ABS Chicago 2012 Monday

I was up bright and early again to be a participate in the Beauty Changes Lives program Monday morning to share my journey with 2000+ students. There were eleven of us beauty professionals sharing the diversity of our beauty lives and the passion of our careers. What an honor! Thanks to Bonnie Bonadeo for including me! Then it was off to the CND Runway show with none other than Jan Arnold emcee.

Jan backsgtage moments before the show.

Pave crystals are all the rage and the design team shared several of these looks combining power polish and bling.

The new rock and roll nails have amped up colors in nearly neon hues. They are dangerously long with the heels getting higher, nails are getting longer to balance out the look. The tips are thinner pushing the pointed almond shape.

Some of the looks CND shared included Organitech, mixing organic nature shapes with futuristic flashes.Treasured antiquities with tribal and prescious textures. Here are the nail "story" boards from backstage.

Many of these looks combined glitters, crystals and metallic foils layered with sheer colors like Moonlight and Roses, Iced Coral, Gold Chrome and Silver Chrome. The Deconstruction nails were very cool layering several colors and once cured taking a buffer and lighlty exposing them in a random pattern on the nails. Another nail was layered with Asphalt and sliver chrome before a fan brush was dragger across creating a brushed metal finish. Matte and high shine finishes were also combined to create dimension and texture. Brushes and stylus tools were dragged through uncured layers to create an etched effect.

Bottom line, get yourself to one of these runway shows or Master Painter classes offered by CND to learn these amazing effects for yourself!!