The menu · $8 a nail

Painted, not applied.

Everything here is done with a brush, at the chair, while you sit there. No wraps, no stamps, no stickers, no press-on art. That accounts for both the price and the time.

Hush / Hand-painted art

The brushes Liner
1mm, for line
and script

Detail round
for florals
and faces

Flat shader
for gradients
and marble

Dotting tool

Everything
painted wet
into wet gel

Why a brush and not a sheet

Applied art comes in sheets and wraps: printed designs pressed onto the nail and sealed under gel. They are quick, they are cheap, they can look excellent, and they are the same on every nail and every person who buys them.

Painted art is a drawing made on the surface of your nail, at the size of your nail, following its actual shape. That means a floral can turn with the curve of the nail bed instead of distorting across it, a line can taper, and no two nails are identical because a hand made them.

It is slower and it costs more and there is no argument for it beyond that difference. The studio exists for that difference.

What translates onto a nail

A nail is a curved surface roughly twelve millimetres by fifteen. That is smaller than a postage stamp and it is not flat, which decides more than people expect.

Translates well: line work, botanicals, abstract colour, marble and gradients, geometric shapes, single-subject illustration, script if it is short.

Translates badly: anything with a face smaller than four millimetres, dense repeating pattern below a certain scale, photographic detail, and long text. Not because it cannot be painted but because it reads as a smudge at arm’s length, which is the distance nails are actually seen from.

The useful move is nearly always to take one element out of a busy reference and let it own the nail, which is the conversation that happens at the start of every art appointment.

The timing

One accent nail: about ten minutes. Two to four: twenty to thirty. All ten with real detail: an hour to ninety minutes on top of the set. Say at booking roughly what you want so the appointment is long enough.

What eight dollars covers.

Simple

One element

A line, a shape, a single flower, a colour block, a French in an unexpected colour. Five to ten minutes a nail.

The most common booking and frequently the best-looking result, because one thing done well beats four things crowded.

$8 · 10 min

Detailed

Layered work

Multi-element illustration, fine botanical, marble with real depth, small script. Fifteen to twenty minutes a nail, and the price is still eight.

Priced the same because charging by difficulty rather than by nail would mean arguing about what is difficult.

$8 · 20 min

A full set

Ten nails

Eighty dollars on top of the set and an extra hour to ninety minutes. Book it as its own appointment rather than adding it to a two-hour slot.

Worth doing once. Most people who do it come back for accents afterwards, which is not a failure of the full set.

$80 · +90 min

Asked often.

Is nail art at Hush painted or applied?

Painted, with a brush, at the chair, while you sit there. No wraps, stamps, stickers or press-on art anywhere in the studio.

How long does hand-painted nail art take?

About ten minutes for one accent nail, twenty to thirty for a few, and an hour to ninety minutes for ten detailed nails on top of the set. Say at booking so the appointment is long enough.

What kind of nail art does not work?

Anything with a face smaller than four millimetres, dense repeating pattern below a certain scale, photographic detail, and long text. A nail is smaller than a postage stamp and curved, and those read as a smudge at arm’s length.

How long does hand-painted art last?

As long as the set under it, which is two to three weeks. It is sealed under gel top coat, so it wears exactly as the rest of the nail does rather than chipping separately.

Bring the board.

All of it, including the ones you are not sure about. Half the work is choosing which single element gets the nail.

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