Is there any profession that can earn more than 1,000 U.S. dollars per day without even lifting a finger? The answer is definitely "YES"! Ashly Covington is the kind of top model earning 1,200 dollars in a day. As one of the few full-time body parts models, Covington doesn't cook, doesn't clean and avoids anything that could ruin her manicure. She thinks about her hands "every minute of every hour of every day," because for the past seven years, her hands (and, occasionally, her legs and feet) have been her sole source of income. She can earn anywhere from 300 dollars a day to a couple of thousand per hour. "Most people can walk away from work when they're done with a job, but parts models can't, because our parts have to be flawless. I moisturize 20 to 30 times a day, and wear gloves 90 percent of the time," she said in an interview, "When it's your livelihood, you've got to think hands first." Part models’ work is not as easy as people usually think. "Some people have a very romanticized view of what parts modeling is," said Danielle Korwin, president of the New York City-based Parts Models modeling agency. "Their boyfriend or grandmother or mother has said, you have great hands, you should be a model, but we want only the exceptional. Your hands have to be veinless, poreless and flawless." Covington believes hand modeling may be harder to break into than other kinds. Even if you have gorgeous hands, that doesn't mean they photograph well. "You have to know how to hold the hand so it looks beautiful." Since runway models and actors aren't hand perfectionists like professional parts models, producers bring in body doubles for close-ups. As a result, parts models have to do what seems like the near impossible: "Your hands have to convey emotion," Covington said, whose background in drama serves her well. Hand model James Furino, who's played the hands of famous leading men like Matthew Perry on "Friends" and Daniel Craig for a "James Bond" promotion, and has also landed print advertisements for clients like Smirnoff Vodka, said those gigs can be a lot of pressure. "They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in pre-production and people are flying in all over the country so you can get to that exact moment where you split a muffin, and it's on you," he said. Covington's hands have been everywhere from Hamilton Beach clothing iron boxes to NuvaRing birth control ads, and have even starred in that inescapable Dawn dish liquid commercial featuring a purple, Spanish-speaking sponge. She is very proud of this, in spite that nobody knows who is the owner of the perfect hands. Sources: Xinhua
