Thursday, December 9, 2010

Declawed

For the last year and a half I have been ferocious... indestructible... gorgeous but elegant... fierce but classy...

I am, of course, talking about my nails.

Deep, dark confession time Dear Readers - my nails were fake.

let's not delve in to the psychological ramifications of the above description and identity being tied to an artificial component of my body.  We'll just gloss over that, skip the sociological rant about patriarchal society and body image and women and blah, blah blazzzzzzz..zzzzzzz.zzzzzz

I've never been able to grow my natural nails out very long because they're rather weak, and I wanted long, strong nails.  If I paid someone every month, I could get them. So I did.

When I moved downtown though, I made a startling discovery.

First, a bit of a lesson on fake nails:

Out in the 'burbs, biogel nails are all the rage... these nails use a UV hardened, self leveling gel instead of the acrylic powder/acetone combination of the fake nails of days gone by.  It's supposedly better for your nails, but I suspect the real benefit is for the nail techs who no longer need to inhale the fumes and dust associated with acrylics.  The other bit of marketing genius, is that biogel comes in a rainbow of colours, and you can remove nailpolish from it without damaging the (fake) nail underneath.  With acrylics, nail polish remover of any sort will melt them.  This means that you can walk in, get a French tip manicure (or pink or green or teal or whatever colour you want) that won't chip/fade/etc and in the month between maintenance appointments you can paint over them with whatever nail polish you have, then remove it to reveal the colour underneath.  Brilliant!

Now that I'm done selling you on biogels, let me tell you about my big discovery:

Downtown hasn't gotten on the biogel bandwagon.  

When I moved in with LD ages and ages ago, I started looking for a nail salon downtown who I could go to for upkeep.  Who wants to drive out to the 'burbs just to get your nails done?  I tapped in to my twitter, my facebook, to yelp and various other communities to no avail.  No one knew of a salon that did the colour biogel.

I took to wandering the streets.  I went to the salons that were closest to LDs place and found a couple that could do biogel, but not the coloured stuff.  Acrylics were their big push though and they tried to tell me how awful biogel was. 

I tried a couple of them, getting the regular biogel done and then coloured with nail polish.  All did an abysmal job... one set were all bumpy (how do you make something uneven that's self leveling?!)... another started to chip and break and lift off within a week of getting them done...  

A couple of others apparently did regular biogel (not colour) but had terrible reviews all over the internet. I gave those a wide berth - who wants to risk poorly sterilized tools and bad service?  

I found one place that had the coloured stuff, but don't normally do fake nails of any sort and did everything by hand.  I tried them once and decided that I just didn't have the patience to spend 4 hours getting my mani/pedi done.

After that experience I went back to the 'burbs for my upkeep.  This ends up taking up an entire weekend day by the time I drive out there, get my nails done, and drive back.  Totally not worth it long term.

When I moved downtown,  I said to myself "I'm going to be down here for at least 6 months.  I am NOT driving out to get my nails done" ...

So I continued with my research, looking for nail places that were close to my new place, one again coming up blank for salons that did biogel (let alone colour biogel).  In my research though, I found this fantastic! revolutionary! incredible! product by OPI called Axxium ... it's... UV hardened gel nail polish.

Basically colour biogel for natural nails. All of the benefits of biogel (won't chip/fade/etc, adds some strength to your nails, UV hardened so you walk out the door with perfectly dry nails that you can't smudge), without the downside of fake nails (the adhesives and fumes and filing and leaching of nutrients from your nails).

I was left with the choice of either continuing to trek out to the 'burbs to get my nails done once a month (and then back out if/when anything broke, etc) or I taking off the tips and switching over to Axxium (of which I found 3 salons offering the service nearby).  Coupled with the knowledge that even though the biogel is better for you, it's still not good and weakens your nails and potentially leaches bad chemichals in to you and all sorts of other hippy shit that I don't actually believe but am using as additional justification for my decision...

I declawed myself.

Going to one of the salons that had previously done a shit job on maintenance, I asked them to remove the tips.

Ok, so maybe that was a mistake... I'm pretty certain I could have done a better job myself.

Left with what could generously be described as 'bloody stumps' I hightailed it over to one of the salons that does the Axxium.  One look at my hands had all of the girls cooing and sympathizing over how awful they look and how much they must hurt, etc.  Then came the prognosis that what was left of my nails were too weak and damaged to hold the Axxium, and that I'd need some time to heal first.

At this point, I have to say though that the ladies at the 'real' salon were incredible and by the time I left there you wouldn't recognize my hands as the ones I brought in to them.  They worked magic with what was given to them, and I've already booked my next appointment with them.

This, Dear Readers, is how I've ended up declawed.  My natural nails are cut down to the nail bed, and so soft and weak that I am unable to even scratch an itch effectively.  My cuticles are still healing from the rough treatment from the tech who removed my tips.  I'm dosing my nails with strengthener every day, and cutting/filing them down as they grow to get rid of the damaged parts. I'm hoping that by my next appointment at the end of the month that a good portion of the most damaged bits will have grown out.

I will admit, that I quickly regretted removing the tips.  Despite knowing that it's really "better" not to have them, going from long, strong, beautifully manicured nails to being unable to properly operate the clasps on my necklaces is taking quite a bit of adjustment.  If it weren't for the fact that my nails are too weak and damaged to even put new tips on, I might have gone right back out to the 'burbs and asked my regular nail girls to make me whole again.

So Dear Readers, if you see me over the next few months, please do me a favour and don't look at my hands.  I'm spending a lot of time hiding them these days.

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