[upbeat music]
- I'm Misleidys, I'm a nail artist.
My work I would describe as magical otherworldly
and avant-garde.
- Hi, my name's Hannah and I would describe my work as fun,
detailed and extra.
My name is Nydia and I am a nail technician.
I would describe my nail art
as classy, artistic, and different.
- You have an hour and a half
- To create nail art inspired
- By the following image.
- [All] Butterflies.
[upbeat music]
- Your arts will be photographed in an editorial photoshoot.
- All right, let's do it.
[upbeat music]
- So I'm just gonna buff a little light amount on the top
of my nail just to get the surface oil off,
gel does not like any moisture oil,
it doesn't want to adhere to skin.
So, for a longer lasting manicure, make sure they're dry.
- Using a very fine nail file, meant for the natural nail,
I'm just gonna slightly push back the cuticle,
it helps to remove the dead skin.
- So my first step is gonna be taking out the hearts
that we're gonna use to make the butterfly,
the hearts are vinyl and they're pre cut hearts
that I usually cut out with whole bunches.
- When I first looked to the prompt image,
my eye immediately went to the monarch butterfly,
they're my favorite kind,
then I was appreciating the other butterflies
that were also in the picture,
and I was like, yeah, let's throw some of those on.
Just gonna pop an assortment of butterflies.
Some that are fluttering, some that are still,
some dangling from chains,
like I've got a butterfly potty
just hanging out on my hands.
- Butterflies to me, always signify like positivity
and happiness, but also I always have seen people
collect them in terrarium.
So my idea was basically inspired off that,
like I thought it would be really cool
to execute a butterfly escaping the terrarium if you will
because of course I can't keep [beep] normal.
Just I gotta do it my way.
- I'm such a butterfly lover, I'm like Mariah Carey.
When I first saw the picture ,
I just wanted to have a big statement butterfly
where you could see all the details
because they're just beautiful.
- I have chosen to do gel extensions today.
So with press-on nails,
it's just adhesive taps or nail glue,
so there's no curing with a light
whereas with the extensions you're curing them on
so they're not coming off
until you have someone remove them.
This is just a little flashlight, it's a UV LED,
the flashlight is a mini version of the gel lamp
- Pressons are all the rave right now.
So I'm gonna take some glue
and I'm gonna apply some on the back of the nail,
there is a drop.
I'm going to blend around the cuticle area,
so it can have a more natural look
rather than such a press-on-ish look.
- What I'm using for the charms
is
Aprés,
their Diamond Gel charm adhesive.
Then you're gonna take your square slash terrarium
and you gonna set it, so that the wings
kind of come out of it.
- My color of choice will be cucumber mint,
technically every time you go back into the bottle,
that's a coped.
The biggest mistake a lot of people do is,
they apply a layer of polish that is too thick
and it can give you a lumpy look,
so two thin layers is always better
than two or three thick layers.
- So the second heart is basically the second wing,
well you gonna wanna do,
and this is the trick to make the hearts
look like a butterfly.
When they overlap, you gonna wanna overlap
half of the heart a bit.
- This is Japanese potted gel,
it kind of stays put where you want it to
while you're doing art.
- So when you flood the cuticle
that's when the gel hits the skin
and kinda pools in the edge right there,
so you kinda it all like butt up against the edge
of your skin and cause like a ridge
curing it and hopefully everything's in place,
didn't hit my hand.
- So now, we have are actually real dry flowers,
I'm gonna use, I like blue and orange.
[upbeat music]
- Wow!
Wait, I've done 45 minutes already.
Wow! I need to step it up.
So all of these all mini butterflies,
I made myself fully from scratch out of gel.
This is what it's made out of hard gel.
So, I'm trying to create a fluttering butterfly
for that I've had to make individual wings,
I also brought it to show you
just some elastic cord that I got just from the art shop.
As you can see when it's long
and you shake your hand around it flutters
- So now, I'm applying the Top Coat
and the Top Coat the reason why I'm going to apply it
is because, I want a smooth layer between the nail art
and the gel polish.
- So everything I use is all gel product.
Well, I like to spin the brush
after I grabbed the bead to do that,
because sometimes you get like a little trail behind it
and that way it keeps your brush clean
and also the outside perimeter of your bottles clean.
- So, I'm going to just kind of sketch a little bit
where I'm going to be placing the butterfly
and the stones, regular pencil.
[upbeat music]
- Now we're gonna draw our wings,
Kokoist black is black,
the best black to get detailed thin lines.
The Monarch butterflies,
they have this layer thin line look in between their wings.
So, this is gonna help you achieve that.
- So now we are going to adhere the pigments
to the white polish, and it's supposed to give it
like an airbrush look and ombre-ish look.
The purpose of me doing the gloss layer
is so that it wouldn't stick to the Gel Polish.
If you don't put the Top Coat
the Gel Polish still has the inhibition layer,
it will be sticky,
which means that the pigment will adhere to that.
- So this is called Resin Gel,
it's like a really thick consistency
for putting any kind of adornments on.
So that's just a super gummy, sticky situation in there
which is helpful for keeping everything in place.
Wow, that's excessive, okay.
- Look at that, she's already kind of floating out there.
[upbeat music]
- Just gonna dust off pigments.
- So I basically sculpt out of hard gel,
just tracing out the shape of a butterfly.
I hand paint everything, so that's the base
and then I'm doing all of the line work afterwards.
[upbeat music]
- I'm going to create the veins and the outlines
of the butterfly, but I'm going to custom make a black.
- [Woman] And why are you custom making the black?
- I just felt like doing it.
So I'm going to be mixing the WAVEgel Top Coat and black.
- I'm gonna take this brush again,
and now that our butterfly is in it's two area,
we're going to seal the wings in the back.
The reason you backfill the wings with the structure jaw,
is it's gonna help the wing keeps sticking up
so that I create the 3D effect of the butterfly.
- We have movement with my little living butterfly.
- This is my favorite part of the butterflies
just the veins in a butterfly
are kind of like the cheetah spots in a cheetah.
I'm working on both sides equally,
so once I do one thing on one nail to keep it symmetrical
I'm gonna do the same thing on the opposite nail.
♪ On the pressure ♪
- I'm definitely feeling the pressure right now,
only 15 minutes left.
- There's literally chains on every nail,
I have regrets.
No, let's hope for the best.
- I'm going to be using brush on glue
to glue the rhinestones.
This is the body of the butterfly.
- This is my VD extra pinky nail, party on the end.
And I may have regrets later as I try to live my life
when I leave the studio.
- Obviously, the butterfly is gonna wanna be around flowers,
so you just take one of your individual flowers
and just set it right there, now it's in a flower pot.
- I'm applying the Top Coat around the crystal
not over it kinda also help it in case a little bit.
- All right, I'll whip some Top Coat on and we're done.
One more stone, I apologize.
[upbeat music]
- Its over.
- What's the count down?
- Time is running out.
- Right on time.
- All right, I'm done.
- We made it in time.
- Cause now it's time for my photoshoot.
[upbeat music]
- Hi Nydia. - Hi.
- How're you today? - I'm good, how are you?
- Hello. - Just like show it to me.
[camera shuttering] - Hold up.
Yes
[camera shuttering]
Okay, [indistinct] to the wall.
Beautiful. We got it.
Thank you. - You're welcome
Thank you
- Hi Nydia, Hi Hannah.
How are you guys?
- Hi, thanks, how are you?
- Hi, I'm doing good, how are you guys?
- Good. - Good.
- I'm really disappointed that we couldn't meet in person,
because I would love to do a real life review
of all of our nails right now.
I love butterflies and I wanna see all of them.
- All right girls, show us the looks,
I wanna see we're ready.
Let's see 'em.
[indistinct]
- Yes. - Yes.
- Yes girls.
That's really dope.
- I always go for a celestial,
I always want to take nails and make them look in a sense
other worldly, like kinda different
from anything else anyone's ever seen.
So immediately I wanted to tell the story
of just the butterfly trying to escape the terrarium,
and that's what I went with.
- I love the minimalist look,
the nude pink is such a popular and sought after color,
looking at her design you can see why
- It looks like crisp and juicy,
so I would just describe it as, I dunno,
it's beautiful and over with it looks amazing.
I would definitely have that.
- I love doing my butterflies
and I really like doing 3D miniatures.
So of course I was like, this is an obvious choice to me
to just go over the top, do as many 3D butterflies.
I just always want them to look like actual mint butterflies
just flew over to my hand,
came for a picture and left.
There's a lot of work ahead of time,
and maybe some people are like,
Oh my God, why do you do it yourself?
But I just really liked making the sculptures, So.
- Its cause you get that result,
that's why you like doing it to yourself.
When people ever asked me that,
I'm always like, did you walk over to look at them?
That's why.
- Yeah, exactly.
Like I always say to myself
like I could buy these little things,
but I dunno for me it's like the personal challenge,
like how realistic and how small and clean
can I make these tiny objects.
- So once I saw the picture
I was automatically thinking butterfly front and center.
So I decided that the best way
for me to show that is to have a really big butterfly.
I chose the mint green
cause I wanted to give it a fresh earthy grassy look.
- I love the colors that you chose,
It's like a very springtime kind of nail,
which you know, the butterflies come out in the spring.
It's such a cute color combo,
we love the old ombre,
it's perfect ombre,
- And the way that you did the ombre,
like just kind of makes it really localized
or you have to keep it that it's still, I love it.
- When is the next challenge?
- Right - Good question.
- Can you imagine that video using your non-dominant hand
to do the other hand?
That would be a trip
- Or blindfolded.
- I'm ambidextrous so I'm down with that one.
- Its up the ante every single time.
- I'll see you on Instagram, I guess
- As in waves.
[laughs]