International Nails: Who Won and Who’s Packing Up Their Paintbrushes

Congratulations to Lexi Martone for winning her second challenge in a row. For this week’s heritage-themed international nail challenge, Lexi embraced her Italian roots to give us a food (and wine) themed design. The judges were floored by the motorized spinning pizza. We love how you take nail art to the next level with your out-of-the-box thinking. You showed a solid mastery of gel, acrylic, and handpainting techniques and created a cohesive design. Other than the spinning, we especially loved the construction of the pizza itself and the pouring wine. As always, we also love your videos and personality. The music, the tight shots, and your narration help to solidify your top spot this week. One of the judges even commented that this design almost doesn’t look hand created because it’s so close to perfect!

CND head judge Jan Arnold said, “Beautiful freehand painting. Easy to follow, very tight demo. The spinning pizza is ridiculous. Bravisimo!!!” INM judge Lorena Marquez said, “Great job! Your art piece has many great qualities about it. You killed it with the spinning pizza! I also loved that you used two languages; that was a cool touch to your video. Awesome job!” NTNA 2013-2014 winner Ryoko Garcia said, “My jaw dropped when I saw the pizza spinning. Your idea is ridiculous (in a good way). The color balance is pretty great too.”

Other judges described this design as “amazing,” “cute and whimsical,” “flawlessly executed and visually pleasing,” “tight and clean,” and “inspired and insanely fun.” And more than one of the judges said looking at the design and your video made them hungry!

Lexi will receive a $500 gift certificate from INM.

The nail tech who is packing up her paintbrushes this week is…Karrie Bowers. Karrie, we really think you pushed your skills and took the judges advice week after week. You started this competition as a soak-off gel nail tech and we got to see you learn to work with sculpting gel, acrylic, and handpainting as well. We can see definite improvement in your techniques and skill level since you started competing. And we loved your sense of humor and well-written, thought out descriptions. We loved having you in the competition and are looking forward to seeing much more from you in the future!

This won’t be the last time you hear from Karrie. She will move on to CND’s Last Chance Design Lab where she’ll have one last chance to stay in the competition. Check back next Friday to see who will move on in our Last Chance battle — Amy or Karrie.

You can follow Karrie at: http://beautopia.onsugar.com/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/beautopianails
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/beautopiablog
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeautopiaNails
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/beautopianails
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/beautopia/
Nail Art Gallery: http://nailartgallery.nailsmag.com/beautopianails

Tune in Monday to find out the Week 5 Challenge and vote for your favorites! Good luck to Danielle, Lauren, Lavette, Lexi, Lini, Marisol, Sherri, and Simone, who will all continue in the competition.