Meet the legendary founder of Creative Nail Design, recently in town to work her magic at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week, and learn a few new tips and tricks along the way …

What are your favourite nail looks right now?

“A translucent tint for day, a dark nail for night. I also love the industrial edge of chromes and metallics. But personally, my look is a long almond white, like the nails we did for Zimmermann (pictured). It’s all about almond right now.”

So an almond shape over oval or short and square?

“Definitely – an almond nail does for the hand what a stiletto does for the foot – it elongates it. Most of the designers we work with prefer almond. When it comes to the right nail shape, I always look at what’s going in shoulders and in shoes and as shoulders get sharper and shoes get higher and higher, what the designers are creating is the elongation of the silhouette. So to wear a short nail will look like somebody has chopped half the hand off. A long almond nail just gives you that extra bit of length. And it takes a few pounds off the hands, which you’ve gotta love.”

What are you most excited about in the nail industry right now?

“Customisation in the category of nail enhancement. Up until recently, when a woman came in to get a set of nails, we had either a pink or a white powder. Now we’ve got 24 different shades of powder. We also have the same selection in gels. So we can customise any nail enhancement colour you want. The service in salons now starts with a skintone analysis where we look on the inside of the wrist and see what the undertone of the skin is. If it looks yellow or warm then we can mix and match – for instance, I would take a warm pink, add a dash of yellow, maybe a little brown shimmer, a dob of orange or bronze, shake it up and bow we can do a custom blend designed for your skin.” Ed’s note: To locate your nearest Creative Nail Design salon, call 1800 449 109.

You also customise nail polish for many fashion shows, right?

“Exactly. That’s what we did for the Louis Vuitton summer ’08 show. For example, we mixed ½ bottle of Cream Puff with one drop of Voodoo with ¼ bottle of Hot Pop Yellow to come up with a pale mustard. And at Karen Walker’s show at Australian Fashion Week recently, we mixed white, blue and black together for a denim-inspired polish for the toes.”

Is that easy to do at home?

“Definitely – just use an old empty top coat bottle to mix various colours in.”

Where do you mostly get your colour inspiration from?

“Primarily fabrics. The fabric shows are two or three years in advance of the designer runway shows. We have people go to the shows for us and then send me swatches. The fabrics tell me everything – the opacity of colour, the undertone, whether there’s going to be a trend for metallics and shimmers that season, whether it’s about natural vs synthetic … So when the designers are putting together a collection, we’re already ahead of it and our nail colours fall in sync with fashion trends this way.”

Any other sources of colour inspiration?

“Well you never know when your next inspiration comes from so you always have to be on the lookout. For example, my husband and I were on vacation in Mexico a while back and we were driving to Santa Fe when we saw all of these bright purple and yellow desert flowers along the road. We pulled over and I picked a bunch – that became the Hot Pop collection. Nature is always a great source of inspiration.”

What’s more important: wearing the latest colour, or matching a nail colour to your skintone?

“You can do both at once – it’s about choosing the right shade within a colour category. For example, if it’s red and you have a yellow-based skintone, then look for a red with yellow in it. But if you have more of a cool skintone, go for a blue-based red. Just remember: warm equals warm, cool equals cool.”

What’s the biggest nail crime you see?

“French manicures on toes. I don’t know, it just looks cheap to me. The other thing is fake nails that flare out wider than the nail - it’s a nightmare! Or a French manicure where the white line is too thick. It makes your nail bed look short and stubby and fat. What I do is the opposite. I do a very thin white lineso the illusion makes it look like I was born with long nail beds - which I wasn’t.”

What’s your all-time top nail tip?

“I believe in what I call the three Cs: care, condition and coat. Care means regular manicures for keeping cuticles under control and nails at the most wearable length. Condition is about rubbing in Solar Oil (from $5, from Creative Nail Place) every night before bed - this fills the nail’s layers with oil and keeps nails resilient. And then coat is to seal it in, whether that’s a base and top coat or having an enhancement.”

Any other tips we need to know about?

“Always carry a clipper in your make-up bag – you never know when a hang nail will creep up.”

What’s the best way to prevent hangnails in the first place?

“Use a nail exfoliator like our Cuticle Eraser ($24 from Creative Nail Place) daily to massage in and micro-exfoliate. As the nail grows, this will help it shed a layer of cuticle. If you don’t clear it away this way, it will creep up and harden like a callus and eventually become a hangnail. Never let a manicurist cut any hardened cuticles. What you need to do is exfoliate and then soften with oil and bite the bullet for a month until the old stuff exfoliates away.”

What’s the best fix for peeling nails?

“Nail tips can be up to four months old. Over time, the layers of nail can delaminate if they’re not conditioned well – it’s like a shingled roof when it dries out. Use Solar Oil to push moisture out, which can exacerbate dryness, and replace with oil between layers to prevent them from drying out.”

And for weak nails?

“Whatever your nails are is genetic – so if they’re thin, there’s nothing you can do to thicken them, you just need to care for them. The general rule is opposites attract, meaning you want to wear a coating that is the opposite of what you’re born with. So if you’re born with thin weak nails, go for the strongest possible coating, whether that’s an enhancement or a heavy-duty top coat.”

And for yellow-stained nails?

“Avoid using base coats or hardeners containing formaldehyde.”

And what about those little white spots?

“It’s a sign of damage, that you’ve pushed or poked too hard around the nail bed.”

So nothing at all to do with calcium deficiency?

“Nothing whatsoever. That’s something I hear all the time but it’s a myth that what you ingest can change the integrity of your nail health or boost nail growth. Although of course, the healthier you are, the healthier your whole body, including nails, will be.”