Sunkuku Studio: Seoul, South Korea

Icy Gems on dali and winter wonderland on nabi

design by: Sunny

technician: Sunny

price: $$$

Studios are rated in a 1-3 star system. To learn more see our studio list.

Overall:★★★

Sunny is the reason we are obsessed with nail art. She is the nicest, most creative person who totally pulled our designs out of the heavens, no questions asked. If you find yourself in Seoul, and are ready to “blow a lot of money and don’t give a shit” (- Niki Minaj), please visit Sunny. You will not be disappointed.

STUDIO: ★★★

A one woman show, Sunny has her own studio where she works by herself in Seoul. She does not publicly list the location so we will not be listing it either. Her studio is brilliantly clean, and very large considering she only has one desk for manicures. She has a lot of cool furniture and knickknacks. While she was doing my nails, I remember watching her phone constantly light up with Instagram likes.

NAIL CARE: ★★★

Sunny is very gentle and experienced. She will take excellent care of your nails. She will be able to take off whatever you have on your fingers, the only issue you might run into is that afterwards you will have to go to an advanced studio to take off Sunny’s work because the average salon will not be able to handle it.

ART: ★★★

Working with Sunny will have you saying, “That has to be it… okay, now that has to be it… no wait there's more?!” She will keep adding stones with meticulous detail long after you think the design is ready. She comes up with all of her designs herself, so it’s like you are walking around with little artworks on your fingers when you’re finished. Just take a look at her Instagram.

Both of us were looking for something wintery. I wanted a blatant Christmas theme but without red and green. Dali showed her a specific teal color that Sunny ended up mixing for her. She hand cut the iridescent shards to give it an icy feel. You can’t see it well in the photo, but there are actually chains wrapped around the big stones on Dali’s middle fingers. I wish I had taken more photos of my nails because, as you can see on Dali’s fingers, nearly every nail is different. I think that is the most special thing about Sunny, her ability to stretch her creativity across all ten fingers. Unlike most other studios where the two hands are reflections of each other, when you work with Sunny it is clear that she is conceptualizing your hands as a whole.

LONGEVITY: ★★★

They last forever as you can probably tell. The more stone and things that are on your nails, the thicker the gel becomes, and the longer it will last if the application was good. My nails lifted at like week 5, which is way longer than you should ever have gel on your fingers, I just didn’t want to take them off.