Since sixth grade, Brianna Hennessey has been doing nail art, and continues to do it as a hobby now simply because it makes her happy and it looks nice. Her mom has always had nail stuff in her sewing room so she would go in and try it out.

  She uses gel builder kits that require the person doing it to find the tips, put on a layer of gel, add activator and repeat that until they have a nice film. After all that they file and then paint the nails.

  “It’s very frustrating and time consuming, but I think the end result really makes up for it,” Hennessey said.

  Hennessey paints her nails almost every other week or every week. Her mom thinks it’s crazy, but she enjoys doing it. Her way of doing nails is buffing her nails so she can prime them, then putting on a PH balancer. She then sizes the tips and puts them on. After that, she applies gel so they’ll be smooth, then she buffs it, and paints. The way her friends describe her style of nail art is edgy because she uses a lot of dark colors and uses sparkly top coats.

  “I really like her nail art, she always sends pictures to the group chats that I’m in and I always really like how she does it,” her friend Caitlyn Hodges said. “I think her nail art is really interesting. She’s pretty good at it and I think she really knows all the skills to do it.”

  Nail art is very time consuming, so if Hennessey has to be somewhere she can’t necessarily finish all 10 of her nails and be there on time. Sometimes she shows up with half her nails done and the other hand plain. Sometimes it can take one to two hours for nails to dry if they’ve used a base coat, a couple coats of nail polish and a top coat. It can be frustrating to do something that takes so much time and focus.

  “It’s a really long process and it takes a lot of practice to get it to look right,” Hennessey said.

  Even though she spends a lot of time doing her nails, Hennessey doesn’t plan on doing anything with nail art in the future. She sees it as a fun hobby to do when she wants her nails to look good, or to do when she’s bored. Nail technicians don’t always receive large pay, so she would rather do it as a hobby.

  “My best advice is to take your time,” Hennessey said. “You won’t be perfect from the get-go and it takes a lot of patience to do them.”