Fellas, I'm going to give you the week off. I want to talk about nail polish and I'm pretty sure other than having a preference whether you like it or not, this article likely won't be your cup of tea.
I believe a lady should have her fingers and toes painted at all times - yes, even in the wintertime. I'm actually much more adamant about women having their toes painted because I think feet, in general, are weird and it's one step closer to making them a bit more appealing.
For me, personally, though, I cannot handle naked nails. I honestly feel naked without nail polish. When I'm out in public, it's as if I forgot to put pants on. I feel like everyone is staring.
I don't know, call me old-fashioned, but I also am a gal who believes you should change out of your pajama pants before leaving the house. Maybe that makes me prissy; so be it.
I remember my Mam teaching me how to paint my own nails in her bedroom. I believe the color options were few, but there was a very soft pink and a fire engine red in her collection. I, by no surprise, honed in on the fire engine red. "No," my Mam told me, "You're not old enough for that yet."
It's hard to string together the conversation verbatim, but I recall the conclusion hinted around to the idea that women of ill repute wore red nail polish. Not that I had any idea what a women of ill repute was; I was only about 4 years old, for heaven's sake.
The naive little girl I was, though, couldn't wait to grow up and be one of those women, just so I could sport fancy red nails.
In hindsight, I'm glad I never went that route and I eventually realized the fun my grandmother was having with me that day. Had I not, I would have possibly wondered by my God-fearing, gentle, loving, peach of a grandmother would have such a color. God rest her soul, that's probably about as racy as she ever got. She was truly a saint, and for the record, I never saw her wear bright red nails once.
My history with nail polish reads like a love story complete with the honeymoon phase then the realization that the polish just wasn't what I was looking for.
A lot of my early collection, which I kept neatly organized in my nail Caboodle, were of the Avon variety because the lady who worked the front desk at the doctor's office my mom worked at sold it. It was a collection of mauves and pinks and, eventually, without soiling my reputation, I graduated to red.
Throughout the years, I've tried every gimmick nail polish there is because I just can never get enough.
Let's take a look back at a spattering of some of those:
Press-on nails
Oh, Lee Press-On Nails. They were as cool as Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" video was to me in the late 1980s. It was a novel idea: Let's put some super glue on our nails and adhere this plastic talon. Surely nothing could go wrong there.
The problem was, at the same time of the popularity of the press-on nails was the perm. Now, although I always had a "pick" in my purse to tame my unruly mane of curls at any given point of the day, there was always occasion to scrunch your curls to make sure your style was on point. Press-on nails and permed ringlets of hair don't get along well because mine were always getting stuck, eventually flipping the nail right off and ruining my day.
Acrylic
When I finally got a well-paying job out of college, the first thing I decided I, as a working class woman, was going to do was to start getting my nails done professionally. Luckily for me, I have always been blessed with very strong nails that grow very fast.
Little did I know, the best way to ruin that is to get acrylic nails. They whittle your real nails down with a Dremel, people. How can that be good? I realize this now and I do believe it works very well for someone with thin nails that don't grow, but for me, it ruined something good I already had going on.
Nail polish
For the past couple of years, I've just done it the old-fashioned way - the way my Mam taught me and just painted them with regular ol' nail polish. The problem there is, I cannot stand it when my nails get messed up.
I often have the novel idea to paint my nails right before bed or right before going out for the night. Bad idea. First of all, no matter what kind of robot you think you are that you can program yourself to sleep with your hands neatly spread out on the top of your thighs while you are whisked off to dreamland, you can't. Nope. Not happening.
As soon as, or even before, you reach the REM stage of sleep, you will cuddle up in your bed sheets and so will your nails, resulting in the dreaded "sheet mark" effect on your manicure. No good.
Waiting for your nails to dry is the biggest pain in the rump about the whole process. I've had nail dryers, I've sprayed them with Pam cooking spray, I've gotten fancy quick dry stuff, I've ran them under cold water. Still, I always manage to mess them up somehow.
Gel polish
If my nail history reads as a love story, then, currently, I'm in the happiest relationship in my life. I discovered gel nails a handful of years ago. I really liked it, but just couldn't deal with the upkeep. However, recently, I fell back in love as I have a tendency to do.
This stuff really is my nail savior. It's quick and easy, just how I like it.
It consists of a base coat, two coats of polish and a top coat - something I was doing already. Each coat is "cured" under a UV or LED light lamp for about a minute and the end result is perfectly polished, perfectly shiny, DRY nails.
Seriously, you can bang them off your keys, open a can of soda or start digging in your garden after you get this done and you're all good - as long as you get it done right. The idea is to keep all the coats very thin.
So, I made an investment. Through the power of a HauteLook event, I got myself my very own gel kit complete with an LED lamp, polish, top and base coat and cuticle oil which retailed for over $250 for a mere $52. Still a little steep, you say? Not for the money it will save me. With the tip and the service, it's about $25 anyway to get my nails done at the salon. This thing cost two trips and will hopefully last long enough to make it money well spent.
I'm pretty happy with it so far. I could have maybe taken my time a little more, but overall, I like it. I don't know if I'm crazy about the color; it's not exactly accurate to the swatch that represented it online, but that's neither here nor there because now I can invest in a whole collection of colors to last me a lifetime. Never again will I need someone to reach in my pocket or my purse for me while I stand helpless with wet nails. Gone are the days with dents and dings.
(Wasakoski is an assistant editor at The News-Item)