Valentine's Day is Weird (Featuring More Nail Art)

Edited By: Shanya Rod

Photos courtesy of Laura Dimadi

These days, Valentine’s Day is often a day that girlfriends get excited about and boyfriends dread. For some who find themselves alone, all it seems to be is depressing. However, Valentine’s Day wasn’t celebrated the way that it is today. Actually, it wasn’t even always about love.

One legend starts in Rome with a Priest named Valentine. It is said that the emperor at the time decided that young, unmarried men made better soldiers because they had nothing waiting for them at home to hold them back. They say that Priest Valentine saw how horrible this law was and continued to secretly marry those young men to their loved ones. When he was discovered, he was put to death.

Another story says that Valentine helped Christians escape cruel Roman prisons. When he was discovered, he was thrown in prison himself and fell in love with the jailer’s daughter. Before he was about to be put to death, he wrote her a love letter and signed it, “from your Valentine.”

Lupercalia was a pagan fertility celebration in Rome that took place in February. Roman priests would sacrifice a goat and a dog. Then, they would cut the goat into strips and dip it into the dog’s blood. After that, they would walk around the streets slapping young woman with the blood soaked goat hides. Romantic, isn’t it? Well it was for them because the women believed if they touched it, they would become more fertile.

Eventually, Lupercalia was outlawed for being unchristian. But when St. Valentine’s Day was declared on February

14th, the association with love still stuck around.

Now that the origin of Valentine’s Day is fully disclosed, some may still be wondering how to best be fashionable for this holiday. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as just throwing on a Santa Hat and calling it a day. Well, one way to celebrate Valentine’s is by sporting cute nail arts, and the time to learn is now.

As Justine Carreon from Elle says, “Wearing your heart on your sleeve (literally) is the sure fire way to snag the lead in a sappy romcom that just happens to be your life on this Valentine's Day.”

#1 Use a protective base coat.

#2 After it dries, get some nail striping tape (or just normal tape cut into straight thin slices) and put it on the nails in straight intersecting ways. Some people prefer a more modern art look, but others are free to change up the design in any way they see fit.

#3 Then, choose a couple valentines themed colors (pink, white, purple, red) and paint in the little squares, not using the same color on a nail twice.

#4 After it’s dried, pull up the striping tape off the nails to reveal the perfectly straight lines between the polish that it left.

#5 Get some black nail polish and a very thin brush and just trace over the spots were the striping was.

#6 After that dries, pick a nail and put a little bit of red polish in the shape of the heart over the original design (Don’t be afraid to go over the black lines, it looks cooler that way!). Then, outline it with the same black as before. Optionally, put some glitters like I did on the heart just to make it stand out a little bit more, like the design in the picture shows.

#7 Don’t forget to use a protecting top coat to seal everything in, and then they are done!

Enjoy cute Valentine’s Day nails and the quick lesson on its history.