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Apparently nail art is "the new lipstick," enjoying soaring popularity, both on the runway and IRL, due to nail-art-happy celebrities and the proliferation of Internet "nail porn," where devotees swap DIY tips and post aspirational photos on blogs like "Fuck Yeah Nail Art." At least, that's what CNN says. The article is well-timed; I've definitely noticed that more and more of my favorite blogs are covering the practice. But I have to confess: I do not get the whole nail art thing at all. More »
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When I was watching Rihanna's "You Da One" video, I was struck by two things: one was the incredible shot-by-shot similarity between Rihanna's work and an old Numéro editorial by Solve Sundsbo (which director Melina Matsoukas, who previously was caught ripping off an old David LaChapelle editorial for another Rihanna video, failed to credit). The other was her nails. Those nails, I thought, are pretty awesome. So I decided to try replicating them at home. More »
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If Good Morning America is to be believed, women are frantically running to their local salons to demand a new style of manicure that will make PETA weep: snakeskin manicures and pedicures. Yes, for $100 bucks a pop, a salon technician will cut bits of the actual skin of a snake into the exact shape of your fingernails and stick them on for a unique, grandiose look. The practice can be traced back to a Texas salon which described its implementation of said snake-nailing thus: "When we first did it on actual customers their first reaction was 'Ew!' and then they said, 'Let me see that.'" Consider me sold. More »
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Why not freshen up your nail game — and/or document your Jackson Pollock/Abstract Expressionism fandom — with this DIY manicure that mimics the effect of spattered paint? Like all the best things in life, it looks a hell of a lot more complicated than it actually is. All that stands between you and getting just the right amount of streaky spatter on your fingertips is a little nail polish and a drinking straw.

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Yesterday Guinness World Records named Chris Walton of Las Vegas the woman with the world's longest fingernails. Her nails measure 10-feet-2-inches on her left hand and 9-feet-7-inches on her right hand. Perhaps Walton does have the longest nails in the world, but the folks at Guinness should really take style and presentation into account. We can't help feeling that Jazz was robbed! More »
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I guess it's no real secret that I'm into doing my nails. Having manicured hands stops me from biting my nails, for one thing, and I am lucky enough to be in a profession where I can rock all kinds of weird nail art. That wasn't always the case; I sometimes think that my interest in nails is just one more after-effect of having first a high school and then a job where anything but clear polish was verboten — kind of like how I still don't own a single pair of brown leather shoes because those were the shoes I had to wear, with white socks, every weekday from ages 12-17. That and as a writer I spend a lot of time looking at my hands, I suppose. More »
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Much unlike many a magazine editor who recommends you buy all sorts of crap that they most likely got for free, your Jezebel staff doesn't get jack shit (other than books, unsolicited). And that's how it should be. But on our own time, in our personal lives, we still buy stuff. So this is Worth It, our daily recommendation of random things that we've actually spent our own money on. These are the things we buy regularly or really like, things we'd actually tell our friends about. And now we're telling you. More »
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This week's DIY comes to you with a hat-tip to Sarah Palin. Please don't stop reading: the thinking woman's least favorite half-governor has a pretty fearsome nail game. Don't imitate Palin's politics: bite her nails (steez). More »
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Back in the era of Deco and Depression and FDR, ladies who did paint their fingernails didn't generally paint their fingernails the whole way. Wouldn't you like to know their secrets? More »
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Leopard-print nails are fun, and one of the easiest "fancy" manicures to DIY. All the painting is freehand, and you can work quickly because the more uneven your leopard spots are, the better. With three chords, you can write a rock song. With three polish colors, you can do your nails all leopard-y. More »
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Brightly colored stripes were all over the spring collections — Jil Sander, Prada, Marc Jacobs, Fendi, and Céline all played with parallel lines — but a dress or a top by any of the aforementioned isn't exactly within my freelance writer's budget. Also — no offense to MObama — I strongly suspect I'd feel like a tool wearing most of those things in a year. So...I set myself the challenge of incorporating stripes into my look in a far cheaper, and reassuringly temporary, way. Striped nails! Here's how I did it. More »
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As children, we're taught that dialing 911 for a non-emergency was an epic no-no. Not so for Cynthia Colston of Florida, who called 911 four times from her nail salon because she thought her manicurist did a bad job. More »
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• There is a surfeit of Kardashian-reated news this morning! The Sisters K have, variously, a newly opened store, a broken toe, a Christian Louboutin reaction quote regarding said injured digit, and a new credit card with their faces on it:

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Not shockingly, the recession has gotten in the way of some women's regular manicures. Good news for us nail-biters and Sally Hansen, less so for salon owners, many of whom are in trouble. [NYT] More »
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There are so many things to worry about as a woman prepares herself for childbirth: Will my baby be born healthy? Will my body recover fully? Will my vadge look perfectly hairless when it comes time to push a child out of it? Yes, increasing numbers of New York women are scheduling everything from hair appointments to manicure appointments to waxing appointments just before going into labor. And in one case, a woman got a mani/pedi the morning before she gave birth — despite the fact that she was already having contractions. After all, as one new mom puts it, "At least when I look back at the pictures of me holding my baby, I can say - other than how beautiful my son is - 'Oh, what a damn good manicure that is!'" Priorities, people. Priorities. [NYPost] More »
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I had my first-ever manicure at age 19, using a gift certificate given to me by the woman I had been interning for that summer as a thank you for my work. The whole process made me feel nervous and uncomfortable: some stranger pouring over my hands, studying them, holding them, painting them. I had made it all the way through high school and my first year of college with no deeper knowledge about "beauty" than whatever I was able to discern by reading what came with the giveaways I got with my Clinique face soap and toner. (I had a lot of that bronze lipstick, suffice it to say.) And I think I was lucky: Cosmetics companies and spas are making greater and greater efforts, reports the NY Times, to convince young children and their parents that they cannot live their lives without regular manicures, pedicures, cosmetics and, sometimes, full-out makeovers. Six to nine-year olds are, apparently, the latest demographic that the beauty industry is trying to entrap. More »
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According to an article in the New York Times, a study by researchers at the University of Toronto found that children who, while in the womb, were exposed to the chemicals nail salon workers use performed worse on tests for cognitive function, language and behavior — and the intensity of exposure for salon workers is 1200 times that of the average American. Toluene (a colorless liquid used as a solvent), formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate (which makes nail polish flexible) are all in regular use at nail salons, and all are on the government's list of chemicals that cause cancer or birth defects. More »
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Lindsay Lohan may have thought she was hot stuff when she got a "chipped manicure" to give her a rocker-girl chic look, but Sienna Miller is taking this season's black nail trend to a new level. The Factory Girl actress was spotted with a bashed black thumb at New York's JFK airport when she was yapping in the customs area (where cell phones are banned) about her bleeding thumb. Could the trendsetting Brit manage to bring back self-mutilation? More »
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