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.