The nail heart here strikes me as having a Scottish theme, what with the plaid and the white flower with the cross at its center. Though perhaps I’m way off course here and its meant to represent Ireland or England or whatnot. (Please excuse the ignorant Yank here and feel free to correct!)
In any case, whatever the theme might be the bigger point is that this image comes from a blog called Disconails and I’d bet my bottom dollar that it was made by a Japanese nail artist. While there are no hard-fast rules (thanks of course to the sharing of images on the internet) very often nail art has the stamp of a nationality to it. Like right now I think of London owning the tribal look, while lately Japan has been all over gold rectangle frames and studs, often inlaid with stones (as shown on the ring fingers above). Embedded feathers are also big there right now, too.
What’s hard for me to figure–maybe because I’m here–is what the look of U.S. nail art is. Eye-popping manicures are no new trend among the women in my Brooklyn neighborhood, who’ve been holding the art down forever, but I think the gel revolution is just starting to hit in the outer boroughs. Acrylics are still the thing though I’m now slowly seeing square nails being replaced by pointy nails among the younger crowd. As for the city fashionista types…meh, they’re wearing polish that is for certain but definitely there’s hesitancy in embracing art and even longer lengths…..not sure what that’s about (a fear of looking too outer borough?), but it’s something to ponder.
