i have personally been touched by the magic of imaginail. cmliu bling, behold.



on the left are the fingernails of diana adorned with selective croppings from nicoline patricia's sakura on pixelgirlpresents, and then my own pixelised face (courtesy of dbdbking) staring back at me ten-fold.

the process was pretty time- and human-effort-intensive, despite the computerised application of the actual design. there were three preliminary coats before even sticking your fingers into the printer... the first was a base coat (to smooth out the nail surface evenly, i imagine, though with my amateur abilities the layer might have become even more bumpy), the second was a highly opaque white or nude layer that is UV reflective (used in the computer imaging step), and the third was a water-soluble solution applied to the nails and surrounding skin to ensure that any ink that got on the skin would be easily washed off. each of these coats had to be hand-applied and air-dried between each step. a definite lesson in that beauty requires patience.

after that, you place your fingers in succession (four on your left, both your thumbs, and then four on your right) into the machine, which images the position of your nails by reading the UV-reflective areas of polish. therefore, whether you have small nails or honkin' 3-inch acrylics, the machine resizes the design to fit. there are a bunch of already-installed designs (from french lace to sistine chapel to easter chicks to elvis portraits; i liked the one that said "SPANISH QUEEN" with stripes), or you can pop in a USB jumpdrive or a CD-R with your own design on it in jpg form. it's just a normal color inkjet printer inside... a lexmark! sometimes you can practically feel the nozzles whizzing by your hands...

then after that's all done, you must wait for the ink to dry, and *then* (can we say five layers of unnatural chemicals on your nails?) one last topcoat to ensure your nails stay preserved for longevity.

this whole process takes about an hour, a stinky, messy, tedious process. however, i have to say that our nails did get intensely noticed by the checkout lady in walgreens (she seemed disappointed that we didn't know of anyplace local that had the nail printing machine, though she did correctly guess that i was a masters student!), and the people serving us at KFC. (yes, i went all the way to LA to eat at KFC.) but i wish technology were a little more advanced... why can't it apply the base coats automatically? and it's still smelly. and my super $3000 nails are chipping like crazy, like usual. it reminds me why i havent used polish since highschool... does it look like i have time to touchup my nails? *laughs haughtily while promptly diving into a long, long nap*

i think the imaginail is similar, if not the same, to the 'japanese schoolgirl watch' feature in this month's WIRED magazine. here's the article. see for yourself.

yay, we're just as cool as kogal! ^_^