Keeping Up With Melissa

While I am no wear near as interesting, dramatic, rich or gorgeous like the Kardashians, I will still call this post Keeping Up With Melissa :) Here's whats new...


My mom and I attended a "one-on-one" class from the Amazing Amanda at Young Nails in American Fork.  It was fabulous!  We brushed up on the basics and classics, perfected our skills, and learned some new techniques... definitely a day worth spent!  As you probably know... continued education is huge to me and I love to attend classes and shows every chance I get!!

I have the new CAPTION CONVERSION from Young Nails!! Ahh so exciting!  So this product converts all of their Caption Nail Polishes into GEL POLISH (and yes of course I own every single Caption color :) )! This is revolutionary people.. no other company has technology like this which is one of the many reasons I love Young Nails.  This opens up a whole new world of art possibilities such as better ombre nails (cuz it's so much easier with nail polish), matching your nail color perfectly with your stamped art color and much much more!!  Plus, who doesn't love having more colors to choose from ;)

I LOVE SPECIALTY SHAPES!!! Okay, so that's not anything new, but I wanted to touch base on it because it's so popular right now and it's probably my favorite thing to do right now!  Coffin (Ballerina), Stillettos, Almond, Almondetto, Lipstick, you name it, I love it.  Actually, just kidding.  I don't like duckbill, fan, shovel, whatever you want to call it, I don't like that shape.  Don't ask me to do it.  Seriously, don't.  I hate them :) Anyways haha These shapes can be achieved in both acrylic and hard gel so don't worry, you don't have to change from your faves to try it out.  Here's a few fun sets I've done!!

AND last but certainly not least... I have Swarovski Crystals!!!  These are stunning and SOOO much prettier than traditional rhinestones.  Not only are they incredibly shiny, but they stay on better!  I am going to post a video soon of these and the rhinestones side by side so you can see the difference.

I do have an announcement coming soon.. one that I will not publicly announce until the end of April, but it's super exciting and you guys are going to love it!  I can't wait to share it with you all!

Until next time... :)

Flashbacks

So I've been doing this new thing called "Flashbacks" that really has been fun for me!  It's cool to see what I've improved on over the years, and even just from last year!  I love that the beauty industry is always progressing and there's always something new to learn.  It's fun to see the trends too.  One year it seems like it's all acrylic tip colors, then the next all 3D art, then over to gel polish.  It's cool :)  Here's some flashbacks I've been posting on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Polished-Looks-By-Melissa-143856199012470/

Happiness Is a Good Hair Day

Clients ask all the time "Do you do more nails then hair?"  The answer actually is no lol I really do about equal amounts of each spread throughout the month, but it seems like I do more nails because I always take pictures of the nails I do and post them.  People tend to keep their hair the same so I don't want to bombard your feed with the same ol' (although gorgeous) brown I've done every. single. month.  I do like to post before and afters though when someone makes a change!  And I've been trying to be better about taking hair pictures.  So... here's what I've been up to lately in the hair world >>>>>>


This gal was a fun change!  She was a referral so she wanted something different!  We cut several inches off into a cute a-line, deepened her roots, and balayaged some highlights through the ends.

Now this beauty has naturally gorgeous hair, so while I'd like to take all the credit, I can't :( She was blessed with good hair genes!  I did lighten her up a bit more then we usually have done, cut a few inches off and gave her some loose curls.

I wish I would've taken a before picture of this lovely lady!  She had hair just below her shoulders and wanted something much easier to maintain and get body!  So... pixie cut we went!  She pulls it off well and her husband loved it which is a bonus :)

Recognize this head?  I post pictures of her a lot!!! She loves to change her hair and I love that she does!  She always keeps me on my toes with hair creativity and I look forward to her appointments every 6 weeks.  This before and after shows that we replaced her purple tones with red wine tones, shortened her a-line, and actually this is an a-symetrical cut.  The other side is to her ears.  See the second photo for a 180 of the cut.

Another before and after! She was a refferal as well so naturally she was looking for a change.  We chop chopped and color colored!  The after pictures were taken at night so it was terrible lighting and I was super bummed that you couldn't tell the red color.

Good news though!! Her second appointment was during the day so we had great lighting!!! Gorgeous right? 

Needing less maintenance but can't quite part with the blonde?  Ombre's are great!! Love it!

Now this bombshell likes to do fun things with her hair too!  This time we went black with caramel chunks underneath her top layer.  She's such a fun gal!

Spring Has Sprung

Okay as promised... Here is some of my Spring Nails so far!

I will say, the spring trend seems to be multiple colors with a simple design, which I like.  And how can you go wrong with polk-a-dots and stripes?  I wish you could see the black better because it's actually a really beautiful glitter in person!  It is Young Nails Black 101 with True Gel Toxic glitter over it.  One of my favorite combos! All hand painted

Now just as I say simple is the trend then of course I post these next :P  These are super fun though and they make me want to dance for some reason lol I love the bright colors on white and I love a different design on each nail.  Just too fun!  If you remember on my last post of catch-up, I posted a picture of a chevron nail I did last year and mentioned how I've improved.  This picture will show my chevron is much better now :) Loving it and all hand painted

I felt so good about these when I was finished!  I looked at a picture from Pinterest to recreate this stunning floral look.  And guess what.. the pink/orange color I used is CUSTOM!  I mixed Young Nails Tangerene Neon and True Gel Pink Truffle and it was perfect! All hand painted

These were fun too!  I used IBD Full Blu-um and Young Nails White 101 and Ozone glitter, all hand painted

 Simple and sweet right?  I told ya! :) I believe this color was True Gel Maui Babe which is an extremely popular color around here!  Glitter is Young Nails Silver glitter

I was pleasantly surprised with how cute these "dotter flowers" turned out.  I used Elegant Glass Neon Glo Purple and Young Nails White 101, Silver Glitter and True Gel Vivid Imagination

Simply sweet again! All these colors are NEW!! True Gel Teal the Beat and Hypnotic and a new Metallic Silver (hard to tell from the pic, but it is!) that is called MIRROR MIRROR.

Cute! Pinterest find again :) Young Nails White 101, Black 101, Tangerene Neon and IBD Tranquility.  All hand painted EXCEPT for the fun design on the middle finger.  Thats a stamp :)

And then we have copier!!!! LOL!  We did change it up a bit though and this tie the chevron was with a stamp.  I sure do have a love/hate relationship with those dang stamps!!  They are so cute when they turn out but sometimes they are a pain in the butt!

Simple again... IBD Full Blu-um and hand painted chevron.  And have you guessed by now my white and blacks are always Young Nails?  That's because they are the best!! :)

ALL HARD GEL! I love love love hard gel!!  I used True Gel Maui Babe with Young Nails Crush Glitter over the top, then Young Nails blue 104 and hand painted the arrows.

What's not to love about neons and black AND chevron!  So cute!

True Gel Rodeo Queen is another popular color around here!  Love it, flower hand painted :)

Remember when I said how can you go wrong with neon and black?  Well when you add cheetah to that mix you just really can't!  Neon colors on the tips are from Elegant Glass, Cheetah stamp from Young Nails Caption Art Screens and the colorful cheetah is actually really cool because it's done with Caption Lucents to get that awesome look!! Caption Lucents are my favorite!!

Cherry Blossom anyone?  I did the blue set first, and since then (just a week ago) I've copied it twice on two other clients, but in pink!  Such a trend setter Holly is :)

Pinterest find!  And I used my new Caption Conversion for this set!  Don't know what that is? Well I'll explain more in my "OTHER" post in the next few days, but the gist is I can now turn any of my nail polish colors into GEL POLISH!  Pretty freaking awesome!

And last but not least... these are just beautiful!  And guess what!?  Those adorable little seashell charms stayed on the entire 4 weeks and she even went to Florida and had a great time!  This is revolutionary here!  I figured out a way to get little charms and such to stay on so bring it on people!  Let's stick them on.. I have everything imaginable! Hand painted :)