Nail School - Day 16 - Nail Art

Today was emotional. I think I went from happy to sad and back about 15 times. This morning I was really peppy and excited because, in conjunction with our 100 hour exam (which I wrote about yesterday) we have a 100 hour practical exam where we are graded on a manicure and pedicure that we perform. The grading process goes like this: All of the students get together in the pedicure room (where there are four pedicure stations and two manicure stations) and perform services on each other and the teacher watches us. That means that the teacher is watching six different services at once, which is a lot! I noticed that she wasn't paying a lot of attention sometimes, presumably just because there was so much to watch. I gave a pedicure to my partner first -- which was the first source of my mood change. I happened to be at the pedicure station that was DIRECTLY in front of the teacher, which usually would not bother me, because I'm confident in what I do. But, today, I gave the worst pedicure of my life. I mean, I did horrible. It was so bad that I don't even care about what grade I got on the exam (we find out tomorrow), all that I care about is the fact that I feel like I got worse. I wasn't proud of my work and I wasn't proud of myself. I don't typically have off days, so this really got me down. After the pedicure I was in a bad mood out of disappointment in myself. I started gaining my composure back as the day went on. My partner gave me a great pedicure and after lunch, I was back to my usually happy self (though still a bit disappointed). I mean, I know people have off days, and that I can't always be perfect, but I felt like I took a huge step backwards. On the plus side, I feel more driven now to perfect my pedicure! After lunch I gave my partner a manicure, which COMPLETELY changed my mood. She had very thin nails due to an acrylic removal so I took great care in buffing them and really changed their appearance. And, not only that, but when I polished her nails it was one of the best polishes I've done on someone who isn't myself! I was so proud.

In fact, the manicure was so great I figured I'd share it with you. I got to use my partner's personal nail polish, which was from the new OPI Nicki Minaj collection. The color is called Metallic 4 Life and it featured multi-sized silver hexagon glitters in a black jelly base. It had an incredibly easy application for a glitter polish and in only two coats I achieved opacity (though I've seen else where that it really needs 3 coats). The glitter came out of the bottle easily and the polish was so beautiful that I would highly recommend it. I'm not usually a huge glitter nut, so I was surprised I loved it so much! Hope you enjoy: