Staring intently at the Pinterest reference photo for her newest nail set commission, sophomore Aanya Shrivastava carefully paints on gel polish with a fine nail brush. This set consists of black, silver and white paints, marked with shiny and abstract designs along with carefully placed craft crystals. As always, she wears a mask and gloves, protecting herself from the strong chemical odors of nail polish.
On the tiny, smooth canvas where a single crooked stroke could ruin the whole piece, high-end nail art requires patience and precision. But for Shrivastava, it is exactly what she needs after a stressful school day.
Shrivastava found her passion for nail art last year while painting her own nails.
“It’s soothing. I just sit there for hours. I’m not even watching anything else, and it’s not a chore for me; I enjoy just making the nails,” she said.
While on a call with her friend, she realized had both the skills and the passion to turn her hobby into a business. Starting last month, Shrivastava has taken custom orders for press-on nails on Instagram (@aanyas_nails), for a starting price of $16 per set. For reference, most handmade nails cost $25-75 per set and most professional nail salons cost upwards of $80. Already, she has earned a total of around $150 by doing eight sets of nails. Her customers from SHS have been Nitya Nandula, Medha Sunkara, Ria Abraham, Aanya Hotha, Malavika Nair, Preksha Jain, Shaina Salvi, Avi Chauhan and Claire Jung.
Usually, her customers directly message her with inspiration photos, which she uses as reference. After getting nail measurements from her clients, she shapes the press-on nails, paints on the base and starts on the design. Shrivastava mostly uses gel nail polish, which cures and hardens under UV light but is also much easier to manipulate than regular nail polish.
Most of her skills are self-taught, and Shrivastava always finds herself experimenting with different techniques and tools. Resources on Instagram and YouTube often come to her rescue, but creating a variety of designs with the materials and tools she has can be difficult. Once, while trying to emulate an ombre design, she cut open a makeup sponge to blend with but still ended up having to layer more nail polish over it when it didn’t go as planned.
Many of Shrivastava’s nails boast beautiful ombres, cute designs and charms.
Despite the hurdles, Shrivastava finds the experimentation process to be gratifying and all the more rewarding when she masters a new technique.
As of now, her favorite nail designs are freestyle French tips, and she’s always looking for ways to improve her art. Recently, she ordered some trendy chrome nail powder, which can give painted nails a stunning shiny finish.
Like many others who have started part-time businesses, Shrivastava struggles with advertising her products to a larger audience and finding more customers. So far, she is working on being more active on her Instagram and posting her designs on social media.
When she’s not taking orders from clients or has creative freedom for custom nails, she finds inspiration online and transforms it into her own unique design. Other times, she tries drawing out her ideas on paper first.
On the other hand, balancing her side hustle business with schoolwork and extracurriculars has sometimes proved difficult, but Shrivastava tries her best to work on the nails whenever she has some extra time.
“I know for sure I’m gonna keep doing my own nails and maybe my friends’ nails too, but I don’t know if I want to take my business to college because it’s also a huge time commitment; every nail set does take two or three hours, especially since I’m starting out,” she said.
Her favorite set so far are the ones that she made for sophomore Medha Sunkara for her birthday party. While she struggled to get the right colors and add the glitter properly, it turned out exactly as she wanted, and seeing her work being appreciated and visible made it all worth it.
Birthday girl Medha Sunkara poses with her custom nail press-ons.
“I went through a lot, making those nails, and they turned out really nice. When I gave them to her, she was really happy, and she had them on during her birthday party. It was just fun for me because it matched her dress, and everyone was [complimenting them]. And I’m like, I made that!” Shrivastava said.
