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SHE’S A WINNER!!

Misuzu Taga was the winner of the nail art competition at Olympia in May.   Here’s her story….I started doing nail art from two years ago after I finished my job in which I painted patterns for the ceramic music instruments. A lot of the acrylic paints that I used were left over so I start painting on my nails with it but I knew nothing about nail art. Painting and drawing had been my favourite hobby and I taught myself so it was not difficult to do it on the nails. I painted some flowers or patterns on my friends’ nails in Japan; they told me it is popular in the world now.

In April 1998, I came to England to do my masters course in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University.  Once I was settled in with my host family's house, I started painting theirs and their friends’ nails.  One lady was a regular client of nail and beauty salon TOUCH in Nottingham. She took my nail art to the salon and showed it to Linda, the owner of the salon.  Linda rang me later and I now I work as a nail artist.

In springtime, the most poplar pattern is a small flower on the edge of nails; it has five white petals and yellow in centre. It is simple and pretty, easy to match with spring fashion.   In summer, lots of ladies chose a blue base colour with dolphins. One lady asked me to paint every nail with different sea ornaments, such as a dolphin, a shell, the beach, a yacht, palm trees etc.  Black outlined flowers on a silver base colour are also popular in the summer.  At Christmas, I painted ten different Christmas ornaments on some clients’ nails.  I paint them on a dark purple base colour, the Christmas colours; red, green, gold and silver show up well over a dark base.  Intricate flowers on dark red looked gorgeous as well.   A zebra pattern on various base colour and simple black line composition on the edge are always popular. 

I enjoy doing nails once a week, I like when I think of a new design for my clients and I am glad when they like it. Sometimes clients bring me a swatch of material from the outfits they are wearing for special occasion, I paint same or similar patterns to matchtheir outfit. One day my lady brought a picture of her cat, I painted a cat on her thumb with some paw prints. Last year I painted a portrait of Cilla Black on a nail of a client who that was appearing on Blind Date. But when I saw actually Cilla on TV, my portrait was entirely different from her face!!

I entered the nail art competition at Olympia this year because I wanted to know at ‘what level’ I am now. I am not a qualified beauty or nail technician though I am trained by Linda at TOUCH to do nail extensions.  I thought if I could get a prize that would be enough of a nail art qualification.  Once I entered the competition, I found I was competing against the winner from the last competition, three Japanese nail artists and some competitors who had airbrushes.  I was very, very nervous and I could hardly hold my brush. The first half hour I had to calm down myself and concentrated on doing my best. I could not think about winning or the prize. I felt that the two and a half hours offered was long enough but when there it was a short time.  Eventually, I got a first prise and it is the biggest prize I have ever had.  My model and I did not realise that the model should be costumed, so we lost the mark.  I am going to enter next competition; I hope that I can do my best in this time with enough preparing and with no tension!

NOW, WHERE’S THAT STENCIL???

If you’re anything like me and your airbrush stencil collection builds by the day you need to keep them easily accessible.  Various companies do various types of stencil holders and wallets but the best I’ve seen so far is from Woolworths.  For £5.99 you can buy a photo album which neatly holds 5 stencils (or photos if you prefer the correct use!) per page, so when open you can see 10 clearly.  The pockets are clear and the round and heart shaped stencils fit perfectly and are easy to put away and remove, long stencils also fit neatly.  The album will hold 400 stencils so it should keep you going for a while!!

 

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go to front page - Introduction, Nail art

go to page 2 - This month's nail tech, Nails only magazines