Hand of the Week #15, Emma Watson

I just re-watched the last two Harry Potter movies, and was reminded of Emma Watson's hands as there are quite a lot of close-ups of them.

I found this photo on the web and was even more astounded. It's very rare to find this kind of full frontal top-down picture, but I'm always happy when i do, since it is definitely the most clear representation of a hand.

Watson's hands are terrific. As you can see, they are a tad less elongated and slender than some of the hands I've reviewed in the past, but that's not a problem since her hands have other qualities that matter more for her type of hand. It's the stockier kind with a little bit of thicker -everything-, without even being close to a butch man-hand. Her nails are large, smooth and bright. They fan out in width as they approach the tip of her fingers, which I really love. This is also a perfect nail length for her. Her knuckle darkness is quite prominent and adds to the overall impression of her hands.

All in all, a great pair, and look out for them if you re-watch any of the Harry Potter movies.

Hand of the Week #14, Christina Applegate (quad edition)

Click this image for a larger version.

Wow! My last 'Hand of the Week' entry was almost three years ago! And the blog has been running for more than four! That's incredible to me. I still get about 200 readers every month, and looking at the stats it mostly seems to be people looking for pictures of Jennifer Anistons hands or her nail polish. Though there have some interesting cases where I've been linked very specifically on forums and such. One example is when someone wanted to find out the ratio between two of Charlize Theron's fingers on the basis of some celebrity marriage superstition, and my blog was linked. Haha!

I haven't been out of the hand admiration business though, just been busy with school/life, and I haven't really taken the time to sit down and do some proper image crawling for an article. But here it is! Enjoy.

I've been wanting to do an article on Christina Applegate for a long time. Ever since the first time I saw 'The Sweetest Thing' in which her hands are positvely radiant. Aside from being drop-dead gorgeous, she has some serious hand assets as you can see from the images above. I'd rate her in my top three, along with Sandy Swanson and Famke Jansen. Her hands provide a nice contrast to Jennifer Aniston's, whose sister she played on Friends, and whom she carries an actual resemblance to in real life! All four of (the hands!) are beautiful in their own ways, but even though I've already done an article on Aniston's, I personally prefer Applegate's.

The first thing I noticed when I started crawling for pictures was that throughout her entire career, she's gone for very light shades of nail polish. If you've read this blog before you know I LOOOVE that. I'm glad she appears to share my ideal of what a great nail job should look like, and that she's mostly been sticking to that formula for decades since it works so well. Light pink or near-opaque white. Yum. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Compared to Jennifer Aniston (you can find the original article here: http://handledancer.blogspot.se/2008/05/hand-of-week-3-jennifer-aniston.html), Applegate is a lot more big boned. A little bit like Trinny Woodall (http://handledancer.blogspot.se/2008/08/hand-of-week-7-trinny-woodall.html) but a bit more slender and feminine. She has that wonderful curvature of the nail form the nailbed to the tip, but not too much. It's just perfect, and quite resembles that of Sandy Swanson: (http://handledancer.blogspot.se/2008/11/hand-of-week-10-more-sandy-swanson.html)

I have to talk about her wrist for just a second. Can you see how much character that slightly thicker than average wrist adds to the general conception of her hands? Just like Charlize Theron, it gives her that strong, sexy "mom" look which is very cool. And as always, that sweet sweet knuckle darkness is quite tangible.

I'd also say that a strong point with Applegate's hands is that their quality improves exponentially with the length of her nails. Longer nails suit her MUCH better than shorter, which isn't always the case. Some hands are best kept at short or moderate nail lengths in order to maximize their appeal, but I've seen some pictures of her hands with the nails cut very short, and the allure is almost completely gone in spite of her other striking features.

Another plus is that unlike Aniston, Applegate's hands have not deteriorated as much with age, which I would personally just attribute to genetics. There's not much poor Jennie can do... except maybe hand plastic surgery? :O Does that even exist? I think they should hire me as a design advisor in that case. :)

All in all, a GREAT package! I know she's been battling breast cancer, but I hope that both she and her beautiful hands are healthy and doing well. :)

I will see you soon for another installment. I will make sure it won't be another three years. :)

Hand of the Week #13, Iréne Jacob

Beautiful hands... I saw her in Othello with Laurence Fishburne and was wowed. Click on the picture for a much larger version.

Hand of the Week #12, More Famke Jansen

Just beautiful!

Hand of the Week #11, Jennifer Aniston's Nails

Here we go. I have this little FEEDJIT widget that tells me when people visit the blog and how they came here. If they used a search engine it will tell me what words they searched for. By far the most popular and common feature people come to is the one with Jennifer Aniston, #3, and the search words are quite simply jennifer aniston nails which made me figure I should give these people some more food for thought. First of all, if you click on the picture to the left it will take you to a big full size version, so go ahead and do that.

I would say that this picture is most likely from 2000 or 2001. Her hands have started to take on the lean features that they have today, but they are still quite youthful and slender looking. The particular knuckle darkness is prevalent yet again. She seems to be wearing some kind of bright semi-opaque nail polish which looks great. Enjoy, and be sure to scroll down to check out her smile.

Hand of the Week #10, More Famke Janssen

Check out that video. It's just a little thing I whipped up, basically consisting of a scene from X-Men 3 which repeats over and over again. Hopefully you can click on the video to actually go to YouTube and view it in High Quality and see it better.

It's Famke, which is more than enough. As the camera pivots around Cyclops you can see about four golden seconds of hand beauty from Famke. A still photo would not have sufficed because there are so many more variables. Just the way she repositions her grip in the middle of the sequence. Bear witness to her knuckle darkness, exceptional muscle tone, skin tone, nail shape and quality. It's a work of art, please enjoy it!

Hand of the week #9, More Sandy Swanson!

Spectacularly enough, Sandy Swanson herself has graced my blog with her presence in the past couple of days, and since nothing is going on anyways I thought I would give her some more space.

Now, just check this out. Just like in the last picture we're dealing with some seriously smooth skin, buffed nails, and impeccable shapes, but what is quite extraordinaire with this particular picture is the aspect of exceptional extension.

Her left hand is almost fully extended, and as such, the exact magnificigance of Sandy's musculature is revealed. Just look at those long fingers, where they branch into the body of her hand. The root of her thumb including the first knuckle and upwards is an artwork in itself (I go over some of the basics in The Thumb entry). As for the color scheme it's tomato red coupled with milky white skin and likely some ethereal nail polish. The particular knuckle darkness is prevalent! Please enjoy, and thanks again for dropping by my blog Sandy!

Hand of the Week #8, the Wrist

I've been focusing a lot on digits so far, let's see something else for a change. Yup. Wrists. We all have them but most people probably don't pay that much attention to them. Even the ankles usually get more attention, which is ironic since you're much more liable to spot someone's wrists before you spot their ankles.

The main thing I want to say about wrists is that bracelets of any shape and size are devastators. I have yet to see a good bracelet, because they all amount to the same kind of faults and flaws. Equipping a bracelet will cause one of two things. Either the bracelet will slip down until it reaches the start of your hand. This will cause compression of the entire wrist area. It makes your forearms look short and stubby which is not attractive or beautiful in any way. Or, your bracelet will slip up toward your elbow. This will cause elongation of the entire wrist area. It will look freakishly long and disproportional.

The solution? Don't wear a bracelet or watch. As you can see in the lovely picture to the left, the very best result is achieved completely naturally. You will end up with an excellent, wholly proportional scale, with the grace of your forearm beautifully melding into the end of your wrist area and branching out into what is hopefully your lovely hand. Just take your bracelet off, you can't go wrong.

Just as was the case with the thumb, it's a very underestimated area that few people recognize, but it can make or break a hand just as much as anything.

EDIT: I've got this thing that logs the IPs of everyone who checks the blog out... whoever is from Skutskär, Uppsala, I'd like to hear from you since you seem to like the blog ;)

Hand of the Week #7, Trinny Woodall

Trinny Woodall has very motherly hands, sharing the category with Nigella Lawson among others. You can see the thick bone structure and her powerful fingers. Her nails can only be described as mighty. Knuckle darkness as always. The ring truly enhances her hand, large and vibrant, suiting her bone structure perfectly. It looks like she has a thin coat of nail polish on, transluscent in some kind of bright pink/white color which works really well. Enjoy.

Hand of the Week #6, Elizabeth Hurley

Ah yes. Elizabeth Hurley. I first saw her in that Austin Powers movie, then in that movie where she plays the devil against Brendan Fraser. I had no idea she brandished a pair of fine looking hands until I by chance did an image search on her. Needless to say I was impressed and here she is for you, have a good look.

What seems to be a recurring theme in these features, you'll see her fingers are long and strong with excellent bone structure. Powerful joints and that particular knuckle darkness that I dig. Her nails are also curved, arcing their way across the nail bed (another recurring theme?) with grace. Her nails are impeccably buffed and as always, without nail polish which in general looks much better. The scene for this photograph is a sandy beach which provides excellent lighting. If you look hard enough you can see the grains of sand. Let's hope she brought some moisturizer to keep those bad boys smooth and silky from the dry beach wind.

Hand of the Week #5, the Thumb

Ah yes, the thumb. I figured I should devote at least one feature into determining the truth behind what constitutes a good thumb from a bad thumb.

Whenever I get ahold of a thumb that fascinates me, I am stuck with a feeling of awe, the thumb seems to eminate some kind of power, a mighty stature with bold features and a confident demeanour, an instrument of ingenuity. If you look to the image, you'll see an example of such a thumb. I'm going to let the thumb bask in anonymity and let you focus on the fact that it's a thumb, not who it belongs to.

As you can see, the digit is extended. The actual base of the thumb, where it protrudes from the rest of the hand, is where the magic starts. Beautifully toned hand muscles support the upper part of the thumb, and if we look further up, you'll see the bottom knuckle in all its glory. The middle knuckle carry the wrinkles that we all adore so, and resting majestetically upon the very end of the thumb is the thumb nail, which nearly deserves a chapter for itself. Looking at the picture we see can see how it arcs across the nail bed, perfectly buffed and taken care of. All of its aspects put together, this thumb is a prime example of one that instills awe in me, and it has the potential to be one of the best parts of any hand. In this hand it may very well be.

While the criteria for a good thumb may be fuzzy, there's a gut feeling that lets me differenciate between the two. A bad thumb might be disproportioned, have a short of neglected nail, or even have unnamable qualities that makes it look weak and puny.

All in all, I can safely say that the thumb is one of my favorite digits, and I hope I've sparked your interest for thumbology with this feature. ;)

Hand of the Week #4, Charlize Theron

I know it has been almost a month since I last made a post, my apologies. I've been busting my balls trying to figure out who I should feature. I have been contemplating Joni Mitchell, Lisa Kudrow, Tyra Banks, Trinny Woodall, and I almost made a "revisited" feature about Jennifer Aniston...

Then I happened to watch a movie called "In the Valley of Elah", where Charlize Theron starred as a police officer. At first I wasn't sure how her hands actually looked, but fortunately there were plenty of close-ups of her picking up cups/important legal papers, so I got myself an eyeful. I went online and dug out a picture which wasn't terribly hard since she's actually a model. It really sucks when I get a good idea on who to feature only to go online and find that there's not a single good picture of that person's hands. I've been lucky so far but who knows when I'll just come to a dead end.

I think I need to shut up more and just let you look. Before I shut up though I'll just drop a few comments... as you can see, she has impeccable bone structure, long and strong fingers with powerful nails that in this picture appear to be coated in some sort of luminescent nail polish. Nothing too fancy, just something to brighten up the general surface of the nails which works real well along with her tan. If you go back to the Courtney Cox feature (I should have found a better picture for that one, sorry) you'll notice Charlize pinky is also elongated and elegant.

For next time I've got a pretty good idea on what to feature, but we'll see if I can make it work or not (it'll be an excellent feature if it does work), for now though, enjoy what I've posted so far, drop me comments here or at Blog Catalog (http://www.blogcatalog.com/user/Handledancer) and as always, if there's a particular pair you think I've missed, let me know and I'll do some more ball busting to find a good picture and feature it. Have a nice week.

Hand of the Week #3, Sandy Swanson

I introduce to you, Sandy Swanson. This week's feature is a little different from the one's I've done so far. I've reviewed Famke Jansen, Courtney Cox Arquette, and Jennifer Aniston. All beautiful actresses that I've managed to spot equally beautiful hands on and decided to review them.

I found Sandy Swanson when looking for pictures on the internet. Sandy is a renowned hand model who has modeled in hundreds and hundreds of commercials and advertisements. Her webpage can be found at http://www.sandyswanson.info and all copyrights go to her. I browsed Google for "beautiful hands" and her portfolio popped up. As soon as I entered I knew that these hands had to be featured here as soon as possible.

Before I get to the actual hands I must comment on the fact that this is obviously a perfume commercial, and the entire picture just seems to glimmer in a radiant pinkish hue due to her clothes, the color of the perfume, the pink flower shooting out of the perfume bottle, and the color of Swanson's nail polish. That's right, she is using bright pink nail polish. I know I wrote in my first entry that freakishly bright pink was a lost cause, and I still stand by that statement. Sandy has decided to go with a very mellow light pink. The more redpinkish abominations that are best kept hidden from the public eye are the ones I spoke of in my previous article. Swanson makes this color smoke and it works extraordinarily well with the overall color scheme of the picture.

Since Swanson does this kind of modeling for a living, she is obviously diligent about keeping her hands clean and well kept, buffing her nails, treating her skin with precious moisturizers, and such care is clearly visible in this picture. Suffice to say, the extra effort is worth it if you want to extract the final ounce of wonderfulness out of an already brilliant pair of hands.

The impeccable shape of her nails, her lustrous skin, and huge talent for posing in yummy ways all add up to a fantastically good picture. Just like Famke Jansen and Jennifer Aniston she has the particular knuckle darkness. If you look at the very edge of her nails, you'll see a nearly invisible strip of white. It is barely visible, but it adds a lot to the picture and the conception of it. You might say it's going in the french tip direction, but you would be wrong. This is GOD compared to french tips, instead of ruining the entire artwork by using blistering bright glossy huge edges, Swanson enhances it by taking the educated decision of utilizing such a subtle shade of white to her advantage, and it's another thing that makes the picture truly pop.

Would I buy the perfume? You're damn right I would.

Hand of the Week #2, Jennifer Aniston

Continuing in Friends fashion, here is another pair of hands, belonging to Jennifer Aniston. This is an early picture of her, and her hands changed quite a lot throughout the ten years Friends ran. Since this is an early photo, you can see that her hands still have that beautiful youthful skin, like two doves gently perched on the branch of a tree.

This picture also (in fact) demonstrates that you can pull off long nails with style. As you can see, Jennifer has made sure that the nails are clean (despite their length), buffed, and slightly rounded at the edges as to not be sharp looking.

Look at her knuckles too, just like Famke she has that wonderful extra darkness. Generally I think it's preferable to shape the end of your nail to match the shape of your cuticle, but Jennifer has done the opposite. Her cuticle is arced, but her nail is shaped like a rectangle. It works, but imagine if they were the same shape... Now that I look closer, I don't think it's on purpose on every single finger actually. The index finger in the right picture is a good example of rectangularity, but look at the underside of her thumb in the same picture. It is nearly divine.

When I look for pictures to put up for you guys, it's actually a real challenge to find good ones. There are surprisingly few good high-res images of people's hands, believe it or not. That's the reason we are left but hints of such beauty as can be beheld in this image, especially the thumb there.

If there's anything that can beat her actual nail properties and the care she's put into her nails, it has to be the actual shape and demeanour of her actual hands. Slender, soft, even, are all adjectives that can be used.

I started saying that her hands have changed during the 10 years that Friends ran (big shock), these were her hands at the start of the series. I believe there was a period when she used white bright nail polish (uh season 2 I believe), after that she adapted the style she would keep for the rest of the series and even today, while her hands aged a bit, taking on a sharper, more distinct look. While they are not ugly by any means, it is truly a joy that some of this footage is available where the fountains of her youth were still flowing over and moisturising her hands. Truly a beautiful pair.

As always, looking for pictures, and leave comments!

EDIT: Be sure to check out http://handledancer.blogspot.com/2008/12/hand-of-week-12-jennifer-anistons-nails.html which is my newest Jennifer Aniston feature.

Hand of the Week #1, Famke Janssen

An excellent pair of hands, after seeing her in Nip/Tuck and X-Men I looked further into it, and managed to come by a few pictures of her beautiful hands.

Beautiful aren't they? Excellent muscle shape, you can see that the entire contour of her hand is even, and so is the space between her fingers. The shape of her nails are also unbelievable, perfectly rounded, sitting majestetically upon her long, gorgeous fingers. They are also very well manicured, buffed, etc.

Another thing I really like... you see the middle joint of her fingers? Large, wonderfully sculpted, with quite striking creases. Just looking at the picture is pleasurable, I think. But what do you think?

I am still looking for pictures you can send me of beautiful hands, even your own.