Hello Bows

Hello Kitty nails!  And the third design I’ve attempted from this cute instructional book, Hello Kitty Nail Art by Masato Kojima.  I think this manicure turned out rather well, don’t you?

I actually really like following these sorts of tutorials from time to time.  I have a tendency to fall into ruts of style sameiness where I’ll lean on one colour palette or a single design type time and time again.  Guides and tutorials (particularly this one; it’s a very nicely laid out book) always present some neat options I hadn’t considered, like adding sparkle to just one nail, or the cute negative space cutouts at the base of my cuticles.  A very pretty Kitty, indeed!

Hello Gifts!

Ending the month with a look back at some of the adorable Hello Kitty gifts I received this Christmas from friends and family, all of whom enable my love of Miss Kitty to varying degrees (Mr. Finger Candy is particularly fond of giving the gift of HK.)

This year I got some super cute, mostly nail art-related goodies, from an awesome Hello Kitty nail art book (look for some follow-along nail art from that in the coming weeks) to a definitely impractical breakfast sandwich pan with an embossed bottom.  Everything’s a bit quirky and not quite the usual, and with Hello Kitty adorning all of these gifts, of course I love them!  Let’s look at some of this bounty in a bit more detail, shall we?

Starting with the most random, here is an adorable Hello Kitty nail art kit filled to the brim with kid-friendly polishes and nail care goodies.  Housed in a hard-shelled plastic Kitty case with a sturdy little handle for portability, the polishes are sort of rubbery in texture – a sure sign that they’re water-based (aka kid-friendly.) I wasn’t really expecting much from the contents of the kit (particularly in light of the fact that the best before date on the bottom of the case is/was 2015!) but the polishes went on really well, if oddly. I say oddly because I’ve never quite encountered lacquers like this before – they were rubbery in texture once dry (and indeed, peeled off my nails just like liquid latex) but the polish that came out of the bottles was thick, and a bit gloppy. And yet not the least bit unmanageable, applying smoothly and cleanly.  Which is a bonus, because these sorts of water-based polishes do not play nicely with acetone, making cleanup rather unpleasant. So as always, polish between the lines, because there’s really no way of walking back your boo-boos without literally picking them off your nails.  Such anomalies, these Kitty polishes, but also very, very pretty.  I particularly like the glowy jade green.

More Hello Kitty nail art goodies came in the form of one of OPI’s mini kits from last year’s HK collection.  I haven’t yet given these traditional Kitty colours (with a nifty dotting tool and brush) the go-round, but I plan on using them to try out some of the designs from the Hello Kitty nail art book.  I love the yellow here, My Twin Mimmy – it’s the precise sunshine yellow of Kitty’s adorable little bean-shaped nose.

Finally, we have the gift I’m torn between using and hanging up in my kitchen as an object de pop art, a Hello Kitty breakfast sandwich pan.  A gift from my brother-in-law and his lady, both of whom appreciate my love of all things Kitty, this little non-stick pan is the perfect size for toasting your egg sandwich to golden perfection. That is, if you weren’t afraid of setting the bottom ablaze, and possibly also melting the decorative handle when it gets too close to the burner, which it will, because it’s the circumference of an English muffin!  And I am afraid of all of those things, so perhaps best to leave this one as a decorative object!