensive looks on my nails, but I realize, duh, they have other clients and can’t spend all day with me).

Well, I’ve always joked that my marathon manis take me almost as long as it’ll take me to run a marathon, but this time the manicure actually took longer than what I’d hoped to run Around the Bay in. Naomi started with a base coat of white, leaving some negative space chevrons. I got distracted replying to work emails at this point, and the next time I looked up, my mouth fell open. “Whoa,” I said. She’d painted on the intricate black lines on my pinkie. “Um, you remember I said you can do something simple on most of the nails, right?” I said to Naomi. “Yes, yes, I know,” she replied, but she assured me we were all good. It’s not that I didn’t love it (inside I was about as excited as I get at a NKOTB concert, which is to say VERY) but I didn’t want to throw off the schedule.

I let Naomi do her thing, letting her focus and only whispering, “This is bananas…” as she created the look on my nails. I’d tell you what colours she used but I was too distracted watching her work to even take note of that, haha.

And, no, I’m not a member of the Illuminati…

Filed under: Beauty Swellness

Tags: gel nail polish, Gelish, mani, manicure, nail art, nail polish, nails, Naomi Misu, Tips Nail Bar