Social Distancing Nails of the Month

I last left the county I live in on March 11th because I'd read enough news about the coronavirus to make me think that cutting way back on my activities to reduce exposure was prudent. On March 12th, I decided to stop wearing fake nails because though I hadn't seen any guidance on it, I felt that the crevices around and under them could be good places for germs to hide from handwashing ... and even if they weren't, I was washing my hands way more often than usual and have found that can weaken the adhesive on some of the press-on tabs.

I kicked off this new regime with Zoya London, one of the textured Pixie Dust polishes. I chose it because textures are easy to touch up and grey is a neutral that would be appropriate in any situation and wouldn't clash with any of my clothes (why I thought this was a concern I do not know, given that at that point I'd pretty much decided to stop going anywhere people would be noticing that sort of thing). I put this on on my front porch instead of in my studio where my lightbox lives so the photos are not up to my usual standard (and that standard is far short of perfection to start with).





The Zoya was looking a bit ragged after a week, so I decided to got the strips plus light-cured gel topcoat route with Sally Hansen Salon Insta Gel Strips in Pinkies Up, a rose and silver glitter I'd gotten on clearance when Walgreens stopped carrying the line. The glitter on the strips is chunkier and less pink than that shown on the box, but that's okay; I like glitter regardless.



After a week, the gel topcoated nails still looked pretty good, so I stuck to that strategy for my next manicure, though this time I used regular Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips rather than ones packaged with the gel topcoat, as I'd never been able to see any difference between the regular strips and the ones in the Insta Gel line. These are Queen Cobra, a brown and gold snake design with tiny pops of holo glitter that only show up in certain lighting conditions (none of which I managed to capture on camera).



I went back to Insta Gel strips for my next manicure, the one that's still on my nails as I type this, a solid brownish rose called Plum's the Word. The gel topcoat makes them nice and shiny, for sure. You can see that my nails are getting shorter by the mani ... polish and strips just don't provide the same protection as fakes, plus there's all that exposure to extra handwashing and alcohol based hand sanitizers (which yes, maybe I'm overdoing given how rarely I'm going out). I cannot recall why I decided to leave such large gaps on my index and middle fingers; maybe I just got extra distracted by one of the podcasts I listen to and wasn't paying attention to my mani.




I'll wear fake nails again in the future I'm sure, definitely once the pandemic is over and perhaps before then if I can reassure myself I can sanitize around them sufficiently to ease my anxiety (or wear them only during stretches when I know I'm not going to be in higher risk situations). In the meantime, I've got my strips and regular polish, and that's working out just fine. I'm hoping to do a fresh manicure this afternoon ... choices, choices.