NAILS | Nucleotide Skittles Version 2.0 #ManiMonday

I started bullet journaling last month and in trying to keep to themes and staying organized, I have chosen "Back to School" and "Science" as my themes for beauty! You guys know that I love drawing molecules on my nails and I am hoping this theme will keep me focused and allow that creativity to come back. There will still be new Fall polishes featured. but academia will take priority!

Some of you may have already seen in stores one of the cutest and most perfect nail polish collaborations - Sally Hansen and Crayola! I mean talk about one of the best pairings ever! These polishes are bright, happy and pigmented to the max like most Insta-Dri polishes and have been so much fun to play with! It only seemed appropriate to use these new polishes for an updated version of the DNA nucleotide base nails that I did more than FIVE years ago. I cringe at how my photos and nails were back then, but hey at least I'm growing up!

NAILS | Happy Anniversary to the Original Amino Acid Molecular Nails! #ManiMonday

Five years ago, I decided to try something that I had never seen before on nails - molecules. I planned for months what to do and finally decided on this. This was when I first started doing nail art and didn't know a lot of what I know now so I thought that on this anniversary, I'd clean up my cuticles, spruce up the colours and give you a non-blurry photo!

These nails have actually been copied a few times as well as mislabeled as "Feynmen Nails" which they are not! This idea gave much inspiration to a lot of the science nails I do and it was all done to show that just because you are a girl does not mean you can't love beauty AND be intelligent. When I was in school doing cell biology and later on computer science, being a girl was one thing, but being a girl that liked doing her nails or makeup? Obviously, that meant you spent more time on your looks than in your books! It also wasn't just men that treated me differently, but WOMEN too. It's like the ones that didn't wear makeup (which is fine!) thought I wasn't a hard worker and would coast on projects. Thankfully, I found some great people who were more progressive as well as a great boss in bioinformatics who loved genetics as much as handmade Italian shoes! So, here's to science, more money in science and women who can do it all!

NAILS | #BCDNails CHALLENGE WEEK 18 "Plant Cell Puzzle Nails"! #MANIMONDAY

Apologies for not having this up earlier today, but these nails took a wee bit longer than I had anticipated last night and it was just too late to type up the post! I have now taken on two nail challenges though I am not intense enough to have a different set of nails every day! For Week 18 of the #BCDNails Challenge, the theme was "Border Nails". I was about to do a traditional set of border nails with a solid colour outlined with black when suddenly inspiration hit me. Aren't all cells "bordered" by a cell membrane? Thus, inspiring these "plant cell nails"! I had no idea how these were going to turn out as I have NEVER seen these done before, but I am very pleased! 

NAILS | (RED) Day 1 31DC with Resveratrol Molecular Nails #ManiMonday

It has been a loooong time since I have done anything remotely molecular for nail art AND I also forgot that September always signals the start of the infamous 31 Day Nail Art Challenge! I did the challenge in 2012 and 2013 until the bitter end with my girls Traci and Naomi, as well as Masha the following year, but 2015 just did not happen. It didn't even cross my mind and though I'm still behind on the BCD Nail Art Challenge, I just love having inspiration for what to create next. I won't make any promises, but I will do my best to keep up!

Resveratrol is found in the skin of grapes. Red wine contains a higher concentration of resveratrol than white wine because red wine is fermented WITH the skins still intact. There have been quite a number of studies demonstrating the effects of resveratrol ranging from neurological to physical to psychological effects in animals. Resveratrol nail art was on my bucket list and though I am SUPER annoyed that my top coat made my wine glass nail pink, I am fairly happy with how they turned out.

NAILS | “Lime Love” Nail Art with OPI – That’s Hula-rious and NOPI – Seriously Citrus

Getting back on the nail art train after a bit of a crazy week at work felt truly cathartic so I really should make it more of a habit on here! Today I have two coats of OPI – That’s Hula-rious*, a bright pastel green, from the summer released Hawaii collection with two coats of NOPI – Seriously Citrus*, a mix of green, blue and white hex glitter. The glitter took some work to make sure the larger pieces were evenly distributed, but I thought the combination of the two polishes worked well! As you may have guessed, Seriously Citrus was the inspiration behind this hand-drawn lime manicure with the molecular structure of Vitamin C making an appearance as a puzzle nail!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge | Day 1–Red with Lycopene Molecular Puzzle Nails

I have done this challenge in 2012, 2013 and now 2014! As usual, I will be going at my own pace and not doing a new set of nails every day, but I am aiming for a new design every 3-4 days. The theme for Day 1 is red so I chose to go back to my “roots” and do some molecular-themed nail art all about LYCOPENE! Lycopene is a bright red, antioxidant, carotene pigment that is found in tomatoes, watermelons and a few other red fruits and vegetables and among other health benefits, has been shown to be preventative against cardiovascular disease by protecting the blood vessels around the heart (How Stuff Works, Sept. 2014).

I started with two coats of Julep-Martha, a creme baby pink, and actually created the VERY LONG lycopene molecule by making a sandwich baggie decal, peeling it off, then cutting at the appropriate carbons and applying the molecule to each nail. The tomatoes and hearts were all drawn with acrylic paint and sealed in with top coat. The red dots represent CH3 groups.

Day 2 of the Nerdy Nail Challenge-My Favourite Virus!

When I was studying virology in my 4th year, I came across a virus I would never forget. It had a shape that I thought was so cool and caused an equally memorable infection. May I introduce you to rhabdovirus, the virus that causes rabies! Its known for its distinctive rod-shape and infects a broad range of hosts like insects, fish and mammals. Here is the prettiest diagram I could find and although I couldn’t fit all of this information on my nails, I hope you enjoy them anyway!

 

 

I started off with two coats of Barielle – U-Concrete-Me and then hand-painted each of the little rhabdoviruses with pink, purple and black acrylic paint. I even drew their little viral RNA! I then finished off with a coat of…you guessed it, China Glaze – Fairy Dust!

Merry Christmas Chromosome Nails!

I didn’t think I could mix genetics with Christmas, but after racking my brain for ideas, I came up with a rather interesting design! Here are my chromosome nails accented with Christmas coloured genetic loci! To explain the diagram a bit better, the centromere is where the sister chromatids meet in the center to form a chromosome. To put it simply, the banding patterns on the chromatids represent genes that can code for genetic traits. My fiancé wanted me to be as accurate in my explanation as possible, this is a beauty blog not a genetics textbook! If you would like to know more, I have some good book recommendations!

Day 24–Inspired by a Book

These nails are a little nerdy and no I was not inspired by a neurobiology textbook! I thought about being cheeky and reposting my “Life of Pi'” nails, but I didn’t want to be the only one laughing ;-) The book that my nails were inspired by is called “Still Alice” by Lisa Genova which is about a university professor who suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. It is told from her point of view so it makes for a bit of a heartbreaking and insightful read. You don’t have to be a scientist to enjoy the book so read it if you ever get a chance!

Four of my nails show the main part of the neuron and my thumb shows the rest of the axon with the myelin in blue acrylic paint. I started off with two coats of OPI – Black Onyx, then painted the cell body with purple acrylic paint. The nucleus was dotted on with Sally Hansen XTremeWear – Mellow Yellow. After I was finished, I felt like my nails still looked “empty” so I added China Glaze – Fairy Dust on top of the black.

Be sure to check out the other fabulous ladies who are also taking on the 31 Day Nail Challenge!

Naomi @ Bellezza

Traci @ drinkcitra

Molecular Nails–Dopamine: The “Feel Good” Neurotransmitter

Welcome to another instalment of Molecular Nails! After going for some retail therapy after having a not so great day, I thought some nails with dopamine might be appropriate!

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that is involved in numerous physiological functions, but the one I have decided to depict on my nails is how dopamine is involved in the reward system of the brain. Whenever we feel pleasure from a particular activity, that feeling of enjoyment motivates and reinforces us to perform that activity again. This is because of dopamine. Dopamine is released when we have a great meal, during the intake of drugs and of also with love and sex. I chose to go with the LOVE part of our brain’s reward-seeking behaviour hence the pink hearts. I wanted to try to keep my nails rated G! 

The base colour is SH XTremewear in Mellow Yellow and the rest is all done in acrylic paint. Happy Friday everyone! I don’t normally get the weekend off, but this time I do! So for once I can look forward to a Friday night!

Molecular Nails–Juicy Vitamin C!

It’s summer and I can’t stop thinking about all things citrusy so I figured a refreshing orange and lemon manicure would alleviate some of my thirst! With summer here, Vitamin D is probably on our minds the most, but I think Vitamin C runs a very close second! Its molecular structure wasn’t too hard to do although it does look a little bit cramped being forced to live just on my thumb. The yellow dots represent OH/O groups and as usual I chose not to represent double bonds because things just get too crowded! I added a touch of gold glitter to represent the texture of the orange and lemon rinds and of course to add a little bit of sparkle!

As for the colours used, the yellow is Barielle – Lemondrops and the orange is SH Xtreme Wear - Sun Kissed.

Mmmm, I feel like topping this manicure off with one of the new Starbucks Refreshers! I tried Cool Lime with Black Tea Lemonade yesterday and it was TO DIE FOR! Have a great day everyone!

Molecular Nails–Nucleotide Skittles

I have been wanting to try out something DNA-related for awhile, but there is no way in hell I am drawing this on my nails:

I’m sure one of you, should you decide to take on the challenge , will be able to make the DNA double helix look like a work of art, but it ain’t going to be me! I just decided to do something simple instead. For those of you who possibly remember some Grade 10 Biology, I’ve actually ordered the molecules in a certain way because within the DNA helix adenine pairs with thymine (uracil in RNA) and guanine pairs with cytosine.

Let me just say, it’s VERY hard to make nucleotide bases look pretty and yet they are the basic building blocks of our DNA! You know what? Maybe they just need some glitter!

Molecular Nails: Amanita muscaria aka “Red Cap Mushroom of Death”!

Hello!

I thought it was time to do another molecular nail art since people seemed to like my amino acid nails. I had no idea until recently that my original amino acid nails actually made their way to the Science Memebase! Unfortunately, they have been renamed as Feynmann Diagram nails which is COMPLETELY wrong! Feynmann diagrams are physics diagrams that show the movement of atomic particles and look nothing like amino acids! Sigh…the Internet sometimes…

Anyway here is Amanita muscaria! When I was in Biology, this was the most famous mushroom of all and because it was actually found on campus we were told to NEVER eat them! Death by A.muscaria is actually pretty rare, but it’s more well-known for its hallucinogenic properties thanks to two main psychoactive molecules": muscimol and ibotenic acid which are proudly featured on my ring finger and thumb!

Here is A.muscaria in their natural habitat. They’re cute huh?

NOTW - Molecular Nails!

Hello all nerdettes!

I've been wanting to do these nails for awhile and I think they turned out alright! I decided to choose amino acids as my molecules since they were fairly straightforward to draw and thanks to the standard amino acid abbreviation table, I was even able to spell out a little message :-)

If anyone was wondering, red dots represent O or OH groups and blue dots NH or NH2 groups. For methyl groups, I left the ends empty.

This is my left hand:

This is my right hand:

 

 

I had so much fun doing these! What does everyone think?