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!

Scientific American | A Scientista’s Dream Come True!

As I write this, I am completely nerding out, but Joanne Manaster has just written an article titled “#ManicureMonday–A Lesson in Targeted Science Communication in Scientific American online and little ol’ me has a whole paragraph and picture to herself!

Joanne is herself a science wonder woman and has the most entertaining and educational website especially when it comes to beauty products so definitely check out Joanne Loves Science! I am totally on Helium Cloud 9 right now! The article itself is quite interesting and makes me want to get more young girls interested in science and do more science nail art!

Scientista Foundation | Nail Art Inspired by Women in Science

About a month ago, Julia Tartaglia, co-founder of the Scientista Foundation, contacted me to do a Scientista-inspired nail design which I was delighted to do. The Scientista Foundation was founded by Julia and her sister Christina and is the largest network for campus women in science, tech and engineering. It provides support for women in the form of visible role models, career advice and programs and encourages young women to embrace both femininity and brains in what may be a male-dominated career path.

I wish there was support like this when I was an undergrad because there were certainly times when I felt like I was “the only girl”. I felt like if I was a girl that did my nails and makeup, I had THAT much more to prove. One guy in my class even told me that if I really wanted good grades, I had to choose to either “study or be pretty”. Talk about an ultimatum huh?

So for today’s design, I decided to pay tribute to some of the most notable women in science and their discoveries! The Scientista colour is purple and their logo is two purple Xs which are actually two X chromosomes because that’s what makes us female!

Day 1 of the Nerdy Nail Challenge–Inspired by the Elements

Alright, you’ve got me. Call it a New Year’s resolution, but I have always wanted to do a series of science-inspired nail art which resulted in this completely made up challenge entitled the “Nerdy Nail Challenge” where I will embark on another journey of hopefully fun and maybe even educational designs for 31 days! I will be posting as often as I can, but this definitely won’t be an every day thing like the traditional almost stress-inducing 31 Day Challenge.

For my first design, inspired by the elements, I am referring to the elements of the periodic table for which I was inspired by Au and Ag; more commonly known as gold and silver. I’ve always wanted to do a structured “dotticure” so I started off with the only black polish I own, OPI – Black Onyx and then dotted on OPI – Goldeneye and Sally Hansen XTremewear – Celeb City for the large dots and filled in the spaces with Color Club – Antiquated.

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?