Nailspiration (from Japan!)

Posted by Erin on 8/6/11. Filed under: , ,

The biggest inspiration for me getting into nail art was Japanese nail art. Nobody does it quite like Japan. They have the most talented, creative, and hardcore nail techs over there, and to say that I'm jealous would be an understatement. But despite being jealous, I'm also appreciative. I've gotten many ideas from looking at their creations, and even more hours of enjoyment just by looking at pictures of these awesome nails they decorate. 


I was lucky enough to find a steady stream of Japanese nail art magazine scans about a year ago and have been collecting them ever since. There are some pretty badass nails within those scans, and I figured I would share the wealth (and inspiration) with you all. Even if you can't replicate any of these exactly (and really, who can? Not me...) you should definitely be able to take something from them and make it your own. 

As always, click the image to view the full size.


I love the dainty girly 2 tones black/pink french tips

yes, they even have mini tutorials!

Note: The the nails second down on the far left are remarkably easy to create using scotch tape :) 

These are all so. fucking. amazing. 

Pseudo heart shaped Pucci print. Awesome. 

Where can I get those little round pieces of glitter? I love that look, and it looks extremely easy...although very monotonous to achieve.


I literally have hundreds of these on my hard drive and I'd love to post more of them if anyone else loves them as much as I do :) So let me know! And please, if you use any of them as inspiration in your nail art designs, let me know so that I can check them out! 

8 Responses to Nailspiration (from Japan!)

  1. Hennie

    That's great! Thanks so much for sharing! And you are right, Japanese nail art is in a league of its own!

  2. Unknown

    I love these so much. Do you think you could send me the rest you have? My email is sin_and_tonic@hotmail.com ? :)

  3. neko3usagi

    I absolutely adore these too! I think it'd be cool if you could somehow post them in a way that we could download them or something like that - I could literally spend a day looking at them! Thanks so much for sharing!

  4. Erin

    I'm not sure I could email them. It would be an enormous file and would take me quite a while to compile everything. I will definitely try and figure something out as far as putting together some zip files of them and posting the links here though :)

  5. A warning from a fellow nail blogger

    Think twice about going out of you're way to send these scans to people who ask for them in comments, especially those that don't already bother to follow you, or link to your blog in the first place. They will just end up on other nailblogs, without credit or a linkback (trust me it has happened to me with similar issues)

    Just post the scans here so people can see them and download them that way if they want.

  6. Joy

    seriously, i just did my nails, and i want to do them again now! so many ideas! thank you for scanning these :D

  7. Unknown

    these are awesome thanks for showing them

    shel xx

  8. 7bridges

    Love these! I'm always runnin around the internet/world looking for new nailspiration for art, and I just bookmarked all of these. Thanks girl!

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