Robyn's rockin' Retro #5: Nails!

Obviously I had to do some nail art for this little series of mine. They're all modern designs based on retro or pin up stuff - your average fashionable 40's or 50's chick, from what I can discern, had pretty pointy nails, which I can't deal with even thinking about trying to attain, and there weren't many nail colours available back in the day.

Anywoo...



I tried my hand at the ol' half-moon mani, which the lovely Dita quite often sports. However, having seen a picture of the equally lovely Patricia Day wearing black nails with white tips, I decided to do a black and white one. Not the best, but for my first attempt I wasn't disgusted with my own incompetence. I just did them freehand (here's an Illamasqua tutorial!) and cleaned up with a Q-tip. I thought this looked punky and cool.



Conversely, this is the worst mani I've done ever. Raggedy cuticles, pooey Konad and my hair dye stained the white base pink! Fail. Oh well. You get the idea, cherries, pin up, yadda yadda.



A quick sailor mani - the colours and placement were my boyfriends idea. I think he did a good job, no? Sorry for the one crappy picture. Bad light that day!



Polka dots ftw! This was my sisters idea. I had no idea what to do for pin-up nails and she said do a pair like a spotty pair of knickers! I wish I'd had time to put little fimo bows on, but I didn't. Still, it was super easy and I got more compliments on this manicure than I've ever gotten for one before. Thanks Bones :D (That's my sister, fyi!)








I'm in two minds about this one. I love swallows, I love their use in tattoos (I have one myself) and seeing how - probably because of the tattoo thang - they're pretty synonymous with pin-up culture, I had to do a swallow mani. I chose red and blue on flesh-coloured nails to mimic early tattooing. I think I did an ok job - I used acrylic paints but I can't find my nail brushes so I had to do these with an orange stick.





Poodle skirt mani! Yeah, I know the lead doesn't really join up, but whatever. The bottom poodle looks a bit butch, which is odd because he was on my left hand, but I really liked the other one. I decided butch poodle takes care of cutesy poodle. I loved this mani even though I lost one of my nails - ouchy!


Sorry for my lack of posts with actual content. I do have another hair post to come, but I've only done half of it, and I have some more pyschobilly looks but I need to do one or two more to flesh out a post a bit. Also I need to do my 20s look! Gah!


Snogs xxx