Blair always travels with a variety of colors, particularly a wide selection of nudes and reds. Both the "perfect" nude and "classic" red are subjective and dependent on skin tone. She also likes to have both white and black polishes that she can mix with other shades to adjust the intensity. MAC's new Nail Transformations (bottom row) are designed to be layered and mixed to change the finish of any lacquer.

MAC Studio Nail Lacquer and Nail Transformations ($12 each) are available July 3 at MAC stores and online.

From acetone to cuticle pushers, these items help Blair prep nails for polish. 

We’re picky when it comes to cotton swabs, so we instantly fell for these double-ended ones. “It’s really important to clean under the nail,” Blair says, and their skinny tips are just the right size.

Need your polish to dry ASAP? Blair swears by The Ultimate Fix, a spray from UK company Beauty Narcotix that is meant to be applied between each coat and leaves lacquer dry and shiny. 

How cute is this Hello Kitty topper for cuticle nippers? The rubber covering helps protect the tool’s point.

To moisturize mitts, Blair uses MAC Mineralize Charged Water Face and Body Lotion, which she says is “really hydrating.”

To create tiny detailed designs, Blair carries a striper brush housed in a bottle of acetone to keep the bristles clean. She uses the MAC 263 Small Angle Brush to clean up stray polish marks around the cuticles. “Because it's synthetic, nail polish remover doesn't affect it,” she explains. The dappen dish, which looks like a tiny shot glass, can hold acetone for easy dipping.

She also has an easy hack for keeping polish off cuticles: Mix three parts Elmer’s Glue with one part water and apply to the skin around the nail using a sponge. When you’re done painting your nails, peel off glue to reveal clean skin. Easy!

Genius alert: these cotton pads with a peel-off backing let Blair remove a client’s polish without messing up her own (awesome) nails. Her tip for easy removal? Saturate the pad with acetone and hold it over the nail. Move the pad to the right, move it to the left, and then pull it straight down the middle, off the edge of the nail. Never rub back and forth — you’ll end up staining your skin with polish pigment. 

How Blair keeps her kit organized: lots of bags with lots of compartments. This one is by Roo Beauty.

How cool are those pyramid-shaped compartments?

“At my house, I have this magnetized board and I have sample pots that I put magnets on, and I put all of them on there so I can see what I have. I can’t take credit for the idea — I stole it from the girls at Hey, Nice Nails! in Long Beach.”

“I’m inspired by all kinds of things — pop culture, music, food, Japanese pop culture — and so it was really easy for me to come up with concepts for nails, so I started a blog called Nail Art Junkie.”

It’s easy to apply silver or gold leaf to nails, Blair says — it sticks to any wet polish or topcoat.

“There’s this really awesome site called DollarNailArt.com, and they sell all of this stuff for $1 apiece.”

Blair uses the differently sized dotting tools to make polka dots and other shapes. Tweezers help her place embellishments on the nail. She uses pliers to bend certain charms in order to fit them to the nail shape. “One season for Ruffian we did these really cool cages on the nail, and I had to hand bend each one of the pieces in order for it to fit over top of the nail, because they were too flat,” she says.

The ball bearings are used to mix polish. “Polish thins as you shake it, so if you find that it’s getting clumpy or dry, and you don’t want to throw away your color, just give it a really hard shake and it will sheer out.” When creating custom colors, “I use the ball bearings to help mix it and make it really homogenous in the bottle,” she says.

“They allow you to do stripes and chevrons and zig zags. You put it on and you paint over top of it, and when you peel it away it leaves the negative space. The trick is you want to pull it off before the nail polish is completely dry. So you put it on, wait a couple seconds, and use your tweezer to remove it in the opposite direction of how you applied it. You can do the same trick with striping tape.”

Blair keeps all of the nails she creates for editorial shoots and runway shows.

To save space, she keeps past seasons’ designs in carefully labeled bags.

When Blair pre-paints nails for the runway, she uses this genius mounting hack, which she learned from an assistant. The plastic hooks are the ones you find in the office supply aisle. She attaches the nail to them with reusable adhesive putty (A.K.A. Fun Tack or Blu-Tak).

Sometimes, it’s easier to paint a set of nails held down by double stick tape.

“When I’m working with fake nails, I usually pre-paint them, and the way I apply them is with a double-stick toupee tape or fashion tape. It allows them to stick without having to use glue, and then you can just use a little bit of acetone or oil on the nail, or wash your hands, and the nails will come off. Once it sets, it stays pretty well.”

“I love to use gouache paint and acrylic paint for nail art. It’s very pliable and easy, and once you put topcoat over top of it, it clears out any texture you would get from the paint. It’s also great too if you’re just learning. As long as your nail polish is dry — really dry, like overnight dry — you can go in and paint with acrylic paint or gouache paint, and if you make a mistake, use a little bit of alcohol on a cotton swab or paper towel, and you can wipe it away without starting over.”

“I feel that my experience as a makeup artist  — understanding and mixing color, and looking at makeup as color and texture — has really taken that fear out of nails. What’s the worst it can do? Not work? You can just take it off. So that has really helped me have some great opportunities and to do some things in the very beginning part of my nail career that in the very beginning part of my makeup career I maybe wouldn’t have been able to handle.”

Feeling inspired now? Go for it! Blair says, “The nail community is insanely supportive and gracious, and if you go on Tumblr or Instagram or YouTube, you’ll see that there is any kind of how-to you want to know, you can find it in spades.” There’s never been a better time to pick up a striper brush and get creative.