by Jessica Teas
Fingernails are big business in the beauty world, which is why Fashion Week in each fashion center features a bevy of new nail looks and colors. The newest trends leave no doubt that fingernails have moved on from the days of only shiny red and pink to a Technicolor world of French manicures, nail art and even textures. Navigate the new world of fingernails with these helpful hints.
Texture: Chunky Glitters, Foils, Flakes and the Matte Manicure
Most of us grew up with fingernails so glossy we could see our reflections in them. While that's still the preferred look, adventuresome nailphiles are venturing into uncharted waters by and giving their fingernails textures ranging from broken glass to lacquered lace. Nail artist Sophy Robson created nail coatings with the look of jewels and tassels during London Fashion Week, and nail polishes premixed with chunky glitter have become a staple of the Lippmann Collection. Even boutiques and brands like Butter London have added textures to their 2010 polishes. To get your glitter fix, opt for new blue shade Across the Universe from Lippmann or Mad as a Hatter from OPI's Alice in Wonderland collection.
Essie, KO Knockout and many other nail polish brands offer colors set off with flecks of gold leaf and matte topcoats to wear over your regular color. OPI recently launched six matte polishes, including the popular neutral You Don't Know Jacques reinterpreted with a non-glossy finish.
Minx, which makes films in styles from mirror-like silver to Scottish tartans and leopard prints that you stretch over your fingernails, and the London salon WAH Nails have developed cult followings thanks to their products’ and artists’ abilities to turn regular old fingernails into veritable works of art. If you don't have the stomach for such bold fingernails, take it down a notch by applying a gold-flecked topcoat from Rococo Nail Apparel.
The New Neutrals
Everyone has created a new line neutral nail colors. Working with a palette of grays, browns and beiges, Chanel, Revlon, Butter London, Essie, OPI, ORLY, SpaRitual, Rescue Beauty Lounge and many other brands feature nail polish in shades such as nude, putty, mushroom and greige to match every skin tone. You can see Lady Gaga sporting this look on the September 2010 cover of Vanity Fair, where the pop diva wears Lippmann’s Waking Up in Vegas.
Neutral nail polishes are high-fashion meets fingernail. They’re also the antithesis of pretty — the fingernails equivalent of wearing Prada instead of Laura Ashley. Wear the muted colors on short, squoval — that is, squared and slightly oval — fingernails to complement coral or orange lipstick.
Singing the Blues ... and Greens and Lavenders
Gone are the days when all your nail polish options were slightly different shades of red and pink. Granted, OPI did launch the pink-centric SoftShades collection for spring 2010, but the company also launched Hong Kong, Shrek Forever After and Alice in Wonderland collections and updated the colors in its Swiss collection.
This has been the trend across the board. There's no pink in sight, but there are deep jades, fiery corals, lavenders, ochres, ogre greens and jewel-toned reds. Even Michelle Obama has been snapped wearing deep turquoise polish on her toenails.
The trick to pulling of a Crayola-inspired look is keeping your fingernails short and going bright and colorful on either your fingers or toes, but not both. Skip the overkill of painting every nail a different color; it looks as silly as it sounds.
Two-Tone Nails
We've seen the half-moon manicure before: Keira Knightley wore two-tone fingernails in a Chanel campaign she fronted a few years back, and Dita Von Tesse has shown the look more recently. The effect is created by painting the crescent above the cuticle a different color from the rest of the nail.
If you don't like the idea of a half moon, try a French manicure. But instead of the regular nude fingernails with white tips, apply color. Yves Saint Laurent’s Rock and Baroque collection features matched pairs of different-colored nail polishes for creating two-toned French manicures. Try the purple and turquoise Belle de Jour, red and fuchsia Rive Gauche or deep plum and gold Belle de Nuit duos. Or simply use two of your own colors to create this look.
The No-Chip Manicure
All this talk of nail trends assumes you will embrace them in the normal way — by applying and praying that your hard work lasts longer than three days. Until now, a manicure that lasted a week without showing signs of wear was just a pretty dream. New technologies, however, have made the truly long-lasting manicure a reality.
Giving a no-chip manicure requires using multiple specially formulated nail polishes, applying several coats in a specific order, and drying each coat of acrylic polish under an ultraviolet lamp. The resulting glossy finish is so durable that fresh-from-the-salon color remains until the end of two weeks. Many salons offering no-chip manicures employ the OPI Axxium Soak-Off Gel Lacquer System.
A major drawback of the no-chip manicure is that, as with gel fingernails, you have to go to a salon to have the polish removed. Applying a no-chip manicure is also more expensive up front than a traditional manicure and a bit harder on the health of your fingernails. But the manicure's durability helps offset the cost, and you can keep your fingernails healthy by conditioning them daily.
Beauty writer and consultant Jessica Teas contributes to national and international beauty publications. InStyle Magazine's UK edition named Jessica's website, www.beautywoome.com, one of the 50 best style websites.
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