Nina Dobrev Rocks The Nail Color of Summer—a Mod White Mani—on <i>Cosmo</i>'s September Issue

Remember in middle school when you painted your tips with Bic's Wite-Out instead of paying attention in math class? Well, the days of whiting out your nails are back in full force.

"White polish on your fingers and toes is mod, clean-looking, and very popular during summer months [for starters, it makes you look sunkissed instantly!], and it's a great canvas for nail art," says Tracylee, nail guru and Sally Hansen ambassador, who painted Cosmo's September cover girl Nina Dobrev's nails with the chic shade. "But the coolest thing about this color is that if you're not ready to go stark white, you can opt for iridescent white shades, which will give a similar, yet less intense effect."

But while white lacquer is super hot right now, its chip-rate is about 100 percent, since it's highly pigmented and opaque. And, when it starts to come off, it's highly noticeable, which makes you look, well, unpolished. So, we asked Tracylee to give us the secret to keeping your mod mani in tact for more than a week.

"First you're going to want to take off your old nail polish with remover and then swipe your nailbeds with a cotton ball covered in rubbing alcohol. Nail polish remover has conditioning agents that are left behind on your nail, which leads to improper adhesion. The rubbing alcohol clears away any of these conditioning agents so that your basecoat sticks better to your tips," explains Tracylee.

"After applying your basecoat, always coat the free edge (aka the very tip) of your nail with polish first, and then paint the rest of your nailbed. Capping the tip of your nail minimizes the amount of chipping, since you're essentially sealing the polish on your nail," she says.

"Lastly, it's a good idea to reapply your topcoat every two to three days. This just strenghthens the barrier that protects your polish from chipping," adds Tracylee.

For a hot-right-now white polish to paint on asap, try Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Nail Color in White On, $3, drugstore.com, which also happens to be the exact lacquer that Tracylee used on Nina's nails below.

Here's a closer, behind-the-scenes look at the Vampire Diaries star's white tips, complete with the intricate nail art that was applied for our shoot.  

Will you be swiping on white nail polish for your beach vacay this summer?

Photo Credit: Matthias Vriens-McGrath

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Flashback Friday! 3 Amazing Things Inside Cosmo's July 1987 Issue

Welcome to Flashback Friday, where we dig through our ridiculously cool archive of vintage Cosmos to separate what’s hilariously old from what still holds up. February 1987, you're like a virgin.

There is probably no better poster child for the late ‘80s than Madonna, who at the time of this cover was a major star—her first three albums had sold millions—in the midst of a marriage to Sean Penn. Her interview with writer Chris Chase (who called her “tough but fascinating”) focuses on her love life, but only as a side note to the career success she’d built for herself, portraying Madonna as the take-charge badass we know her as today. For example, on her work ethic, she tells Cosmo:

“The musicians yell at me because when they take a meal break, I’m looking at my watch the whole time. ‘Okay, thirty minutes is up, get back in the room.’ I hate taking breaks, people come back lethargic, the energy’s down. I mean, I bring my soy milk and my apple and my rice chips to the studio, and I just want to keep working straight through.”

I mean…that quote is basically the word-equivalent of a power suit. And on that note! Let’s take a look back at more big-haired vintage finds:

LOL to this rainbow-colored power suit special:

“How To Win the Confidence Game” is basically the ‘80s predecessor to Lean In:

Also…this, which seems neither from the past nor the future, presented without further comment:

But as much fun as it is to peep the WTF fashion, there’s very little of it in this feature-heavy issue, which includes articles like “Working Girls’ Budgets,” “The Women of the White House Press Corps,” and a quiz on “How Would You Handle a Position of Authority?” There’s also a question from a reader asking about the risk of contracting AIDS from oral sex, and a scary ad for Lifestyle condoms that says, “I’ll do a lot for love, but I’m not ready to die for it.”

The cover might say that 1987 is about Madonna, but the inside pages do not shy away from the decade’s less dazzling struggles: the urgent need to gain power professionally, and the hushed, omnipresent sense of powerlessness in the bedroom.

See Flashback Friday with Mariah Carey here.

Elisa is Cosmo's social media editor. Follow her on Twitter @elisabenson.

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