Nails 101

A random fact about me is I hate it when my nails looks bad. That doesn't mean that I get my nails done professionally at a salon every week, but I do like to paint my own nails at least once a week. I just feel icky when my nails don't look clean and pretty. Picking my nails is a nervous habit of mine that I do when my nail polish is in the process of coming off and if my nails look good, I'm less likely to pick at them for fear of ruining them. I like trying new colors & patterns on my nails although I do have my favorite go-to colors (Fiji and Bikini So Teeny, both by Essie).

My French No-Chip Manicure

I recently got a no-chip manicure at my favorite nail salon Spa O. A no-chip manicure is when shellac nail polish is used so that your nails stay flawless for 10-14 days. Shellac is some sort of a gel substance that makes the coats of polish thick so that they're almost impossible to ruin. I loved getting my nails done with the shellac polish because they stayed nice for 2 weeks, instead of chipping the day after I had them done like when I apply regular polish. A down side of getting no-chip is that it's super expensive. For a no-chip French manicure it was $50. It's not terrible, but that's 1/3 of my paycheck for a week! Also, you have to get the polish specially removed by the salon and it's sort of inconvenient to have to go in for that. As much as I would love to get no-chip every two weeks, I don't have that kind of money at my at disposal!

Pink & Purple Peacock Nails

After my splurge on a French no-chip manicure, I decided to do my nails at home. My mom brought me home a package of fake nails from Impress Press-On Manicure that she got as "swag" at a convention she went to so I decided to try them out rather than paint my nails. The design on them was a pink & purple peacock pattern, not my first choice of design but they were free so whatever! The instructions were simple enough: peel the backing of the "nail" off and apply it. Surprisingly, the peacock patterned nails looked really cool and semi-artsy. The only issue is that they were soooooo long. I couldn't use my fingers to do anything because my nails got in the way. I found a nail clipper to shorten them so that I could use my fingers, but then I ran into another problem. The nails fell off within two hours. I was sitting in a movie with my mom about 45 minutes after I had applied the nails and I'm not sure if it was the butter in the popcorn that lubed them up and made them slip off, but they did. And two of them ended up in my popcorn, which was gross! Definitely not as long-lasting as my no-chip manicure had been, but I'd be willing to try them again because they were easy and cute.


Any color suggestions for my the next time I get my nails done?! I'm always open to new suggestions :)