Review: Girly Stuff

butterfly wings and glitter gold color - the gold was more sparkly than I'd thought it would be.

I ordinarily only review books on the blog, although I've done a few other things as well. Today, I'm doing something that's odd for me - I've tried out a very girly thing. I'm wearing pretty fingernails. This isn't the old-school acrylic talons, which I have attempted precisely once and swore never again. I can't naturally grow my nails that long, they break, so putting claws on my fingers felt weird and left me virtually unable to type. But I was job-hunting, with an advisor who suggested that I try them, to cover up that I have worked with my hands all my life. Eh.

I can't do nail polish, first of all I'm clumsy with it, and second, it chips and scrapes off within a day or two and looks bad. My daughters have done my nails a few times. The Jr. Mad Scientist painted my toenails all different colors at least once, fortunately at a time when I wasn't wearing sandals. Also, I've known that nail polish and facepaint don't mix well since my colleagues have talked about it. But a while back, someone mentioned nail wraps working well with painters, and I read that, and went on, not thinking about it too much. Then at LTUE I got to meet with one of my editors in person, which was a treat, and in addition, met his lovely wife. She was very excited about the new Jamberry nails catalog she's gotten, and over dinner, I got to look at it, and it started me thinking.

It would be nice, I concluded, to help her with her new business (she's a stay-at-home mom, just like I was a decade ago, with babies) and to see if I could tolerate these things. With a wedding coming up, pretty hands would be a perk. So I ordered, looking for sciency designs and not seeing any, to my disappointment. I ought to recommend they add some geeky designs. But butterfly wings and peacock feathers were right up my alley.

One of the other designs I bought to try.

I've been wearing them for several days now, and I'm impressed and pleased. I put the first one on when I broke my thumbnail badly, down below the quick. I was hoping it would act as sort of a bandaid and keep the nail from moving and breaking further. It succeeded in doing that. I put the other wraps on a day later, and at this point, 6 days later, they are still going strong - enough so that my chemistry professor looked at me in lab and suggested I wear gloves to protect my expensive manicure. I did mar one of the nails the other day - I jammed my finger. But rather than breaking the nail, the wrap protected it, which was nice. I break my nails a lot...

I put mine on with the help of an orange stick and a hair-dryer, which seemed to work - the long hot shower right after just seemed to set them right on the nails. It's not hard to do, although I recommend making sure you do have sharp tiny scissors - I rarely use my nail scissors and it turned out mine weren't up to trimming the plastic of the wraps. I bought another pair which work fine. I even managed my right hand by myself which was good.

I'm unlikely to do a lot of reviews like this - I hate wearing makeup, for instance. But I think these are pretty nifty; they are very inexpensive and much more durable than nail polish. Now, if only I could get geeky girl designs!

If you want to order, I highly recommend connecting with Amanda Dyck (my editor's wife) she's a lovely lady and happy to answer any questions. I'm not on commission - I turned down her offer of setting me up that way, I have no time. But I'll send you her way because the nail wraps are fun and cute.