NAILS NTNA Finalists on Nail Talk Radio

Our three NAILS Next Top Nail Artist finalists, Buddy Sims, Lauren Wireman, and Ryoko Garcia, chatted together last Sunday on Nail Talk Radio, a weekly internet radio show created for the nail industry. (If you're running low on time, the interviews start at 20:00 in this 90-minute segment.)

Nail Talk Radio show host Athena Eliott (who is also the founder) and Millie Haynam introduces each of our three finalists one by one and asks them the same few questions, including how they learned about the competition, their all-time favorite challenges, and what they would do if they win. At 39:25, Eliott brings all three finalists back on to chat together about the challenges they faced and, ultimately, the respect they have for each other.

Nervous and excited, all three finalists will be flown into Long Beach, Calif. for the International Salon & Spa Expo (ISSE) Long Beach, bringing with them part three of their final challenge, a photo shoot for NAILS Magazine, competing in one last "quick-fire" live challenge at the NAILS booth at ISSE on Sunday, and finally finding out who will be crowned the NAILS Next Top Nail Artist.

ISSE Long Beach takes place Jan. 25-27 at the Long Beach Convention Center. You can meet Buddy, Lauren, and Ryoko on Sunday, Jan. 26 at the NAILS booth #2153 from 10AM to 2PM. (I can't wait to meet them myself!) The winner will be announced at our NAILS Next Top Nail Artist party. For tickets to the party, please click here.




NAILS Next Top Nail Artist is sponsored by Gelish, with weekly challenges sponsored by Dashing Diva, Entity, Gel II, INM, NSI, Orly, It's So Easy, Misa Cosmetics, CND, and OPI. The video above is a little something we pulled together to help you catch up with the amazing designs in our weekly challenges and the winners of each challenge.

So who do you think will be the NAILS Next Top Nail Artist? And which were your favorite challenges? I loved the pre-challenges and all of the challenges that included YouTube videos.

— Kim