Nail Tutorial Model

Finger with nail already painted and stamped

For awhile now, I've been wanting a way to do nail tutorials.  I've currently been trying to glue little fake nails to an orange wood stick and that turned out to be a big pain, as I couldn't ever get the nails to glue down securely.  Then last week I was perusing the Sally Beauty Supply website and I found this creepy little finger "model".

Finger with no nail inserted

While it's totally odd looking and might make a great Halloween prop, it was only $1.39 with a Sally Beauty Club Card ($1.99 without card) and for that price I thought it would be a great tool for tutorials.  Sally's also has a full hand for practice manicures that's similar for $8.99 without card and $7.99 with card.  I thought for less than two bucks the creepy finger would be perfect!  The base has a self adhesive too so you could attach it to a table or desk if you wanted it to be secure but I find it works fine without being permanently attached to my dining room table.  Here is the link on the Sally website for the finger and the full hand if you would like more information about the specifics of each product.

The groove holds fake nails in place.

Here's how it works.  As you can see in the photo above, there is a groove cut into the plastic.  This is so you can insert fake nails into the finger to do the nail art on.  You are not supposed to paint right on the finger.  You can buy sets of glue on nails to use but I find that to be a waste of money because those sets of nails come in sizes 0-9 and I could only get sizes 4 and 5 to fit into the slot.  I've found a solution for me that works better.

Nails from nail wheels are perfect!

At Sally, you can also buy these nail wheels.  I already have a bag because I like to use them to swatch polishes or try out different nail looks before doing my whole hand.  You can buy a bag of these at Sally Beauty Supply for $5.39 with your beauty club card or $5.99 without a card.  They are available here.  In the bag, you get ten nail wheels with eighteen nails on each wheel.  So in all, you get 180 nails for around five dollars.  These nails are the perfect size to fit into the groove of the finger and for me, the length is perfect too.  Just be aware that once you put the nail into the finger, it isn't super long.  I like that though, because I tend to keep my nails on the shorter side and the length once in the finger is pretty similar to the length of my actual nails.  To put these nails into the finger, I just snap one off the wheel (it's easy to break them off) and insert the rounded end into the groove.  Don't glue it in, just slide it into the groove.

With nail, unpainted.  Front view

Then it looks like this from the front.  It's very similar in size to my index finger nail.

With nail, unpainted.  Side view

And it looks like this from the side.  See what I mean about the creepy factor?  I could totally see a long pointed lime green finger nail in there for an awesome Halloween decoration!


Once you have the nail in there, it's pretty secure, as long as you make sure it's not tilted to one side.  Then you can paint it, stamp it, and do all sorts of nail art.  Or you could use it to do tutorials.  I'm really excited to do some different tutorials with my new little model!