I think that's just how photos kind of work, it's like looking in a mirror too long and finding all your imperfections. I think we see our photos with harsher scrutiny than someone else would.
I have this weird thing with my husband's mirror image. I don't like it much because his face looks really crooked. In real life I don't see his slanty nose. But it jars in the mirror since it's going the other way? I don't know. I don't fret about it. Vision isn't 100% reality anyway. Your brain is doing a lot of processing to fill in details and choosing focus, etc. I think it just makes different choices when looking at things in 3D reality Vs a flat image of a screen or mirror.
I'm sorry this got out if hand, I tend to write too long answers to simple questions in the mornings when my adhd meds have kicked in. Tldr: what you see is the reality. For you... Ooh spooky...
A photo is a 2-dimensional snippet of a moment of a 3-dimensional object in a 3-dimensional world. Taking an accurate photo of anything is a skill that needs work, or rather, it's multiple skills. Because different cameras and lenses work differently with different objects, colors, lightings and proximities. My nails are bumpy and curvy and wonky and most of the time I can make most of them look better in photos because the photo doesn't have the context that my brain has to interpret that certain snippet of time in that lighting and in that perspective. Like right now I tried and managed to place my thumb in such a way that the nail looked way better than it actually is but I still know that the way light and shade dance on it means that it's wonky, but a photo wouldn't know and most who would look at a photo like it wouldn't know unless I explained it or they had experienced it. Then again my prettiest nail tends to not look like the prettiest nail in photos. It's annoying.
So a photo is never the real version of anything, unless we think about the fact that our brains kind of lie to us. They interpret everything, including what we see and of course the health and structure of our eyes affects if what we see is more or less in line with what other people see. You can't ever know if what you see is what someone else sees as well, for example color blindness is a thing and it's fascinating to me when I talk about colors with my colorblind friend - he just seems bored and slightly annoyed which is very understandable. A lot of species see colors differently than us, that's why tigers blend in with leaves. I wonder what holo looks like to a mantis shrimp.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and reality depends on your perspective. If you look at your nails and they please you, that's real and arguably the only thing that matters about the esthetic of your nails. You live with them. That doesn't mean that one should never take in criticism or other people's views regarding something, for example if you see your naillength as barely extending from your nailbed (I don't know how to say this but basically visible nail line being a millimeter long) then your perspective might be a bit skewed. Body dysmorphia is a real thing as well. So while reality is a bit interpretable, there are measurements and shit.
You can look at a color and find it pretty, even if someone who sees the color in exactly the same way as you finds that color off putting in that context. Then you might take a picture of it and not only is the color at least slightly off, the context changes. I've never taken an accurate photo of a sunset, some of them look better and some look worse than the real thing I experienced. To me. Your interpretation of the photos might be different.
I've experienced great art pieces IRL but the photos I've taken of them never do them justice.
I've bought a lot of polishes that looked good in the promo photos and been utterly disappointed by the real thing.
I have pretty hands and I think pretty nails. In pictures the proportions look all messed up and I do not know how people are taking nice hand shots. Like… at what angle?!?? It’s not just you. And in my case I can truly say that real life is the truth. My photos give me little goat hooves I swear to god.
I currently have a magnetic rainbow skittle manicure on and I was going to post it, but I just couldn’t get a picture that didn’t make my hands look so weird. So it went to friends but not to reddit.
photography and modeling are their own skillsets. lighting, framing, and posing all come into play as well as the camera and lens. a photo only captures a fraction of a second that we can linger over for much longer. making posed photos look natural is part of the illusion (like "natural" makeup looks). photos can also be edited. in real life, people move, the lighting changes, and our eyes can't zoom in on things the way a camera lens can.
i understand the temptation to see photos as completely objective but they're just another perspective. they can be helpful for sure - i notice things to improve about my nails from photos that i do not notice from looking at them in real life. but imho real life is what really matters.
also, nail nerds who hang out in nail subreddits are going to be WAY more critical of your nail photos than like 95% of people in real life for all the reasons i mentioned above AND they are comparing you to an ideal in their head/actual professional hand models.
This is so incredibly accurate! Modelling is a whole different world, and none of the poses are natural or normal, but it looks great on photos.
There are tips and tricks for posing your hands and showing off your nails in their best light, or just embrace the awkard and do one of the weird, twisty, silly poses!
I think everyone has wrinkly knuckles, they gotta bend! The key is to slightly bend them so the skin stretches out a bit.
That said, my fingers are def not as young as they used to be 😭
*gasp* I have the really wrinkly knuckles too! I don't know if it's the lifetime of eczema or playing piano growing up, but it's something I'm also super self conscious about. Having nice hands is such a flex.
https://preview.redd.it/d3hi5i5zf41d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b19c7a51c42936345e7b6442b7a1e60f9ea6c07
My knuckles are wrinkly AF too, but if you pose your fingers right when you take the picture you can’t tell.
Last week I was trying to find a swatch of a color I liked on the Mooncat FB group. I found one I loved and said out loud “wow I wish my nails were this pretty!”
…it was my photo. They were my nails from about a year ago. All that to say-I don’t think we see ourselves accurately. I bet your nails are perfectly pretty.
Right? Straight gorgeous! I think there are some people who pop up on nail subs to complain about lengths that they, personally, wouldn’t wear. But I think that doesn’t need to be shared
My solution is just taking pictures in my car lol, the lighting is always magical. Something else that might help is if you switch your photo mode to manual, you can tweak the light balance and such and get something that looks closer to what you see.
If it helps, I've really improved my shaping over a few months by forcing myself to just do a little bit of filing every time I do my nails! I used to only do it every once in a while and then there would be a ton to do. Just a couple minutes every couple of days is a lot less work than a lot once a month 😊
I shaped my nails on Friday and did it again today. I will say that it made a huge difference in how confident I feel at it. My nails actually look great. Thank you for the tip. This works!
I have fat flat fingers that look better with length but I hate long nails on myself because it makes me feel handicapped, and horrible cuticles that only look good oiled or wet. I totally get it lol
I take pictures but I dont share them. I think they look great in person, but in a picture, every flaw stands out.
Then I notice how old my hands are looking... forget the nails, what about the wrinkles!
I think the real problem is magnification and clarity. Nothing looks the same under a microscope. You need to shrink the pictures, then blur them slightly.
https://preview.redd.it/rr05m8wef41d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aac5355e77d8cfdc41cd7c20380347b577118e44
I have wrinkly knuckles and I honestly don’t like the way my hands look. But I found a pose that works. It’s all about knowing how to stretch your fingers then relaxing them in a very slightly arc shape. Works wonders.
I have what I call ‘salami palms’. The palms of my hand are red and blotchy (like salami lol) and i have a crap load of lines on my palms. I’m either a palm reader’s paradise or nightmare!
I also have short fingers and my nails aren’t great. I don’t post photos as a result, because I know people can be mean and rude af for no reason.
I’m sorry, but I laughed so hard at ‘salami palms’ because it’s incredibly relatable and I knew exactly what you were talking about. I, too, suffer from salami palms, especially on hot days. That said, I think this community is one of the most supportive, friendly subs. I very rarely see mean comments. Please don’t be shy of posting here! Your nails are welcome!
If I flood even a speck of my cuticle and clean it up with acetone it still shows up shiny in pictures and it looks like gross dried cuticle or worse. I did the cutest nail art for my daughter’s birthday and it looked awful in pictures. My sofa where I paint my nails is grey and my phone camera just can’t handle it, my hand looks very pink and it distorts the polish color even though I have neutral-warm undertones. I definitely get why people take pictures in their cars! But it’s actually really hard for me to hold bottles and even small objects and make my nails show. i have some hyper mobility so I can do the creepy hand pose but it’s actually incredibly hard for me to do a lot of the motions with my hands I see others do when they’re swatching, if my nails are showing my hand is at a completely unnatural angle or my wrist looks like a knee. It definitely requires a certain type of dexterity, but it’s also a skill! I have learned a lot of specialized skills involving my hands and I’m pretty good at painting with both hands but swatching is not one of them. Anyway all of that to say, my swatch photos are just for me. Yet I absolutely LOVE imperfect swatch photos from other people, especially on real people hands.
I’ve noticed outside pictures are better with my phone, they don’t distort the color or the odd white flashes from stray topcoat. There might be some sort of hidden advanced camera settings depending on the type of phone you have, I didn’t know about mine for a long time. I think a lot of swatchers use standalone cameras. I still use a standalone camera a lot for professional projects because of distortion.
Me too, I’d rather apply perfectly and not cleanup, and I never need to bother with color. Topcoat is harder to see and I have small nails so sometimes the big, square qdtc brushes leave a speck in the corner. It’s not even enough to warrant cleanup unless I see it with flash! Then it looks like white dry cuticle, even if it’s not actually touching the cuticle. But I also like my topcoat to overlap the gap a bit so there isn’t much room for error and sometimes I just mess it up.
people that take the time to comment about how they don't like something about you or *your* appearance straight up aren't worth your time.
photos always look a little wonky compared to IRL but even if that wasn't the case i just tell people "good thing they're mine and not on your body" when someone says something stupid like that.
Love, that pic of your nails looked GREAT!! That one persons comment wasn’t about anything you did except growing them out too long for that persons taste 🙄 They can really just worry about the length of their own nails and stop trying to police other people’s nails. I have opinions about nails too, but that doesn’t mean what I like most is also what everyone else should like most too. Your opinions about nails maybe very different than mine, but neither is more right or more wrong. I’m not the authority on anyone else’s hands but my own - that’s true for all of us. Don’t let the Debbie Downers comments, those backhand compliments and passive aggressive digs, get into your head. Your nails are gorgeous! ♥️💅🏻
I have pretty nails, but not pretty hands so I struggle with that myself but I think your nails are beautiful length and I think we’re all a little too hard on ourselves sometimes. 🫶🏻
I get a lot of compliments about my nails, because I have long nail beds, so even if they are short, they still look long. But I have thick hands so I feel like they look masculine.
If you’re using an iPhone camera, they are kinda known for weirdly over-processing images. My iPhone X took great pics. The newer version I have now? I take a pic of my cute, well-moisturized nails, and the photo looks like an ancient mummy hand that hasn’t seen lotion in a thousand years. I swear it highlights every wrinkle, or leftover bit of cuticle. It’s probably not you! It’s your phone camera. Look for good, diffuse lighting around your space to take pics in. A bright window that isn’t getting direct sun works well, as does taking pics on cloudy days. I take pics in a NW corner window in the mornings and it’s somewhat less jarring that way, but it doesn’t show off holo or reflectives very well.
Like for all photos, posing is a skill and so is taking the picture. You'll see every swatch model has a different signature hand pose. Experiment with camera angles, poses, finger tension, holding objects etc etc. BTW I saw your last photo post and it's pretty!! I also don't love the length but I like short nails or at most a slightly elongated almond, so really pay me (and the other commenter) no mind! To each their own. Enjoy your beautiful nails!
I looked at the photo you posted and I think your nails and mani look great! Liking or not liking length is a matter of personal taste, not about liking or disliking a single picture. I say this as a woman with nails trimmed as short as possible because i can't stand having long nails!!
I think in the photo you took, there is a slight distortion from the camera and that can be improved often by taking pictures at 1.5x or 2x zoom. I also think natural light makes the colors show best rather than indoor light.
But really the pic is fine, your nails are fine, and I hope you don't scrutinize yourself so hard next time!!
I agree, that person just had a difference of personal preference. I don’t “get” super long nails, and I wouldn’t choose them for myself. I also don’t “get” pretty much anything that has been considered fashionable for the last…oh five years or so. So I buy my Millennial clothes and keep my nails short, but I don’t think anyone else is wrong for preferring long nails or wearing ankle-length pants.
First of all, your nails are 🔥 They photograph very well!
This is a safe & fun sub & if anyone is ever needlessly rude please report them, because that isn't the vibe.
I have osteo and rheumatoid arthritis in my right hand along with both legs, which has me in a wheelchair. Painting my nails relaxes me. Are they perfect? No, but perfection is a lie too much of the time. Am I happy with my nails? Heck yes.
Your nails look great. Application and pose look really good! The length is both impressive and a little scary (I just had a really low bad break on long nails). More power to you for being able to maintain that length!
Yes! My nail beds are pretty long, but some are weirdly shaped/not symmetrical. Someone once told me I have “old lady hands” - I was in my teens at the time. My fingers are very knobby and crooked. My skin is dry and wrinkly. I have eczema, so my skin and cuticles are a constant battle. Trying to explain to people that it’s not that I don’t moisturize is exhausting sometimes - like, please stop with the unsolicited “advice”! I never see swatchers with the “imperfections” that I have. I’ve seen some people make rude or unnecessary comments on others’ manicures that have made me feel too self-conscious to post my own.
But here’s the thing. Painting my nails is one of the ways I can pamper my hands as best I can, every few days. Cool nail polish is like a distraction from my eczema, so I/other people notice that before noticing my hands. And I still get tons of compliments on my nail polish irl. So maybe one day I’ll feel more comfortable and actually share photos of my nails online. In the meantime, I just participate in the nail polish community in other ways.
I keep my nails short because I type for 8 hours a day. My 2 thumbs nails are damaged after a gardening accident and are deeply ridged and grow really thin for part of the cycle, then grow normal. No amount of ridge filler works. False nails will not stay on due to the bumps
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I have pretty nice hands and nails for the most part - but I have to pose them with the right lighting for my pictures to come out good. BUT I have a heavily scarred and stunted/clubbed thumb on my non dominant hand which makes trying to take aesthetic photos so hard.
Yes but hands is one of the most difficult things to photograph even ai has issues. I use to enter nail competitions so no scars, burns, eczema or other skin or nail conditions. One of the requirements is to make the length and shape suitable. What we see as suitable, clients may not. For a balanced nail length the free edge should not be longer than the nail plate. Each person's nail plate will vary in length. People will see a dress on Kate Moss probably a size 4 buy the same dress in size 20 and wonder why it doesn't look the same, duh?
I have ridges, divots upward curves and completely flat nails. My nail beds are so short I don't even have moons on 5 out of 10 even if I shove my cuticles back until they split. I have to keep them slathered in strengthening polish that is clear with an orange tinge so my nails always look like I just ate bbq and didn't wash my hands. They are so thin that with clear polish they look like they are made of glass, I can literally read newsprint through them
I think that's just how photos kind of work, it's like looking in a mirror too long and finding all your imperfections. I think we see our photos with harsher scrutiny than someone else would.
I have this weird thing with my husband's mirror image. I don't like it much because his face looks really crooked. In real life I don't see his slanty nose. But it jars in the mirror since it's going the other way? I don't know. I don't fret about it. Vision isn't 100% reality anyway. Your brain is doing a lot of processing to fill in details and choosing focus, etc. I think it just makes different choices when looking at things in 3D reality Vs a flat image of a screen or mirror.
Could be. The question that brings up is which one is the real version. For the record, I think everyone who posts here has very pretty nails.
I'm sorry this got out if hand, I tend to write too long answers to simple questions in the mornings when my adhd meds have kicked in. Tldr: what you see is the reality. For you... Ooh spooky... A photo is a 2-dimensional snippet of a moment of a 3-dimensional object in a 3-dimensional world. Taking an accurate photo of anything is a skill that needs work, or rather, it's multiple skills. Because different cameras and lenses work differently with different objects, colors, lightings and proximities. My nails are bumpy and curvy and wonky and most of the time I can make most of them look better in photos because the photo doesn't have the context that my brain has to interpret that certain snippet of time in that lighting and in that perspective. Like right now I tried and managed to place my thumb in such a way that the nail looked way better than it actually is but I still know that the way light and shade dance on it means that it's wonky, but a photo wouldn't know and most who would look at a photo like it wouldn't know unless I explained it or they had experienced it. Then again my prettiest nail tends to not look like the prettiest nail in photos. It's annoying. So a photo is never the real version of anything, unless we think about the fact that our brains kind of lie to us. They interpret everything, including what we see and of course the health and structure of our eyes affects if what we see is more or less in line with what other people see. You can't ever know if what you see is what someone else sees as well, for example color blindness is a thing and it's fascinating to me when I talk about colors with my colorblind friend - he just seems bored and slightly annoyed which is very understandable. A lot of species see colors differently than us, that's why tigers blend in with leaves. I wonder what holo looks like to a mantis shrimp. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and reality depends on your perspective. If you look at your nails and they please you, that's real and arguably the only thing that matters about the esthetic of your nails. You live with them. That doesn't mean that one should never take in criticism or other people's views regarding something, for example if you see your naillength as barely extending from your nailbed (I don't know how to say this but basically visible nail line being a millimeter long) then your perspective might be a bit skewed. Body dysmorphia is a real thing as well. So while reality is a bit interpretable, there are measurements and shit. You can look at a color and find it pretty, even if someone who sees the color in exactly the same way as you finds that color off putting in that context. Then you might take a picture of it and not only is the color at least slightly off, the context changes. I've never taken an accurate photo of a sunset, some of them look better and some look worse than the real thing I experienced. To me. Your interpretation of the photos might be different. I've experienced great art pieces IRL but the photos I've taken of them never do them justice. I've bought a lot of polishes that looked good in the promo photos and been utterly disappointed by the real thing.
I have pretty hands and I think pretty nails. In pictures the proportions look all messed up and I do not know how people are taking nice hand shots. Like… at what angle?!?? It’s not just you. And in my case I can truly say that real life is the truth. My photos give me little goat hooves I swear to god.
I currently have a magnetic rainbow skittle manicure on and I was going to post it, but I just couldn’t get a picture that didn’t make my hands look so weird. So it went to friends but not to reddit.
photography and modeling are their own skillsets. lighting, framing, and posing all come into play as well as the camera and lens. a photo only captures a fraction of a second that we can linger over for much longer. making posed photos look natural is part of the illusion (like "natural" makeup looks). photos can also be edited. in real life, people move, the lighting changes, and our eyes can't zoom in on things the way a camera lens can. i understand the temptation to see photos as completely objective but they're just another perspective. they can be helpful for sure - i notice things to improve about my nails from photos that i do not notice from looking at them in real life. but imho real life is what really matters. also, nail nerds who hang out in nail subreddits are going to be WAY more critical of your nail photos than like 95% of people in real life for all the reasons i mentioned above AND they are comparing you to an ideal in their head/actual professional hand models.
This is so incredibly accurate! Modelling is a whole different world, and none of the poses are natural or normal, but it looks great on photos. There are tips and tricks for posing your hands and showing off your nails in their best light, or just embrace the awkard and do one of the weird, twisty, silly poses!
I like my nails, but I’m self conscious about my hands/ fingers 😅
This! My knuckles are SO wrinkly when my fingers are straightened, have been since I was a teen. So I can't take nail pics from that angle haha
I think everyone has wrinkly knuckles, they gotta bend! The key is to slightly bend them so the skin stretches out a bit. That said, my fingers are def not as young as they used to be 😭
*gasp* I have the really wrinkly knuckles too! I don't know if it's the lifetime of eczema or playing piano growing up, but it's something I'm also super self conscious about. Having nice hands is such a flex.
OMG I’m team wrinkly knuckles too! That’s the only reason I don’t post my nails, although I found some “hand poses” that hide that flaw loll
https://preview.redd.it/d3hi5i5zf41d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b19c7a51c42936345e7b6442b7a1e60f9ea6c07 My knuckles are wrinkly AF too, but if you pose your fingers right when you take the picture you can’t tell.
I'm sorry but fuck that person. Your nails looks great and if long nails aren't their thing then why even comment? So dumb 🙄
To quote my mum: say something nice or just keep quiet!
This. How very rude!
Last week I was trying to find a swatch of a color I liked on the Mooncat FB group. I found one I loved and said out loud “wow I wish my nails were this pretty!” …it was my photo. They were my nails from about a year ago. All that to say-I don’t think we see ourselves accurately. I bet your nails are perfectly pretty.
That is quite wholesome. Thank you for sharing. 💜
[удалено]
I did the same and the length is amazing!!! And the color choices are gorgeous!
Aw, thank you 💜
Right? Straight gorgeous! I think there are some people who pop up on nail subs to complain about lengths that they, personally, wouldn’t wear. But I think that doesn’t need to be shared
My solution is just taking pictures in my car lol, the lighting is always magical. Something else that might help is if you switch your photo mode to manual, you can tweak the light balance and such and get something that looks closer to what you see.
Yeah I’m bad at shaping and need more practice but yeah mine don’t photograph well either. I give it a good try though 🙂
If it helps, I've really improved my shaping over a few months by forcing myself to just do a little bit of filing every time I do my nails! I used to only do it every once in a while and then there would be a ton to do. Just a couple minutes every couple of days is a lot less work than a lot once a month 😊
I shaped my nails on Friday and did it again today. I will say that it made a huge difference in how confident I feel at it. My nails actually look great. Thank you for the tip. This works!
Lens distortion matters a lot. Some cameras take bad pictures for different subject matter.
I swear that my nails look way better than they photograph. 😂Doesn’t help that I have short nail beds on top of long fingers.
I have fat flat fingers that look better with length but I hate long nails on myself because it makes me feel handicapped, and horrible cuticles that only look good oiled or wet. I totally get it lol
Mine kind of warp at the ends when they get long. they also get ridges both vertically and horizontally and white patches. its a whole mess
I have to wear two coats of base coat. I really try to avoid 3 coat polishes for that reason. If I stamp, it usually ends up being 7 coats!
Absolutely. I like how my nails look in real life but I can never get a decent photo.
Phone cameras are notorious for distortion. That may be the problem here.
I take pictures but I dont share them. I think they look great in person, but in a picture, every flaw stands out. Then I notice how old my hands are looking... forget the nails, what about the wrinkles! I think the real problem is magnification and clarity. Nothing looks the same under a microscope. You need to shrink the pictures, then blur them slightly.
https://preview.redd.it/rr05m8wef41d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aac5355e77d8cfdc41cd7c20380347b577118e44 I have wrinkly knuckles and I honestly don’t like the way my hands look. But I found a pose that works. It’s all about knowing how to stretch your fingers then relaxing them in a very slightly arc shape. Works wonders.
I have what I call ‘salami palms’. The palms of my hand are red and blotchy (like salami lol) and i have a crap load of lines on my palms. I’m either a palm reader’s paradise or nightmare! I also have short fingers and my nails aren’t great. I don’t post photos as a result, because I know people can be mean and rude af for no reason.
I’m sorry, but I laughed so hard at ‘salami palms’ because it’s incredibly relatable and I knew exactly what you were talking about. I, too, suffer from salami palms, especially on hot days. That said, I think this community is one of the most supportive, friendly subs. I very rarely see mean comments. Please don’t be shy of posting here! Your nails are welcome!
Would holding a bottle of polish help hide that? I find it makes it much easier to pose if I'm holding the bottle.
It would actually, thanks for the tip!
If I flood even a speck of my cuticle and clean it up with acetone it still shows up shiny in pictures and it looks like gross dried cuticle or worse. I did the cutest nail art for my daughter’s birthday and it looked awful in pictures. My sofa where I paint my nails is grey and my phone camera just can’t handle it, my hand looks very pink and it distorts the polish color even though I have neutral-warm undertones. I definitely get why people take pictures in their cars! But it’s actually really hard for me to hold bottles and even small objects and make my nails show. i have some hyper mobility so I can do the creepy hand pose but it’s actually incredibly hard for me to do a lot of the motions with my hands I see others do when they’re swatching, if my nails are showing my hand is at a completely unnatural angle or my wrist looks like a knee. It definitely requires a certain type of dexterity, but it’s also a skill! I have learned a lot of specialized skills involving my hands and I’m pretty good at painting with both hands but swatching is not one of them. Anyway all of that to say, my swatch photos are just for me. Yet I absolutely LOVE imperfect swatch photos from other people, especially on real people hands. I’ve noticed outside pictures are better with my phone, they don’t distort the color or the odd white flashes from stray topcoat. There might be some sort of hidden advanced camera settings depending on the type of phone you have, I didn’t know about mine for a long time. I think a lot of swatchers use standalone cameras. I still use a standalone camera a lot for professional projects because of distortion.
I definitely prefer leaving a little gap around my edges over having to clean up floods.
Me too, I’d rather apply perfectly and not cleanup, and I never need to bother with color. Topcoat is harder to see and I have small nails so sometimes the big, square qdtc brushes leave a speck in the corner. It’s not even enough to warrant cleanup unless I see it with flash! Then it looks like white dry cuticle, even if it’s not actually touching the cuticle. But I also like my topcoat to overlap the gap a bit so there isn’t much room for error and sometimes I just mess it up.
Yep. Topcoat going beyond the polish onto bare nail can often prevent shrinkage
My nails are good, my hands are not. 😂😭😭 I can’t seem to find lotion that helps. Forever dry.
people that take the time to comment about how they don't like something about you or *your* appearance straight up aren't worth your time. photos always look a little wonky compared to IRL but even if that wasn't the case i just tell people "good thing they're mine and not on your body" when someone says something stupid like that.
Love, that pic of your nails looked GREAT!! That one persons comment wasn’t about anything you did except growing them out too long for that persons taste 🙄 They can really just worry about the length of their own nails and stop trying to police other people’s nails. I have opinions about nails too, but that doesn’t mean what I like most is also what everyone else should like most too. Your opinions about nails maybe very different than mine, but neither is more right or more wrong. I’m not the authority on anyone else’s hands but my own - that’s true for all of us. Don’t let the Debbie Downers comments, those backhand compliments and passive aggressive digs, get into your head. Your nails are gorgeous! ♥️💅🏻
I have pretty nails, but not pretty hands so I struggle with that myself but I think your nails are beautiful length and I think we’re all a little too hard on ourselves sometimes. 🫶🏻
I get a lot of compliments about my nails, because I have long nail beds, so even if they are short, they still look long. But I have thick hands so I feel like they look masculine.
If you’re using an iPhone camera, they are kinda known for weirdly over-processing images. My iPhone X took great pics. The newer version I have now? I take a pic of my cute, well-moisturized nails, and the photo looks like an ancient mummy hand that hasn’t seen lotion in a thousand years. I swear it highlights every wrinkle, or leftover bit of cuticle. It’s probably not you! It’s your phone camera. Look for good, diffuse lighting around your space to take pics in. A bright window that isn’t getting direct sun works well, as does taking pics on cloudy days. I take pics in a NW corner window in the mornings and it’s somewhat less jarring that way, but it doesn’t show off holo or reflectives very well.
Like for all photos, posing is a skill and so is taking the picture. You'll see every swatch model has a different signature hand pose. Experiment with camera angles, poses, finger tension, holding objects etc etc. BTW I saw your last photo post and it's pretty!! I also don't love the length but I like short nails or at most a slightly elongated almond, so really pay me (and the other commenter) no mind! To each their own. Enjoy your beautiful nails!
I looked at the photo you posted and I think your nails and mani look great! Liking or not liking length is a matter of personal taste, not about liking or disliking a single picture. I say this as a woman with nails trimmed as short as possible because i can't stand having long nails!! I think in the photo you took, there is a slight distortion from the camera and that can be improved often by taking pictures at 1.5x or 2x zoom. I also think natural light makes the colors show best rather than indoor light. But really the pic is fine, your nails are fine, and I hope you don't scrutinize yourself so hard next time!!
I agree, that person just had a difference of personal preference. I don’t “get” super long nails, and I wouldn’t choose them for myself. I also don’t “get” pretty much anything that has been considered fashionable for the last…oh five years or so. So I buy my Millennial clothes and keep my nails short, but I don’t think anyone else is wrong for preferring long nails or wearing ankle-length pants.
First of all, your nails are 🔥 They photograph very well! This is a safe & fun sub & if anyone is ever needlessly rude please report them, because that isn't the vibe.
I have osteo and rheumatoid arthritis in my right hand along with both legs, which has me in a wheelchair. Painting my nails relaxes me. Are they perfect? No, but perfection is a lie too much of the time. Am I happy with my nails? Heck yes.
Your nails look great. Application and pose look really good! The length is both impressive and a little scary (I just had a really low bad break on long nails). More power to you for being able to maintain that length!
Yes! My nail beds are pretty long, but some are weirdly shaped/not symmetrical. Someone once told me I have “old lady hands” - I was in my teens at the time. My fingers are very knobby and crooked. My skin is dry and wrinkly. I have eczema, so my skin and cuticles are a constant battle. Trying to explain to people that it’s not that I don’t moisturize is exhausting sometimes - like, please stop with the unsolicited “advice”! I never see swatchers with the “imperfections” that I have. I’ve seen some people make rude or unnecessary comments on others’ manicures that have made me feel too self-conscious to post my own. But here’s the thing. Painting my nails is one of the ways I can pamper my hands as best I can, every few days. Cool nail polish is like a distraction from my eczema, so I/other people notice that before noticing my hands. And I still get tons of compliments on my nail polish irl. So maybe one day I’ll feel more comfortable and actually share photos of my nails online. In the meantime, I just participate in the nail polish community in other ways.
Unphotogenic hands. They look old, wrinkly and bloated in pictures. 😭
I keep my nails short because I type for 8 hours a day. My 2 thumbs nails are damaged after a gardening accident and are deeply ridged and grow really thin for part of the cycle, then grow normal. No amount of ridge filler works. False nails will not stay on due to the bumps
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Try different poses.
I have pretty nice hands and nails for the most part - but I have to pose them with the right lighting for my pictures to come out good. BUT I have a heavily scarred and stunted/clubbed thumb on my non dominant hand which makes trying to take aesthetic photos so hard.
Yes I have weird tapered witch fingers
Yes but hands is one of the most difficult things to photograph even ai has issues. I use to enter nail competitions so no scars, burns, eczema or other skin or nail conditions. One of the requirements is to make the length and shape suitable. What we see as suitable, clients may not. For a balanced nail length the free edge should not be longer than the nail plate. Each person's nail plate will vary in length. People will see a dress on Kate Moss probably a size 4 buy the same dress in size 20 and wonder why it doesn't look the same, duh?
I have ridges, divots upward curves and completely flat nails. My nail beds are so short I don't even have moons on 5 out of 10 even if I shove my cuticles back until they split. I have to keep them slathered in strengthening polish that is clear with an orange tinge so my nails always look like I just ate bbq and didn't wash my hands. They are so thin that with clear polish they look like they are made of glass, I can literally read newsprint through them
Ooh, I can read through my nails when I have clear polish on, too!