Beauty Swellness: My comic-book KAPOW manicure for the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco

November 1, 2013

Nail-job craving: A few days before my manicure appointment I sent the above image, which is Roy Lichtenstein, to Leeanne at Tips Nail Bar, and said it’s what I was thinking I’d like for my mani.

“Dear god” was her text reply.

“That’ll take an entire day with all the layers to it,” she said to me once I got into Tips.

How I satisfied that craving: We went with a slightly simplified (but not really) version of this comic book look. Leanne started working on a few nails and it all came together as she worked. We knew were doing “Kapow” on two fingers, and I thought dots on one or two fingers, like the pixelated comic book print would work well, too (so that a few nails would be less complicated).

By the time we did one nail, Leeanne had her next client coming in, so the amazing Naomi Misu continued on the other nine nails. I (along with some of the other Tips nail artists) pretty much watched her do my nails with our mouths hanging open. When she outlined the words Kapow and Booyah (Leeanne’s idea!) in black, I think I held my breath.

When she decided to add a kiss on one of my thumbs, I thought it was cute exactly the way she painted it on…and then she took it to the next level by adding the delicate little lines that made it look like a real lip print! Whoa.

The colours used include a mix of soak-off gels and regular polish (all the detail nail art is in regular polish) including Cream Puff, Wildfire, Wham, Bicycle Yellow, Superstitious and Black Pool. Including the nail work to prep my nails, the manicure took three hours to complete.

How this nail-art makes me feel: Like I totally had to ROCK that Nike Women’s Marathon. I could hardly have “Booyah” on my nails and run my slowest marathon ever could I? And whaddyaknow, I ran my fastest marathon to date!

Love it or hate it: LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. This is up there amongst my most favourite manicures ever.

I run the Philadelphia Marathon in 17 days…can’t wait to get my manicure (and, oh yeah, cross the finish line, too).

Filed under: Beauty Swellness

Tags: booyah, CND, comic, kapow, Leeanne Colley, mani, manicure, nail art, Naomi Misu, Revlon, Roy Lichtenstein, Shellac, Tips Nail Bar, Vinylux