Affiliate links are present in this blog post. And so are spoilers!

In this blog: Michelle Pfeiffer’s Press-On Nails in Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles: Exact Products & How to Recreate Shyanne’s Looks

From Michelle Pfeiffer's nail artist, Katie Masters 

If you’ve been watching Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles, you’ve probably noticed Michelle Pfeiffer’s nails as Shyanne. Every detail was intentional, from the soft milky neutrals to the bold cross accents.

I’m Katie Masters, aka Nail Thoughts, the nail artist behind her looks for the show. I’ve been a nail tech for over 10 years and created my own gel line in collaboration with Kokoist USA, which I used throughout these designs.

I have been waiting a whole year to tell everyone that I got to do Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman’s nails for the series! 

pictured: Shyanne's engagement scene in Margo's Got Money Troubles and also my exact face getting to see my nails on TV.  Wearing Nail Thoughts in 100% Cotton

And this is my very first time having MY nails and MY own gel products on a TV SHOW! Let alone having them on the TWO icons Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman?! What an insanely amazing opportunity I’m literally beyond thrilled.

So I am here to walk you through how I did Michelle Pfeiffer’s aka Shyanne’s nails on Margo’s Got Money Troubles. If you are interested in seeing what I used for Nicole Kidman aka Lace’s nails in Margo’s Got Money Troubles, tap this blog right here.

Shyanne’s nails are a total part of her character. We wanted to give her long and square acrylic looking extensions as a base for all of her nail looks. And to make things easier to pop on and off depending on the scene, we decided to do custom press on nails as opposed to a permanent gel manicure. Each nail is adhered with double sided press on sticky tabs. That way Michelle also didn’t have to live her regular life with long nails that she’s not used to. 

Pictured above: how I transported the nails and organized them. 

All of the following press on nail looks are on top of Kokoist Gelip gel extension tips in square medium, filed and fine tuned to fit her nails perfectly. 

Shyanne’s everyday go-to nail look:

I used Nail Thoughts- 100% Cotton as the base color. It’s a gorgeous neutral milky color that has a hint of pink to it that goes with every outfit that Shyanne wears. This will be her most common nail color that you see in the show! But to spice it up for certain scenes or moments, there were two different ring finger accent fingers to switch out.

 One accent finger has a single gem at the tip of the nail. That was to ~spice~ things up for her bachelorette weekend.

pictured: Shyanne with her gem bedazzled nail on top of Nail Thoughts 100% Cotton in Margo's Got Money Troubles

 And the most noticeable accent nail, to match Shyanne’s new found religion, is a big charm of a cross right in the middle of the nail. I found two different cross charms to pick from just depending on the vibe, an all gold bedazzled one, or a more goth style black charm.

Shyanne’s French Tip:

I used Nail Thoughts tinted base gel in Strawberry Milk Base which is such a popular and classic color in salons for the background of French tip nails. Then I used Nail Thoughts Fresh Sheets (a crisp and pigmented white gel) with the Nail Thoughts Detailer Brush to hand paint the French tip over it. 

pictures: Nail Thoughts Strawberry Milk Base French tip on Michelle Pfeiffer 

pictured: A swatch of Nail Thoughts Strawberry Milk Base

Then same thing with her go to nail look, to match Shyanne’s new found religion, I added a fancy sparkly cross charm as the ring finger accent nail to switch out depending on the scene. 

pictured: Shyanne's French tip manicure with a cross charm accent nail

Shyanne’s wedding nails: 

For this look we definitely wanted a stark white manicure, but with a sort of mish mash look of glitter on top especially because it’s a Vegas wedding, baby!!! Shyanne is very unapologetic and kooky. Some would say she's a little tacky, but to me she is simply iconic. So these wedding nails needed to match that vibe.

pictured: Shyanne's wedding manicure in Margo's Got Money Troubles

So I used Nail Thoughts- Fresh Sheets as the base which is a crisp pigmented white gel. Then we wanted a mildly chaotic speckled glitter over it for her Vegas wedding look, so I threw a ton of different layers on it. Here’s what I used, in order of appearance:

Nail Thoughts- Enigma (a clear glitter gel with small chunky holographic glitters)

Kokoist Rainbow Mica Flakes (loose glowy flakes) *discontinued, sorry :( *

Kokoist- Silver Spanglitter (a silver speckly glitter)

And Kokoist Rainbow Top Coat (a top coat with glowy small micro glitter) 

BONUS BTS:

And why did they not do yellow nails for Shyanne in Margo's got Money Troubles?

Here are some of the other options I presented to the director and Michelle that ended up not making the cut but I think they were still super fun! If you read the book by Rufi Thorpe, you might remember that Shyanne's nails were at one point a bright “radioactive” yellow, so I brought in a couple examples but we decided against it as to not make too much of a caricature of Shyanne and take too much attention. So the bright yellow manicure in the book actually turned into the cross charm manicure for the show!

I also added some red samples and even painted a classic tortoiseshell look since it gave almost a leopard print vibe. The tortie was tempting! The red was a no which worked out super well because Nicole Kidman's character Lace wore red nails.

 One of my personal faves was trying out a super warm and pigmented pink French tip base to sort of give the vibe that after so many French tip manicures maybe Shyanne got a little pink blind and kept going more pigmented by the appointment.

And those are the iconic Shyanne manicure's from AppleTV's Margo's got money troubles! Hope you enjoyed a little of the behind the scenes of the making of the nails.