Looks good. Are those sort of thing complete done by hand, or partially pre-made and stuck onto the nail while it is being painted?

Overoften, they aren’t cheap. I think it depends on where you go, of course, but a basic color job probably costs around 20 bucks–compared to 5 or 10 in the US. The designs, or nail art, vary in price and you have to pay per finger. The one above was on the cheaper end, about 680 yen per finger, and I had three fingers done.

So, a manicure can cost anywhere from a simple 20 bucks to over 100. It’s very expensive in Japan. The tradeoff is that the work is good and the designs are so fantastic.

Kaspian, the little flowers are actually made by hand on the spot. Some designs are painted on–like the momiji from last year. But these flowers are shaped by a kind of acryllic paste. This kind of work is called 3-D art. The gold baubles are prefabbed and put on with tweezers. Ditto for the little jewels that you might see, and of course any inlaid shells.

Jfwlucy–all your designs sound good! I’ve seen summer hanabi/firecracker designs and goldfish designs. I’ve seen snowflakes for winter. Probably no designs for O-bon or tsuyu as that would be a little morbid. Colors change with the seasons too. Water patterns are popular for summer, flowers for spring, snow for winter, etc.

This time I did a walk in at “Ciel” on Omotesando, and they were quite good. The girl said she went to school for a year to learn how to do proper manicures, as they get far more complicated than you what you see in my picture. I couldn’t handle extensions for example!

Well, it’s admittedly not the best photo! But if you think this looks extreme, you should see some of the other manicures that are in fashion now–and the “jewelry” that goes on the nails. Like it or not, this is a part of contemporary culture.