Illustration by Alex Siklos
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“In here.” The nail tech gestured toward the tiny machine resembling an Easy-Bake Oven affixed to her workstation.
I slid my hand inside and bit my lip. My eyes watered. The heat of the UV lamp to cure my gel nail polish, pleasant at first, soon became intense, licking at my nail beds, warming them to the threshold below pain.
“Hot?” The nail tech smiled, sympathetically. “Take them out, take a break.”
I shook my head. I wanted to get this over with. My pants were covered in a light dusting of nail flake snow; last week’s coat of gel, shaved down with an electric file. And I was paying for the privilege.
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I didn’t want to do this any more. Manicures, once an occasional burst of colourful pleasure, had become one more chore on a too-long list. Yet another requirement of being a pulled-together professional woman.
When did I let this happen?
For most of my adult life, I’d pop into the salon for a quick polish change. I didn’t go for gels or Shellac. A lick and a polish and I was as good as new.
During the pandemic lockdown, I started regularly painting my nails at home as a comforting self-care ritual.
Half the time I was pressed into service by my small daughter before they’d properly dried, and my polish would bleed or smudge. But despite these inevitable imperfections, I kept buying myself a new polish as a made-it-through-the-week treat.
I lined them up in rainbow order and took pleasure in the creative names that elevated yellow to Summer Sunshine, or mauve to In Love with Lilac.
During virtual calls, I’d hold my teacup just so, conveying a wordless message to my colleagues: Everything else might be falling apart, but look at my nails. Of course I’m fine.
After so much DIY effort, I was ready for something that would last longer, and be more durable.
Shellac, I was told, was the solution ... which was true. But after several years of attending bi-weekly appointments with near-religious fervour, I decided if two weeks between appointments was good, three weeks was probably doable.
Wrong.
One day, the Shellac coating sloughed off a single nail, in the way a snake sheds its skin. The rest followed, peeling unevenly. Before long, my nails looked like I’d been digging a grave, gloveless in my back garden – cracked and ragged.
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I picked surreptitiously at any remaining coating, a nail-care no-no. Getting nowhere, I wrapped my fingers in cotton balls soaked in nail polish remover and covered them with aluminum foil, as instructed by Reddit. I ended up as incapacitated as Edward Scissorhands, and the last vestiges of Shellac remained stubbornly in place.
I made an appointment and the nail tech looked at my paper-thin nails and shook her head sadly. Years of Shellac had rendered my nails the consistency of a flaky pastry.
What’s a girl to do? I doubled down and went full gel. This thick, painted-on substance dries to a hardness that would meet military-grade requirements. It patches cracks and is impervious to chips.
At first, it was a miracle. No matter what else was going wrong, my hot pink, light beige or even lemon yellow nails were magazine worthy.
Yes, they were a little pricier, but they lasted and lasted. I write for a living, so seeing my expertly tended nails fly across the keys made me feel polished.
Until one day I’d let them grow out so long I started to look like I was cultivating 10 jailhouse shivs. The clacking noise of my nails on the keyboard was becoming a distraction, bordering on impediment. Buttons fell out of favour. Ditto putting in earrings.
One morning, as I was snapping a fitted sheet on my bed, a nail caught between the mattress and headboard. It bent backward but didn’t break. I could feel a low throb for days.
I began to dread the upkeep. The electric file. The heat. The hour of my day I’d never get back. I wasn’t wearing my nails. My nails were wearing me.
Just before Christmas last year, I girded my loins. “I’d like to remove the gel, go natural.”
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The nail tech squinted at me. She pursed her lips.
“Not a good idea.”
I insisted. She was right. Sort of.
At first, it was awful. What little natural nail I had broke off on one finger after the other, till I was left with stubby, ridged, often-painful nails.
My saving grace was glove weather. Indoors, I sat on my hands. Put them in my pockets. Mostly tried to ignore them. I bought clear nail repair polish and wore no colour for months.
The regrowth was slow. But I knew what I was working toward.
Letting go of impossible standards.
A natural state that could be easily maintained, for almost no cost.
An hour on a Sunday afternoon to read a book or go for a walk.
My nails will never again be quite so picture perfect. One chipped as I was writing this. But I filed it myself and got on with my day.
That’s got to be worth something.
Suzanne Westover lives in Nepean, Ont.