I stood at the register, the cashier waiting for me to slide my debit card out of my wallet and into the card reader. It should have taken me two seconds to complete the simple task, but with the long nails glued to my natural nails, it took me much longer. After a short struggle, in which I managed to push my card deep into the card pocket, I gave up and asked the cashier to pull it out for me. He took one look at my hand and the long, pointed talons I was trying to pass off as nails and chuckled.
You see, I’ve had a box of Kiss long acrylic press-on nails sitting in my cosmetic bag for a few weeks. I bought them as an impulse buy, since I didn’t really have a place or reason to wear stilleto nails, nor did I have the money to get them done in a salon. They’re such a fierce look, and I don’t consider myself that fierce of a person, though a part of me wants to be. In another moment of impulsiveness (some of it stemming from the stress of midterms and the need to be adventurous), I sat down and glued those babies on to my nails.
Since I applied the nails myself, I considered the day I did them “Day One”. I’m right-handed, so I applied those nails first. They went on easily, as one would expect, but then I had to put on the left ones. Trying to pick the nails up was difficult because the tips kept getting in the way of me attempting to firmly grasp the press-on nail between my fingertips. After twenty minutes of tedious holding and gluing, my press-on set was finally secured and ready to go.
Day Two was just as long and hard with the nails. Easy tasks, such as paying for things, were difficult. The weirdest experience was washing my hair because the pointed tips scraped my scalp in a not-so-bad-but-still-weird way. Texting with the pad of my fingers, and not my fingertips, was also a very different experience. Day Two was the day I realized why some girls use the talk-to-text feature so frequently. Other things that were difficult: opening sauce packets, typing on the computer, wiping, changing bulletin boards, tearing tape, scratching my face without scratching my eye and, finally, holding a pencil/pen.
Day Three and Four were a mix of difficult and easy. The things that I do frequently, like going to the bathroom, typing and texting, became easier. Other things like opening packages or cooking were still difficult, but Day Five saw the difficulties become nonexistent.
Day Five also saw the removal of the nails. I know that a week is usually seven days, but I was eating a sandwich and lost a nail… and never found it. The probability of me having eaten that nail is so small, but listen, your girl was stressing about it. Therefore, all of the other nails came off that same night. If one was falling off, its time for all of them to come off.
Overall, I absolutely loved rocking the stilleto nail look. It gets some side glances but also a lot of positive comments. My coworkers loved how the nails looked, and they constantly made an effort to tell me how much they liked them. I also felt a bit fiercer, like I could really be a Bad B*tch and be classy. Would I wear long nails again? Yes! Would I get them professionally done? YES! I refuse to think I actually ate my nail because it popped off, but I’m also not going to take that risk a second time. All I need to do now is find a good nail salon in my area to get a rocking set of almond tips next time!