FingerNailFixer

Guin's Competition Experience

by Holly Schippers | February 24, 2014 | Bookmark +

It was so exciting to read Guin's guest blog before IBS. Let's see what she has to say after!

— Holly

Here's how my day of competitions went. The first competition was "Inspired Artistic Genius." This is a three-phase competition. Phase one is "the inspiration," phase two is "the twist," and phase three is "voting." The inspiration was a picture of a cloud in the sky with the sun shining through it from which we had to create three nails. After 25 minutes, half of the competitors were eliminated. I made the first cut!!! Then for the twist, we were given six little baggies with stuff in them. The requirement was to incorporate something form every bag into our nails in 15 minutes. My nails were chosen for the top three!!! The top three competitors nail creations were uploaded for voting. Our placement was to be decided by the voting public via text, twitter, and online within the following 24 hours. This category was a non-divisional competition; therefore, I was competing against veteran competitors.



Up next was the "French twist" competition. This was a one-handed competition, so I was able to reuse my model from the first competition. We had one hour and 30 minutes to complete French style nails with a twist. The following elements were allowed: shades of pink, white, and clear enhancement colors, and pink, white, silver, and gold glitters. I created a lipstick nail with a white tip swirling into silver glitter on the nail bed. My plan was going well until I filed the glitter off my middle finger :( I did get my nails finished to a high shine and cleaned before they called time.



The next competition was "soak-off gel manicure." This was another non-divisional competition where both novice and veteran competitors were competing together. This was the competition in which Holly would be my model. In this competition category there is 30 minutes for application of red cream to one hand and French to the other hand. The application went well; Holly complemented how consistent my smile lines were. Time was called for all models to make their way to the front of the room to be judged. There were 17 entrants. Only 10 entrants are allowed to be judged; therefore, seven were eliminated. Sadly we did not make the cut. Amy Becker, one of the judges, came out to give those of us that didn't make it tips on how to improve our work. She is so wonderful, I will utilize her advice in the future. I thanked Holly again and let her get back to her booth obligations at the Long Beach ISSE show. I proceeded to prepare for my next and final competition.



My final competition was "It's All About the Bling." This was the competition I was most excited about, mostly because I had the most awesome idea and had executed my preparation exactly how I pictured it in my head. I was my own model for this one-handed competition. Prior to the event, I had sculpted clear nails on my hand for the base nails and constructed a piece consisting of many watch gears and rhinestones formed for each nail. We had 45 minutes to embellish the nails during the competition. The requirements were that nothing can be on the nails before they said "go." I applied a combo of transfer foils and loose glitter to the nails and added my pieces of bling to each nail. Then I added more stones and gears around to fill in space. I LOVED how they turned out! WOW, were they heavy. There were eleven entrants. Again, only ten were allowed to be judged; therefore, one entrant was eliminated. I made this cut.



Whew, I made it through my first hands-on competitions. Three non-divisional and one novice competition. After all the competitions were completed, I cleaned up my messy work space and waited to find out how I did. The award ceremony was the following day.

AWARDS:

-I won second place for Inspired Artist Genius!!
-I won fourth place in French Twist Novice.
-I won third place for Bling!!! Only a half a point behind second and one point behind first!!! The first and second place winners are seasoned competitors, by the way.


This was the most exciting, exhilarating experience. I can't wait to do it again. I highly encourage anyone that has ever thought about it to just do it!!! Stop worrying about what can go wrong and think about everything that can go right!!!

Lastly, a huge thank you to Holly for being my model and inviting me to be a guest on her blog, and to Shannon Nakamura and team Nubar for believing in me and supporting me in competing.

— Guin

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