The success story behind nail art blog polishyoupretty.com is one of immeasurable admiration. Two high school friends, Jenny Stencel and Danielle Black, set out to combine their unusual love of nail polish and digital media in a blog that would focus on all the latest trends in nail art with nail polish demonstrations. Founded in October 2011, Polish You Pretty has gone from strength to strength being recognised by huge names in the fashion and digital media world, featured in American Apparel’s newsletter, as a feature on Style List and on the WordPress blog, to name but a few.
Although nail art fashion is seeing a revival, it has been a practice that can be dated as far back as to Ancient Egypt and the henna-stained nails of Cleopatra. Nail art can be thought of as the last area in temporary customisable fashion. Match your shoes to your handbag; match your nails to the event. The latest resurgence in nail art has also been spotted amongst celebrities to the extremes of becoming iconic, such as the tuxedo nail art Zooey Deschanel displayed at the 2012 Golden Globes.
Beginning with Tools and Techniques, Polish You Pretty eases the reader into the nail art realm with useful substitutions as dotting tools and nail art brushes are not exactly utensils you readily possess in your make-up arsenal. Armed with none of the right colours and some of the tool substitutions, I carefully followed the instructions for Polka Dot Power…on a willing male friend. As garishly as dark purple clashes with neon green, the step-by-step instructions were easy to follow and the accompanying photographs were reassuring as to what the effect should look like with the right equipment.
Polish You Pretty is Stencel’s and Black’s first book and it is a colour-explosive assortment of nail art styles with a fun and fresh look. Step-by-step instructions with full-colour photographs explain simple designs, such as Splatter to master the basic methods, to the more complex print-styles of Leaping Leopard.
Polish You Pretty by Jenny Stencel and Danielle Black is published by Ryland, Peters & Small and is available at http://www.rylandpeters.com/