Monday, June 7, 2010

Nail Painting... Not for the Faint of Heart

Someone please tell me that I am not the only one that can’t paint their own nails.

It’s not like I am not prepared. I have a whole caboodle (remember those?) of different paint colors, bottom coats, top coats, fast dryers, sparkly colors … the whole works. There are twenty-seven bottles to be exact that I have come to accumulate over the years. I even have this small tiny little fan to dry my nails with. And no – those fancy polishes don’t paint your toe nails by themselves even if they cost 20 dollars. Don’t let anyone try to trick you.



So my problem is not that I don’t have those other essential items to paint my nails. Besides having enough fingernail polish to paint an army of five year olds… or a room full of beauty contestants… I have the toe spreaders that splay my toes so far apart that people might confuse my foot with a hand. I have fingernail polish remover that could potentially be used to render someone unconscious and those dreaded nail files. They give me the shivers just thinking about them. I usually mentally prepare myself ahead of time, get everything together, breathe… and then get started.

I can reach my feet… but my legs get in the way of my arms trying to get to my feet. I swivel, lean over, try to bend in weird positions. So as I balance on four toes of one foot and maybe have a good angle of my third from the left toe on my right foot, I get too much polish on the 0.02 cm long brush and I end up painting three toes at the same time. It is inevitable. I would probably paint the nails better if I just dropped the bottle of nail polish on the floor and let the splatter paint my nails.

(I would like to preface that these are not my feet - merely a representation what my feet usually look like when I paint them. I just wouldn't take a picture of it.)



So I have asked the experts about what to do when I have gotten more polish on my dog then my actual toe nails and they say that finger nail polish remover should be my friend. Well while getting asphyxiated trying to dab away my mistakes with a cotton swab, I manage to get the ONLY toe that was painted correctly. Yes I missed the nail painting 101 class that little girls got in the third grade.

It really is a sad, sad story.

So what do I do? I go to the nail shop. Nope, not the one that I get my hair done at. Those ladies speak English. Because of this, I think they charge 40 extra dollars. English is expensive!

I go the “fancy nail” or “exotic nails too.” One of my friends shared a video with me on you tube of a comedian talking about her experiences with nail salons. You think she is being funny, but all of this is sooo true.

Goodness. I don’t know which is more stressful. Painting my nails by myself, or having them done by a middle aged Asian man that pointed at me three times and laughed while talking to his friend speaking a language I didn’t understand. Shaved my legs? Check. Don’t have any fungus or weird abnormalities. Check. What are they laughing at?? Oh probably my nail painting job from three days ago. Maybe I forgot to remove some of the polish from the back of my leg.

Check out the video and enjoy…

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