Your hands deserve the beauty of airbrushed nails. Tell this L.A. artist we sent you

This story is part of Image issue 5, “Reverence,” an exploration of how L.A. does beauty. As a young adult, Robles spent a lot of her time searching for innovative or creative renditions of airbrush art — at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, where she once got a shirt with the words “Sad Girl Lila” imprinted on it; at the San Jose Berryessa Flea Market, where resident airbrush artist Everett Regua “still humors me with my weird requests,” she says; on YouTube, where she’d watch for hours as artists turned classic cars into one-of-a-kind masterpieces with soft whooshes of paint. Before attending art school, Robles began getting into airbrush herself — looking for ways to customize her Pontiac Firebirds at the time — but didn’t get far. This is an airbrush nail like they haven’t gotten since the 2000s — or they haven’t gotten at all. Getting that airbrush shirt, some people would never be like “Oh, that’s fine art.” The artistry gets overshadowed by where it’s coming from.