Manicure Monday: Red Gradient

I spend a lot of time doing my nails. Basically, I set aside my entire Monday for it. It wasn’t so bad when I stuck to solid colors, I could be finished in an hour. In recent months, I’ve gotten into more intricate and time-consuming methods and techniques of nail art, so it can take all day to finish them, but when I do finally finish, I have a beautiful manicure and a fantastic sense of accomplishment.

This manicure was against me from the very beginning. In theory, it was a great idea. When I tested it on my mannequin hand, it looked fantastic. When I started, I had to fight it every step of the way. The dark red with glitter polish is very old and thick and refused to drop off the brush the way I wanted it to so I could sponge it on. By the time I finished, I’d actually emptied the bottle. When I added the matte top coat, I felt like I had sucked the life out of it. This morning, while I was in the shower, I picked at the cuticles a bit and took too much off, and when I tried to smooth it down with acetone, I just made it worse. On top of that, it’s raining this morning, so I didn’t have any natural light to help my photos. I also don’t know what that bump is on my middle nail. Even after all of that, though, I’m pretty happy with it. It didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted it, but I love the gradient. I keep staring at it.

Yes, my desk is ugly. Yes, that's polish on my keyboard. Yes, that's a burger sticker.

Yes, my desk is ugly. Yes, that’s polish on my keyboard. Yes, that’s a burger sticker.

There’s the stuff I used. That Maybelline bottle is so old that all but the front sticker has come off, so I can’t tell you the name of the shade, not that you could probably buy it anymore. Also, I used to have a real problem with peeling the stickers off of bottles.

There’s another reason I’m writing this. Five years ago, I stopped biting my nails. When I was younger, I’d watch my mother paint her nails, and then I’d feel bad about my own nubby nails, so I’d stop biting. My nails would grow and be long and gorgeous until something stressed me out, and that was it, they were gone. I went through many such phases as a teenager. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I finally managed to stop for good, and now that I think about it, it’s probably because I was able to turn to alcohol during stressful times instead of just biting off all my nails. Save your nails, drink a beer? That’s really bad advice, don’t follow it.

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