Fan Friday: K-pop Nails with Lisa from Nails at Home

Welcome to our very first Fan Friday! What’s that, you ask? Fan Friday is a special feature where we highlight someone who’s using his or her love of K-pop or K-dramas to do something awesome and creative. In our premier installment, we’re featuring Lisa, who runs the the awesome Tumblr Nails at Home. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to do any of the latest nail looks you’ve seen on your favorite K-pop celebrities, Nails at Home is the place to go. As you may know, Korean celebrities don’t just do plain colored nails; it’s all about rhinestones and stickers, hand-drawn art, half-moon manicures, or even a combination of all the above. And it’s not just celebrities – complex nail art has become the norm for many young women in Korea. So we thought this would be the perfect time to feature Lisa’s site.

Lisa hails from Italy, but became hooked on K-pop thanks to a chance listen of BIGBANG’s “Lies,” which she described as “love at first sight.” In 2009, she began to replicate the nail looks that appeared in MVs, posting up photo tutorials onto Tumblr and expanding to YouTube videos a few months later. Since then, she’s showed K-pop fans all over the world how to do the nail looks worn by 2NE1, Girls’ Generation, Girl’s Day, AOA, and 4minute, as well as looks inspired by 2PM, B1A4, and VIXX.

We asked Lisa to make a simple tutorial that any Soompier can do, and we decided upon the gradient nails worn by Taeyeon at the 2014 Style Icon Awards. The look in its original form features a three-color gradient of pale yellow, green, and black. We simplified the look to a yellow and black gradient, which is just as edgy and pretty, but easier for newbies to do (especially if your nails are short). For this look, you’ll need the following items:

• Pale yellow and black nail polishes
• Makeup sponge
• Nail polish remover and Q-tips for clean-up

Watch the video below! That’s all for this Fan Friday! Check out some more fun tutorials at Nails at Home. Lisa also maintains another blog called Hallyu Nails, which contains nice screencaps of celebrities’ nails. Both are awesome!