So let's start from the beginning...about two months ago while browsing around on Facebook I saw an article about a company called BBQ films, hosting a movie event for The Fifth Element. Little did I know this movie has quite a cult following, myself definitely included. Anyway...after doing some research, I found out that BBQ films is a "cinema social club" that hosts pop up movie events around New York City.
-drum roll please-
And for their screening of The Fifth Element, they had rented a yacht and decorated the ship to look like the Fhloston Paradise, the giant cruise ship from the movie. Along with the screening of the film, tickets to this event included free popcorn, a free futuristic cocktail and for the 1st 100 people who signed up, a free multi-pass with your picture on it! (Leeloo Dallas, multipass! Negative, I am a meat popsicle.)
Best part of the event...dressing up in futuristic costumes!
So anyway, I knew that for this event I wanted to do something ridiculous with my nails. At first I thought I could paint them orange (the color of the main character's hair), but that seemed too simple. After thinking about some of the details of the movie, it suddenly hit me. The Fifth Element takes place in space, so why not try the one technique I had still yet to attempt...Galaxy Nails! Thanks to Beautylish, for their awesome galaxy nails tutorial.
So I know what everyone is thinking right now...If I looked up a tutorial on galaxy nails, then why is the title of this post, super nova nails? Well if anyone has been following my blog, you know that I always have a back story...
So, to be honest, originally I was going to call this design, galaxy nails. However, after some research, I found that galaxy nails might not be the right description for this mani. So according to our good friend Wikipedia, a galaxy is defined as, "a massive, gravitationally bound system consisting of starts, stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and dark matter...The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias (γαλαξίας), literally "milky", a reference to the Milky Way. Examples of galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million stars to giants with a hundred trillion stars,each orbiting their galaxy's own center of mass. "
After looking up a picture of a galaxy, I found that most images were similar to this one...
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| http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9845d/ |
Most galaxies have an over all spiral shape and seem to be centered around a cluster of mass. Further, most of the galaxy images I looked at contained a "milky" white color, almost glowing from all those trillions of stars. Looking at my nails I thought, "Na, that's not really what this looks like"
So here's the rest of my back story. About a day or two after I had done this manicure, I went into work (I work at a college bookstore) and overheard that one of our customers was looking for a book on supernovas. So I'm not a huge science person or anything, but I thought, wait a second...lets see what that looks like. So I googled supernova and found this...
Back to our good friend Wikipedia...
"A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. …Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months. During this short interval a supernova can radiate as much energy as the sun is expected to emit over its entire life span"
All the images of supernova's showed bright explosions of color and light that seemed in no way organized, a little bit closer to my space manicure...
So, how did I do it? Well galaxy, or super nova, or whatever you want to call it...this manicure is actually a lot easier than it seems. What you are going to need is a sponge, several bottles of nail polish, an awesome glitter polish, and a little bit of patience...
First, I painted all of my nails black (two coats) and let that dry completely. Than, using a make-up sponge, I sponged 5 different colors (yes, actually 5) on to my nails. The best way to do this is to sponge one color on at a time, in random spots on your nail. I would say the important elements of of this manicure is making sure you have a good metallic polish (I used a metallic pink), a good soft blue (I used a cornflower blue, which sort of adds to the intergalactic haze lol), and a nice shimmery purple, blue, or blue-green (I used a blue-green shimmer from forever 21. I sponged the blue shimmer as my final layer and did it sparingly. A little goes a long way). However, the most important part of this manicure, is definitely the glitter top coat which goes on last over everything.
After you sponge on all of your blues, greens and pinks, your nail sort of looks like a blur of color. However, after you add a glitter polish, the tiny sparkles seem to really blend the colors together and really give your manicure a sense of depth and outer space haze. I found that its best to use a glitter polish with two different sizes of sparkle. That way, it appears as though your nails have tiny stars and distant planets floating around on them.
And to add an interesting and useless fact for the day...Supernova remnants (all the pretty gases and colors) are often the trigger that leads to the creation of new stars. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to add some actual stars to my manicure!
So, that's my really long back story behind these nails! Let me know what you think!
And last but not least, leave me a happy face : ) in the comments section if you remember Zenon, Girl of the 21st Century and the best song ever from the movie...SUPER NOVA GIRL!
Yayy 90's kids!
Sally Hansen - Pink Satin (shiny metallic pink)
Sally Hansen - Black Out (black base)
Revlon - Hazy (cornflower blue creme, seen on pinky)
Essie - Dive Bar(dark shiny blue)
Love and Beauty - Blue/Green (metallic blue and green glitter, seen on the base of the thumb)
Julep - Paris, It Girl (sparkles)
Konad White (stamping)
Mash 34 - Planet
BM20 -Stars and Arrows
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