On Painting My Nails

A long time ago, I had an obsession with nail polish. I would happily blow (some) of my pocket money on new colours. In fact, I went for the cheapest and brightest colours available, and kept them all in a hideous red bag. With my massive stockpile of varnishes, I would paint my nails semi-regularly, always trying to do something creative.

Heck, I wanted to paint other nails too. And, for some reason, I painted a small Warhammer figurine with nail polish.

Simply put, as a crazy teenager, I liked nail polish a little too much.

But, for reasons unknown, one day, I just stopped. And my massive bag of nail polish just sat there, gathering dust. For ages, I neglected my nails. But recently, since I’m a bit more relaxed these days, I’ve finally gotten around to painting my nails again.

No patience

I think part of the issue is a lack of patience. Painting your nails is a time-consuming exercise. You have to tentatively paint each nail and then wait for them all to dry. It’s much, MUCH easier to have someone do your nails for you. If I’m doing my nails, my right hand always looks worse than my left hand because, well, I’m right-handed.

There are plenty of other options though. You can get thick gel nails, or get false nails that are glued to your actual nails. I’m not a fan of false nails though, as I have a tendency to pick at my nails and pull the false nails off. These are somewhat quicker than doing my nails myself, but there is still plenty of waiting. I’m a rather fidgety person, so the desire to constantly touch my nails to see if they’ve dried or not has definitely ruined my nails a few times.

That being said, I do have more patience these days. And I still have my massive bag of varnish. So I’ve been taking the time to repaint my nails on the regular.

I almost always enjoy the end result though. It’s pretty nice having brightly coloured nails. I have so many strange colours, from a hideous neon green, to various shades of blue. For some reason though, the most dominant colour in my collection is purple. So I have plenty of options.

The issue is whether I can sit still for long enough for the varnish to actually dry. Because it always takes longer than I expect.

Smooth

What I like most about nail varnish is how smooth my nails feel. Freshly dried nail polish has a very gentle, almost silky feel. However, that is assuming that I don’t screw my nails up. I can’t count the times that I’ve screwed up a finger and have to start again. I do find though that glitter tends to ruin the smoothness. No matter how much I like glitter nails, they just aren’t satisfying to me.

But what really finishes the job off is a nice, shiny, clear top coat. The top coat not only helps fill any small gaps I’ve missed, but it also protects the varnish underneath. This also helps with glittery nails, but not enough for me to be happy with them.

At the end of the day, I’m no expert when it comes to nail painting, but a clear top coat can really spruce up your nails.