The story behind the 42cm nail
By Chloe Randall | 13 February 2021 | Feature
After winning multiple nail competitions, Ildiko Gheraszim, of Nails As Jewels, used the time lockdown gave her to improve her skills by taking part in many online courses with various educators. She then put her skills to good use by creating extreme nails.
“I wanted to test my skills and abilities and to push myself to extremes. This design was in my head for long time so when lockdown hit, there was enough time for me to put in practice my ideas,” revealed Ildiko.
Ildiko was inspired by the fact that 2020 was a difficult year for everyone and one aspect for her was that going to the sea was more difficult. This sparkled the idea of ‘if I can’t go to the sea, the sea will come to me. ‘This inspired the sea themed nail, along with her love of Disney inspiring the mermaids.
“At the beginning, I didn’t know how to do an extremely long nail, as we do not have extra-long nail forms in our industry. I had to glue 10 nail forms to each other to get the desired length. It was not easy; however, it was the only option for me,”commented the award-winning nail technician.
How the nail was made:
“For this design I used cover and clear gel as well as polygel from my future brand. I can certainly say that making a nail at this length is not easy or comfortable to make. Overall, making this nail was a challenge. It took me around 7 hours to finalise it, but I can say that the outcome was worth it, I fell in love with it instantly.”
“The mermaids were made of self-levelling gel, putted in the shape of cakes. In order to create the illusion of water, I used blue stained-glass gel (vitralium) in which I applied various nail decorations. The main challenges were to make a template in which I could work an extreme shape and to create a place with several lamps in order to be able to dry such a long nail length. I love that I managed to create, a part of my childhood story” smiled Ildiko.
This nail has an element of nostalgia for Ildiko, with her favourite film being The Little Mermaid. Ildiko has continued making extreme nails, and frames them to display.