on the nail

I once knew a woman (she’ll remain nameless here), who, despite an unlimited beauty budget and luxe grooming routine, resorted to the worst, fake, glue-on nails I’ve ever seen. Periodically, one would pop off in public, causing her posse of girlfriends to scramble about the floor, hunting down the errant nail like a contact lens lost on a lawn. Can you tell I wasn’t a fan?

One day, though, I read a review in one of my favorite beauty magazines–by an editor I know personally, and whose taste and style I trust implicitly–about a set of glue-on, French Manicure, drugstore nails by Kiss (www.kissusa.com). The editor claimed that no one in her office could tell them apart from a professional acrylic set. No way, I thought to myself.

But in the interests of thorough journalism, I skedaddled over to my local Rite Aid and bought a pack of these faux nails anyway. Damn, if she wasn’t right about them. Couple of reasons they are truly different than the Lee Press-ons of years gone by: First, they come in a variety of lengths, including a really manageable short nail. Second, they’re also available in several different “curvatures”—making it easy to fit both flat nail beds as well as more rounded digits. And third, no more guesswork about which nail on the left hand matches which nail on the right hand; each piece has a tiny, plastic, numbered tab (you simply snap it off after adhering the nail), so you can match, say, ring-finger #4 to ring-finger #4.

Granted, it’s a little high-maintenance for me on a regular basis (my friend, Kimmy, would disagree—she’s a convert); but I love them for special occasions, when I don’t want to spend the money getting a pro set at a salon, nor deal with the issue of wrecked nail beds from harsh acrylics.

Never thought I’d go with faux, but these may just stick around for the long haul. Try a set–and let me know what you think.