Review: Nail Art Sourcebook - Pansy Alexander-Potter & Mineko Sugita

With a gallery of over 500 designs, which you can copy yourself or take to a nail technician to execute professionally, The Nail Art Sourcebook offers plenty of inspiring ideas, from chic French manicures and metallic effects to graphics, florals and bejewelled masterpieces. Not only is nail art a great way to enhance your look for a special occasion or make a fashion statement, it's a fulfilling way to explore your creative potential. This book includes:

• An introduction explaining step-by-step techniques
• A full range of effects, such as hand-painting, stencilling, glitter, piercing and 3-D
• Hundreds of designs to copy, from graphic stripes and dots to floral and nature motifs, as well as animal prints, bridal looks and romantic themes.

Review:
I'm in no way a nail art expert but I love to mess around with creating designs on my own nails so when I was offered a review copy of the Nail Art Sourcebook and saw that it included over 500 designs I thought it would be a great source of ideas for me to try. I have to admit that I was expecting it to include more instructions on how to create these designs for yourself though. There is a brief explanation about various techniques (transfers, stick ons, stencils, striping tape and gemstones) along with information about the different types of polishes, acrylics, nail paints and brushes you can buy but that is a tiny part of the book. Most of these things are summed up within a paragraph or two and are hardly the detailed instructions I was hoping for.

The book does however include images of pver 500 different nail designs that you can try to copy. I hate to say it but the majority of them are WAY beyond my skill level and would be impossible for me to achieve at home. Perhaps in some ways these designs would be more useful for professionals who have a lot of experience and better tools than I do but even though I can only dream of achieving these results I still enjoyed looking through the images and found myself really inspired to have a go at trying different things with my own nails. There are definitely adjustments I could make to a lot of the designs so that they are slightly easier to achieve and if nothing else it has given me ideas on different colour schemes and styles to try.

The images are split into seven different categories - Floral Designs; Graphic Designs; Pictures & Themes; Glitter & Metallic; Jewelled Designs; Romantic & Bridal; Three-Dimensional Art - so although not all of the designs are to my taste there is more than enough variety for everyone to find something that they like. I'd have to say I think the product is quite expensive for people like me who just occasionally dabble at doing their own nails but anyone who spends a lot of time on this hobby or is a professional nail artist will probably find they get much better value for money. I know this is a book I'll dip in and out of in the future for inspiration I just wish it came with clearer instructions on how to create the designs for myself.

Source: Received from www.presentsformen.co.uk in exchange for an honest review

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Hardback: