A Gel Manicure

4 MINUTE READ

It’s shallow I know, but don’t you just feel better when your nails are done. Having nice, shiny, un-

chipped nails makes me feel like a proper lady. My hands look like someone else’s when I am gell-ed up and for the first day or two I fiddle with paper clips and drum my fingers, just to get a quick swatch of them. They are somehow thinner, younger, and look like they might be able to dash off a piano concerto during the lunch break.

It’s not getting gel nails on that’s the problem – that’s a pretty relaxing experience – it’s keeping them on. There’s something about my genetic make-up (perhaps medical science would have a look at this, when they’ve sorted out the more pressing issues) that makes nails gel nails ping off after just a few days, or worse still, half peel off (generally on  the second day of a holiday to a nail-bar-free part of the world), so I end up with six perfect looking nails, a couple of stripy ones and a couple of dried out, ridged ones – the sort of nails that make beautiful young nailtician (not sure that’s right) smile gorgeously and say, oh don’t worry that’s just age.

So then I trot off back to the salon where the nailitician (really not sure that’s right) takes a horrible metal implement and starts scrapping off the gel while I involuntary grimace and over-salivate, as I picture layers of my actual nails being scraped off.

These days I limit gels to holidays, birthdays and Christmas. But when you only get gel nails a few times a year picking the colour becomes one of life’s major life decisions. I try to be grown up and go red for Christmas, nude for spring and coral for holidays but I can’t help but be side-tracked by the sparkly one you can stick stars on or the lovely new chalky-lime one….I’ve had nailticians standing out in the street painting on a rainbow of colours and sticking various spots and glittery bits on my nails, so I can check in daylight if the colours work with my skin tone. They rarely do.

Between gels, I occasionally give myself a DIY manicure but it’s really boring and I need my reading specs on, which I can never find, and I don’t have patience to sit for an hour and a half while the polish dries s-l-o-w-l-y. So most of the time I give them a quick file, then paint on Opi Nail Envy which is an inoffensive pale pink nail strengthener, which even if you smudge or splodge onto your skin, doesn’t look too bad – or maybe that’s because I can’t find my reading specs.

THE END

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