Before I left for Houston, I went to get a manicure, and the sweet lady at the salon talked me into getting acrylic tips. I was an easy sell- I was nervous, and I wanted to look pretty. My nails have never been a hotbed of good looks- seriously, anyone who does the amount of things with their hands that I do cannot have a nice manicure for long. So I bit. And oh, boy howdy, did they look pretty! A French manicure is always classy in my book, and my hands suddenly looked… well… feminine. It was nice.
It did find I poked myself a lot. They weren’t that long- it’s just that I’m used to relying on my hands to be something besides pretty. I had trouble typing, dialing the phone, opening a diet cherry Dr. Pepper (egad!) and even texting on my old skool phone. But I sure did feel pretty when I wrote something or shook hands with a new friend. Beauty is painful, right?
It’s been three weeks, and I noticed they were growing out and starting to look a little bedraggled. I needed to either get them fixed-up again, or take those suckers off. The kick in my decision direction came on Sunday. I needed to sew something, and I went to put my thimble on. WRONG! Nope, no thimble with nice nails. Not gonna happen. Then, at church, there was a lady I did not know sitting in front of me in RS, and she had these insanely long, obviously fake dragon-lady fingernails. But they were also French manicured. And that did it. Is that awful? I don’t want to be the Thimble-less Dragon Lady.
So last night I sat down and chipped, peeled, hacked and gnawed those suckers off. Aaaaaaaaaaah. The relief is palpable. My fingers thank me. My fingers are SO happy they feel like Sally Fields. I can type quickly again, I can wipe bums without stabbing anyone, I can pick little noses and dial my phone- I can do all kinds of things, and I CAN use my thimble again! Hooray!
So my foray into being a fancy girl was fun, but ultimately, for me, plastic finger-extentions were more pain and handicap than they were worth. It sure is nice to have my ten little friends back… and we’ve got to get to work!
Dandelion Mama 
comfort over couture is what I always say….
OH, I’m so on-board with that thought now, Amelia!
I’ve had them before (who hasn’t in beauty school?) but haven’t done them in years and years. With all the things I do it’s too hard to keep them up or, like you wrote, do the things I need/want to do without impaling someone. If they’re on the shorter side I still think they can look so pretty, but I just can’t handle them on myself.
I remember as a girl looking at the short, practical nails on the hands of one of my Mom’s friends. I remember thinking it was strange and maybe a little sad that such a pretty lady had such ugly nails. Now I think of it as kind of a badge of honor that my nails are short as can be–for all the reasons you mention. These hands are for working and wiping and touching…
Yeah – to me acrylic nails are something akin to chinese foot-binding.
Let’s render something totally useless that will utterly handicap us all in the name of “looking good”….
or not.
Yup- I’m in that boat now too. Foot binding is a good, if more extreme, analogy.
My luxury item is pedicures…in the spirit of pedicures I decided once to get a manicure. No way, no how. Being a mom with three small kids, painted nails just don’t work. Pretty, yes, but beauty is so not worth that!
Oh Kellie, but I am so there with you on the Pedicure!! That’s what I should have done- only no one would have seen it, and my vanity got the best of me. But next time… yes, next time, it’s pedicure all the way.
Considering all the glamour manipulation I’ve done to myself over the years, I’ve never had fake nails.
I’ve only had acrylic nails once, for prom, my junior year in high school. Two days later, I was so irritated with the stupid things that I soaked my nails in acetone until they all fell off. My fingers looked nasty for a few weeks… the nail lady had sanded them down pretty far, but oh, I couldn’t stand not being able to use my fingers the right way!
Pedicures are awesome though.
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I got fake nails once for a wedding (not even mine!) and I swear I felt like my fingers had claustrophobia. I COULD. NOT. WAIT. to get them off. A friend of mine came over one afternoon and scraped them down and I vowed never to do that again!