I ordinarily only review books on the blog, although I’ve done a few other things as well. Today, I’m doing something that’s odd for me – I’ve tried out a very girly thing. I’m wearing pretty fingernails. This isn’t the old-school acrylic talons, which I have attempted precisely once and swore never again. I can’t naturally grow my nails that long, they break, so putting claws on my fingers felt weird and left me virtually unable to type. But I was job-hunting, with an advisor who suggested that I try them, to cover up that I have worked with my hands all my life. Eh.
I can’t do nail polish, first of all I’m clumsy with it, and second, it chips and scrapes off within a day or two and looks bad. My daughters have done my nails a few times. The Jr. Mad Scientist painted my toenails all different colors at least once, fortunately at a time when I wasn’t wearing sandals. Also, I’ve known that nail polish and facepaint don’t mix well since my colleagues have talked about it. But a while back, someone mentioned nail wraps working well with painters, and I read that, and went on, not thinking about it too much. Then at LTUE I got to meet with one of my editors in person, which was a treat, and in addition, met his lovely wife. She was very excited about the new Jamberry nails catalog she’s gotten, and over dinner, I got to look at it, and it started me thinking.
It would be nice, I concluded, to help her with her new business (she’s a stay-at-home mom, just like I was a decade ago, with babies) and to see if I could tolerate these things. With a wedding coming up, pretty hands would be a perk. So I ordered, looking for sciency designs and not seeing any, to my disappointment. I ought to recommend they add some geeky designs. But butterfly wings and peacock feathers were right up my alley.
I’ve been wearing them for several days now, and I’m impressed and pleased. I put the first one on when I broke my thumbnail badly, down below the quick. I was hoping it would act as sort of a bandaid and keep the nail from moving and breaking further. It succeeded in doing that. I put the other wraps on a day later, and at this point, 6 days later, they are still going strong – enough so that my chemistry professor looked at me in lab and suggested I wear gloves to protect my expensive manicure. I did mar one of the nails the other day – I jammed my finger. But rather than breaking the nail, the wrap protected it, which was nice. I break my nails a lot…
I put mine on with the help of an orange stick and a hair-dryer, which seemed to work – the long hot shower right after just seemed to set them right on the nails. It’s not hard to do, although I recommend making sure you do have sharp tiny scissors – I rarely use my nail scissors and it turned out mine weren’t up to trimming the plastic of the wraps. I bought another pair which work fine. I even managed my right hand by myself which was good.
I’m unlikely to do a lot of reviews like this – I hate wearing makeup, for instance. But I think these are pretty nifty; they are very inexpensive and much more durable than nail polish. Now, if only I could get geeky girl designs!
If you want to order, I highly recommend connecting with Amanda Dyck (my editor’s wife) she’s a lovely lady and happy to answer any questions. I’m not on commission – I turned down her offer of setting me up that way, I have no time. But I’ll send you her way because the nail wraps are fun and cute.
