<p>mom60, I’m sensitive, too. I’m one who can’t stand to even be in the same ROOM with someone who’s using an emery board. It’s like fingernails on a blackboard to me. The one time I went to a salon to have a manicure (before my wedding day!), I had to leave after 5 minutes because I couldn’t abide having that little filing gizmo (like a tiny Dremel tool) used on me. It felt like she was filing off my skin!</p>
<p>You can imagine what my nails look like since the only way I can trim them is with scissors or a clipper. I don’t like the feel of nail polish, either. I’d love to have nice nails but they’re soft and break easily so I keep them in my pockets a lot :(</p>
<p>Also an OPI fan–currently Far East Fuchsia on my toes, and always OPI Sweetheart on my fingers. My sister, the fashion maven, advises me that dark colors on our fingernails, now that we are Of A Certain Age, are “aging”.</p>
<p>Go [url=<a href=“http://www.opi.com%5DOPI%5B/url”>http://www.opi.com]OPI[/url</a>] and click on “nail color” then click “all OPI colors” - cool chart to see how colors look on nails (note that you can also change the skin tone, etc. of your hand.</p>
<p>For a number of years (starting about 6 years ago) on and off I did pink and white Solar nails (acrylics- whatever). They looked really good and more professional than my own horrific nails which I pick at and break all the time. I kept them short, but they really were nice. I got tired of the expense and (monthly) upkeep, so I don’t have them now. I get a manicure every 2 weeks or so in a fairly light color so that chips don’t show. My manicurist (Calvin) is fabulous and I swear it wears like steel. My nails are still short and still break, but I’m doing better…</p>
<p>Never paint my fingernails. It would be an exercise in frustration. I’m a preschool teacher who washes her hands at least twenty times a day. I have long fingers with oval shaped nails that are very hard and grow quickly. I don’t think my unpainted nails look bad.</p>
<p>I do paint my toenails in the summer though it is getting much harder to see them!
I usually go with a medium pink color that looks OK with whatever I’m wearing. </p>
<p>Love pedi’s and get the toes done in bright red. As for manicures, I get them occasionally for special occasions, but I’m an accountant and at work my hands are in file cabinets all of the time so they never last. I usually stick to a pale pink, but last fall I got them done for H’s reunion and picked out a brown color with a reddish undertone and I loved it. I could kick myself because I don’t know the color name or who makes it ( not OPI). It was at a salon out of town.</p>
<p>I have never had a french manicure,I just don’t like the look.</p>
<p>Always Rustoleum or another good primer before painting your nails. I once used latex paint on some siding and all the nail heads rusted after a few months.</p>
<p>I can’t keep a manicure because I never use rubber gloves for dishweshing and other housework–I have to “feel” the dirt. Plus the few times I’ve been to a nail salon I’ve been both terribly bored and driven to distraction by all the Korean chatter going on around me. H hates nail polish (I think a lot of men feel that way), so he’s happy with my choice. In the summer I do my own pedicures (in front of the TV) because as I’ve gotten older my unadorned toes look less and less attractive. I may not get as perfect a result as a professional would, but it’s not like anyone is looking that closely at my feet–at least I hope not! I stick to the pink family, from deep to pastel, depending on my mood. I hate the look of black or other dark colors–they always makes me think of a mechanic’s grimy nails.</p>
<p>I have acrylic fills on my nails. This keeps the nail polish on forever. I get my nails done every 2-3 weeks. I always use OPI Bubble Bath or similar color on my fingernails. It looks like a subtle version of a french manicure. The added bonus is that since this color is so similar to natural nails, you can’t see if I’m close to manicure time.</p>
<p>Acetone is a glassware washing solvent used in many chemistry labs. It easily penetrates nitrile gloves (but not latex ones). Acetone is also known to be a very effective nail polish remover. I wonder why I never developed the habit of painting my nails :D</p>
<p>Those kits they sell at the mall kiosks are incredible. I bought one at a mall in Columbus OH when my D was auditioning for college. We both used it until we used it up and our nails looked great. There was no need to polish - just a great natural shine. You do have to practice a bit to be good at it. The girls in the mall make it look really easy.</p>
<p>I’d be more likely to do that than paint my fingernails. These hands are made for function, plucking strings on instruments, washing dishes, digging in dirt. Nothing where a manicure would last. But I do paint the toes subtle colors in summer, as it distracts from the rest of the foot, a bit. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I’m trying to learn Korean, so maybe I should hang out in nail salons on occasion. </p>
<p>Very Happy, I’ve had the same buffing in a mall-impressive! But the supplies they’re selling for the buffing is not cheap!</p>
<p>I used to have a 2-sided tool for this. One side filed off the ridges and the other buffed them to a wonderful shine. I haven’t seen one like it for years.<br>
I’m with those who hate the feel of fingernail polish. It makes me feel like my fingers are suffocating (although, when someone asked me to clarify this, I realized that it was that you don’t feel temperature changes as quickly through polish).
After breast cancer and lymph node removal one of the warnings was no commercial manicures (infection risk). So far that and my aversion to beauty salons has kept me from getting one.
I have had pedicures although I don’t usually splurge this way. When I do, I get a pink and white that’s a subtle french (so is that an “American” Wouldn’t want to ask for something that means some kind of bikini wax!?) polish because as it grows out the line of “no polish” barely show up.</p>
<p>dragonmom, I was accosted at our mall during the holidays by a very nicely persistent woman who just had to demonstrate the 2-sided buffer thing on one of my fingers. It worked beautifully. I have no idea what the system is called!</p>