By: Megan Kwan
With the release of Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast film this past Friday, we thought we’d pay homage to the tale in our own way. But first, let’s take a quick look at how this classic story came to be…
Back in 1756, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont penned La Belle et la Bête, thought to be the original version of the fairy tale. Later, it was discovered that Leprince de Beaumont had actually taken the general idea from Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s story (1740) of the same name. (Side note: In the latest live-action film, Belle’s village is named Villeneuve. Get it?) Barbot de Villeneuve’s La Belle et la Bête was intended for older audiences, and was over a hundred pages with a considerably more complex storyline. Leprince de Beaumont simply extracted the main ideas and characters, and wrote her own abridged version for children. Hence, Leprince de Beaumont is often mistakenly credited as the brain behind the tale.
However, like most Disney adaptations, the Beauty and the Beast that most of us have come to love is vastly different from the earlier versions. If Disney’s animated tale is the only story that you’re familiar with, then you may be disappointed to hear that there were no singing candelabras, dancing teacups, or antler-obsessed villains in the originals. Also, Belle surprisingly had five siblings: three brothers and two sisters. And just like in most fairy tales, she was the youngest, doted on by her father and brothers, and hated by her less-than-comparable sisters. In case you’re interested, Jean Cocteau’s black and white cinematic masterpiece (1946) follows Leprince de Beaumont’s story more closely.
Now, moving on from the history lesson to our way of celebrating the release of the live-action, musical adaptation, I present to you Beast and Chip in nail art form:
The Beast
The Polishes:
- Deep blue
- Black
- Brown
- Golden yellow
How to Beast-ify your nails:
- Start with a base coat to protect your nails and make your manicure last longer. (Or don’t if you can’t be bothered…)
- Apply a blue base colour to your nails. Let them dry.
- Using basic Scotch tape as a guide, paint a black triangle from the cuticle. (Quick tip: make the tape less tacky by sticking it on the back of your hand first. This way, it won’t be strong enough to accidentally lift off the polish underneath.)
- Paint your nail tips brown, going as far down as one third of your nail. Ideally, you’d have those straight, white nail stickers used to create French tips. Realistically, you can always rely on good ol’ tape.
- Using a tiny detail brush, add the yellow accent lines. If you don’t have a tiny brush, (because let’s face it, most people don’t) you can always wait for everything to dry, and then go back in with tape to guide your lines.
- Add two yellow dots in the centre of the blue section using a dotting tool or the end of a bobby pin.
- Seal it all in with a top coat (preferably a quick drying one because you’ll inevitably need to use the bathroom, start craving chips, or want to tie up your hair at this point.)
Chip
The Polishes:
- White
- Golden yellow
- Purple
- Pink
- Turquoise
- True nude (as in a colour that will match your natural nail colour)
How to Chip your nails (not literally, obviously):
- Apply a base coat (optional).
- Brush on a white base. If you’re lucky, this won’t take three or four coats. Let that dry completely.
- Use tape as a guide to paint on a very slim yellow tip.
- Create a arc along the cuticle in purple to mimic Chip’s teacup base.
- Going in with a small brush, fill in the majority of the arc using alternating pink and turquoise leaf-shaped strokes.
- Line the top of the arc with golden yellow.
- To create the “chip”, dip a small brush in nail polish remover, and repeatedly go over the area in a triangle until the polish is gone.
- Fill in the polish-less triangle with the nude colour.
- Apply a finishing top coat.
Let us know if you’ve had a chance to see Disney’s latest version of Beauty and the Beast. And if you decide to take a break from studying by recreating either nail design, we want to see!