How To Poorly Polish Your Nails

How often do you paint your fingernails? If you're a dude, it's probably not often (unless you're into the goth scene). And if you're a chick, it could be anywhere from never to every week. Some of us are fortunate enough to get our nails done at a salon or at least one of the Vietnamese places. Not me, however! I only get my nails done for special occasions, which really only means weddings that I'm in. Also, I have a terrible habit of biting my nails, so they are never long enough for me to get a manicure. Instead, I would have the fake ones "installed". There was a place in Manchester (that's IN, not England), where the nail tech would actually build the nails. Hard to explain, but pretty cool.

My nails are finally getting to the point where I could actually manicure them! Somehow I haven't bitten or tore them off, which usually is done because I'm stressed. Guess I just don't have much stress right now--I'll take it! It drives me nuts when I can see the dirt gathering underneath the nails, so that sometimes causes the biting. Needless to say, I rarely have long nails. So, I hardly have any practice when it comes to painting nails. But this time, I decided I wanted to keep the nails growing long. The best solution to that is to polish them so I can't see the dirt collecting underneath them.

It's winter, so I grab the most wintery color I own. I can't remember the name, but it's a deep eggplant color. I also gather up my polishing kit (which is really for pedicures, but it works for hands). I slather on the cuticle oil, let that dry, which takes for-freaking-ever, and yell at Alex to see if can help me when it comes time to paint the right hand. Then I remember the last time we tried to do that and decided I didn't want a big purple stain on the carpet or a yelling match about not being able to have anything nice. I'm better off doing it myself--BIG mistake!  

I start with the base coat. Oh, I should also mention that I'm lying in bed trying to paint my nails. I'm lazy and couldn't fathom getting up. Base coat is applied and dried, so it's time for the eggplant. I do one coat on each hand. Terrible…streaky and all over my skin. So I paint another coat because that will help with the streakiness (and it does), but it's still all over my skin. Ah, I can wait and wash it off in the shower tomorrow morning (thanks Sarah Nolan!). Once the eggplant is applied and dried, I dab on the top coat.  I can't remember if I did one or two coats of this. I'm sure it was only one (lazy again). And would you know it? Right when I think I'm done, I smudge the heck out of my left ring finger. Instead of taking it all off that finger and starting from scratch, I decide it would be better just to add another coat of eggplant and top it off with some top coat. Classy!!  

I'm sure you're shocked when you hear me say that about three days later the polish started to chip. And when it starts to chip, I start to pick.  It's even worse when I'm bored or frustrated. Oh great, now I'm that kid with the dodgy nail job. So, I did the big kid thing and painted over the nails when I got home. What a great idea! Nope…two days later it started to chip again. Ah the heck with it, time to come off. I grab the nail polish remover, soak a cotton ball, and rub away. Now the nails are back to normal, and I'm wondering if I should hurry up paint them in the next five minutes, or risk biting them off tomorrow. Oh well, they were nice while they lasted!  :)

Perfect Polishing!
--Am

PS--Eiffel for this color (would you have guessed that was the color eggplant?).
PSS--And thanks to Claire and Regs, I tried very hard to single space after each period. Oh save me because I didn't do it right once the first time around!