I know we’re pretty much halfway through June, and that might seem like I’ve missed the timing to do a roundup post of nails that I made in May, but I’m nothing if not the opposite of prompt, and thus, here I am.

I can’t say that I’m some sort of Nail making expert- I am always still learning and still trying out new things, but the journey is what is important in life, not a perfect finished product.

As always, an array of fandom Nails were top of my list- My girlfriends have a desire for their biases on nails and I have a desire to make them nails to bring them joy (and also work on my skills), so I’m more than happy to do so.

First up was (a fourth) set of Ateez Yeosang Nails for Katy, which I did sort of a teal and red Jewel tone situation with gold accents, as she loves a good jewel tone moment. She however doesn’t love feeling texture on the nails, so some of these are a bit on the thicker side as I encapsulated all of the gold metal charms fully, so there’s really a give and take when trying to make nails perfect for the person.

I also made her another set of Stray Kids nails, this time for her bias Han, and she specifically requested a set of images of him performing a more sultry song on stage. I decided to try out a new product I’d never really used before- nail ink. I haven’t really gotten the hang of it yet, but I did my best for now (and also managed to spill a bunch of it all over my desk- thank goodness I’ve got a silicone placemat on my desk otherwise I wouldn’t have ever been able to get the stain off of anything!)

My good friend and concert buddy Nicole wanted a set of nails that featured, in a quote “Jaeyoon going from good boy to thot, in Blue.”

After laughing about it for like 10 minutes I decided to do a sort of white to navy blue gradient over the entire set of nails, where the darker the colour the less clothes the resident muscle boy of SF9 would be wearing, and then did some silver accents to add a bit of interest. Nicole really likes square nails, but I had some new XS Squoval nails that I decided to use to try out.

I’ve recently been peer pressuring my friend Daphne into the ZeeNu lifestyle (the Zee Pruk and NuNew fandom from Thai Boys Love for anyone who doesn’t know them) and as a little present for all the nails I make her, she actually wrote me a custom little fan fiction of my two favourite BL fellas, and ended up doing way too much research on them and their dynamics, so as a further peer pressuring I made her a set of gold and pearl encrusted set of ZeeNu nails to further con her into my fandom along with me.

And because I don’t just make fandom nails, I also had to make a bunch of cute little nails for the gals to practice new techniques.

I tried to make some rainbow themed nails so they can have something to wear for pride, and I also recently got a new pigment palette so I’ve been practicing gradients and colour blends with, which did help with the blending. I’ve also been playing a lot with layering glitter and solid colours, and have been really enjoying glittery nails recently.

Katy had also seen some really cool snakeskin chrome nails online and I decided to try it out. While I wasn’t totally happy with how they turned out (I wanted my chrome blending to be a bit better, but that’s what practice is for!) I do think they are really visually interesting and hopefully she enjoys wearing them. I’ll definitely be trying this out again, I’m thinking of maybe doing a set of dragon nails using a similar technique. It looks really cool and I think sort of adding in some Magnetic polish elements and maybe glow in the dark fireish accents could be really cool.

Flowers are somehow the bane of my existence, but I’ve been trying to get better at them as they’re pretty much the basics of nail art designs, so I’ve been (somewhat poorly) doing some drawn floral designs, and also trying to incorporate floral stickers into things. I like flowers, I’ve just never really had the knack for drawing or painting them.

They elude me, but practice as always makes perfect.

While these weren’t the only nails I made this month, I think I can see some marked improvement over older sets.

Learning a skill or an art isn’t an instantaneous thing, it’s a process that you go on for your entire life, and frankly I’m really happy to be going on this journey.

Nail art for me isn’t just some sort of frivolous thing- it’s an act of showing a part of yourself to the world. What do you like, what appeals to you, how you interact with the world and those around you- it can all reflect on a customization of your nails. People have been doing jewelry and adornment of self since the dawn of humanity, and modern nail art is a link in a chain stretching back millennia. It’s rather fascinating to think about- we are not some unmoored island of time, we are all reinventions of everything that came before us, a repeating and evolving pattern of humanity.

Nail art is, to me, a fun and joyful expression of self. While it, and many things feminine, are seen as frivolous and pointless things, there is nothing frivolous or pointless about the expression of self, the sharing of human joy and experience. And while nails and cosmetics are certainly not the only thing that can do this, it is rather short sighted to completely write off and erase an aspect of human nature, self decoration, that has stretched back since humans came to exist.

So proudly wear those silly little nails! Do your hair in those funky hairstyles, put on the brightly coloured top, grab the neon lipstick- these are things that make us human along with every other part of the experience of existing on this Earth together.