“I’ve never pulled so many colours for a mani!” said Naomi Misu of Tips Nail Bar as she got ready to start my manicure.
Yes, it’s that time again — I’m running the Goodlife Toronto Marathon (this is the second time I’m running the Toronto Marathon) on Sunday and so I went in to get a “marathon mani” at Tips Nail Bar. I didn’t have anything in mind last week but I started surfing the internet and thought of my Kenzo sweatshirt with the tiger on it. So I googled Kenzo and come across some nail art, but none featured the tiger. I also came across some fantastic Kenzo pants in a bright leopard print.
So I talked to Leeanne Colley, owner of Tips Nail Bar, and said I’d like the Kenzo tiger, the eye, and the K (I’d actually almost bought the K sweater winter before last, I liked the K given my name is Karen) and mentioned that I liked the bright leopard print. She told me bluntly that the tiger would be very tough to do…
But then whaddya know…she sets me up with Naomi, who looked at all the elements I said I liked and then incorporated them all into this killer Kenzo manicure. Took less than 2.5 hours (a big chunk of that time devoted to the tiger).
Love it. And love that she put one K on each hand…”as in KK, your initials!” says Naomi.
Now I’m pretty sure I need to download “Eye of the Tiger” as a power song for my marathon. Anyhow, no matter how the race goes, these nails are a personal best.
April 30, 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…
March 25, 2015
So it’s been a good five months since my last race (the Goodlife Toronto Marathon in May 2014) — ie. a good five months since my last killer marathon manicure! What the what.
Needless to say, I was very excited to get my digits race-ready with Leeanne Colley at Tips Nail Bar this week. I’d come across this wicked X nail art on Instagram (on @ninanailedit). Except the look was done with a floral design in the X, and I’m not really a floral kinda girl — which Leeanne knew instantly as she suggested changing it to a watercolour before I even mentioned not wanting a floral.
The look took about two hours to come together (but that included removing the gel polish I had on) because that Leeanne meticulously made sure each X hit the centre of each of my nails. For the watercolour effect, I showed her the colours on my Nike LunarGlide 6s (which I’ll be wearing for my marathon in Chicago on October 12, and for the Nike Women’s San Francisco Half-Marathon on October 19 — yes, I’m running two long races one week apart).
I like to think of the X denoting a target — and that it’ll help me meet my targeted time in Chicago! (If not, well, my nails are on point at least.)
October 8, 2014
