Nail Week continues today. Following on from Tuesday’s post, I wanted to talk about my 2018 nail journey.
You may have noticed that last year I didn’t post any nail posts, save for the one where I shared back in May about an Essie colour I had recently bought.
HISTORY
For the longest time I used to bite my nails. I mean serious bite right down to the nub until there was hardly anything left. It’s funny looking back at I was about biting my nails because I know that past Alice would absolutely L O V E my long nails now, and would want to munch them right down. Is it weird that I even think that sometimes?
But then somehow when I reached secondary school, I went cold turkey and completely stopped (don’t ask me how because I’m still trying to figure that one out. I started wearing nail varnish even though it wasn’t allowed – I know, what a rebel – but would get caught pretty much every single day and would always end up having to remove it lol. I continued wearing nail varnish practically every single day and became known for my colourful nails and extensive nail varnish collection. I was rarely without my nails done until the end of 2017.
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| do you notice how the nail on my ring finger is wider than my other nails and not uniform in shape? |
NAIL INFECTION
At the beginning of 2017, I started noticing something change about the nail on my left ring finger. What started as a whiteish/yellow spot spread across the nail until it started lifting off the nail bed (I know GRRRROOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSS). For a long time, I continued to paint over the nail, until it started to weaken to the point that it created a whole. After that I kept it wrapped in a plaster, until I was advised not to keep it wrapped.
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| wearing Essie in Eternal Optimist | my nail wrapped nice and tight with a plaster before being told not to do that |
ROAD TO RECOVERY
It was at the end of 2017, that I decided I was going to give all my nails a rest for a month. So at the end of 2017, I removed my nail varnish for would be the last time for a whole year! What began as No Varnish month continued on in February, March, April, May and so on. It’s kind of funny that after a while I didn’t properly notice how much time went by. What I did notice though, was all the free time I suddenly had, as well as my nails slowly getting stronger.
Strangely, I also noticed how confident I became. This sounds really weird, but when I first stopped wearing nail varnish, I was so self-conscious about my hands, I used to hide them in the sleeve partly because I thought they looked really ugly and partly because I was embarrassed by their nakedness – after over 10 years of always being covered, is this really even all that surprising? However, slowly but surely, I started building up my confidence and stopped hiding. I must also admit that even though I grew confident in my naked nails, there were still times when I would feel a bit ashamed of my hands, like times at work when someone would say: “We need someone with nice hands” and I would look to my naked nails and get sad that they weren’t manicured.
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| this is the first time i’ve EVER shared an image of my nail |
But back to the infection. I’ve been told that my nail will heal in time, however long that’ll be, but that when it does it won’t look like how it did before.
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
Now that I’ve completed this year of No Varnish, I’m not sure what I plan to do going forward. Part of me wants to continue, but part of me does miss applying those coats of polish to my nails. Whatever I do end up deciding, one thing is sure: I won’t be as obsessive as I was before. In between polishes, I’ll make sure to take at least a couple of days to a week off, and remember to apply my trusty Tea Tree Oil, to ensure healthy nail growth. I also aim to make my nails a priority and will look into appropriate supplements.
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| wearing Barry M in Butterscotch Sundae |
I can’t promise I’ll be sharing a bunch of nail posts the way I used to back in the day, but you can definitely expect to see more nail-based content returning to the blog.
alice
xo
