Case Study: a new Cat-Eye setup

I am very impatient, love magnetics, and wanted to achieve a cat eye that dispersed less over time. So I created this thing and here is how I did it.

Abstract:

Pros:

1. you can do multiple fingers, speeding up the wait time and overall mani time.
2. you can walk around and do stuff with your other hand while you wait (by pinning it between your hand and your hip)
3. it elevates your hand while you paint
4. You can put your thumb naturally to the side and flip the box so that your thumb is on top of a stable surface (while your other nails set with magnets!) making it easier to paint.
5. the styrofoam doesn’t mess with the magnetic fields
6. this took me about 30 min to make total.  I was able to make it and paint 4 of my nails (shoddily, to be fair) in 1 hour!

Cons:

1. Much like other magnetic methods, putting magnets under all 4 of my fingers at once created a really dispersed cat-eye effect, so realistically
2. My pinky, at least, doesn't really want to lay flat when my thumb is also touching the box, but that is easily remedied by application method.

Methods:

Supplies:

• Styrofoam cooler that my medications were shipped in
• small knife (or xacto would work)
• Sharpie
• 3 neodymium magnets (specifically these)

Construction:

1. Put my hand comfortably palming one corner of the cooler, so that my thumb was on one side and my 4 fingers were on the "top" (which would have been the bottom of the cooler, but is now the top of my device) (see fig. 1)
2. Trace the tips of my fingers with sharpie, making a little mark at the corners of my nails, so I could remember the exact angle I would like the cat-eye to be at. (see fig. 1 and fig. 2)
3. Use a magnet as a guide to draw a straight sharpie line connecting the two guide lines I made before, indicating where the magnet would go on my nail.  Make sure that the line is the length of the magnet. (example of the straight line in fig. 3)
4. *CAREFULLY* use the knife to cut basically a long V-shaped groove where the black lines are and pry out the material. (see fig. 4)
   1. Then press the magnet into the v-shaped groove until it is either flush-with or almost-flush-with the top of the device. 
   2. You can remove more material from the groove with the knife if you can't get the magnet in deep enough in step 4.1
5. I also cut little finger-divots at one end of each magnet so that I can more easily pry the magnets out when I want to change their position (see fig. 5)
6. Repeat with other hand on the opposite corner (see fig. 6 for finished product)

Testing:

Polish list:

• 1x Mooncat Getting Even Nail Primer (painted 2 nights ago)
• 2x Bees Knees Lacquer Ultimate Weapon
• 2x Mooncat Speed Demon QDTC

Application:

1. With magnets under 4 fingers, paint 1 thin coat BKL Ultimate Weapon, starting with pointer and moving to pinky, keeping fingers on their marks the whole time (See fig. 7)
2. *without waiting* repeat step 1 with thick coat of BKL
3. Wait for approx. 5 minutes, excitedly posting to reddit and taking pics, realize that the effect is a bit diffuse…
4. Apply 1 med coat of QDTC on just the pointer and ring fingers, removing the magnets from the other slots (see fig. 8)
5. Wait 4 minutes
6. Apply 1 med coat of QDTC on just the middle and pinky fingers
7. Walk around with the device pinned to your hip, fingers on their marks, excitedly thinking to yourself about how reddit can be used for really cool things and that we can work together to improve and maybe this subreddit can be a little example of humanity using technology for goodness and joy and science and art! *undetermined amount of time passes*
8. Apply another thick coat of QDTC because Ultimate Weapon seems to need a glitter grabber, repeating steps 4-7

Results:

It worked! It cut down my wait time, I got a nice strong cat-eye, and was able to let it dry for longer in contact with the magnets (which I'm hoping will lead to less spread as the days go by).  As mentioned above, 4 magnets at once created a diffuse effect, but I was able to rectify this in the QDTC steps using magnets under every-other finger. (see cover pic for final results)

Discussion:

I suggest using the magnets in two batches: Thumb, Pointer, Ring and Middle, Pinky.  This makes sure your pinky lies flat and it also solves the diffusion problem caused by interfering magnetic fields.

Ultimate Weapon is not a great choice to showcase cat-eye effect, and so further research should be done with a more dramatic magnetic to show the real effectiveness of the device

In addition, I used my non-dominant hand for painting, so the application is atrocious.  In further studies I would like to try on both hands and time it to see how much time it could really save us.

Expansions for other magnetizing methods could be useful as well.

*Edited because for some reason Reddit got rid of lots of steps?*