You just adapt and get used to it.Ĭonsidering I have a few hacks that I have learned to make wearing nails a breeze, I knew I couldn't be the only one. But if there's one thing that I have learned both from my own experiences and through talking to others, it's that wearing nails is like anything else. To an outsider, long nails may seem like an unnecessary or vapid challenge. Press the sides of the tape down firmly, so the tape bends like a regular long nail would. Put the tape on your finger so it covers the entire nail and extends past it, so the whole nail looks glossy.
I even got a free meal once when a waitress wouldn't stop harassing me about my nails and a manager overheard me discussing my discomfort with her incessant line of questioning.Īs much as I hate the conversations, I also kind of get it. Tear off a strip of tape about two times longer than your whole fingernail. I love my long stiletto nails, but I really don't love answering the question, "How do you function?" First of all, I think it's an insulting inquiry. To me, it's a matter of self expression and artistic freedom.
To some, it might be a choice for vanity (totally legit). Gel nails have risen steeply in popularity for use in salons or at home due to their simpler application.As someone who has been wearing fake nails for a few years, it can be pretty frustrating to constantly explain to folks who don't wear them why wearing acrylic nails (even long ones!) isn't, like, a major life challenge. This polymerization reaction isn’t quite as effective as the heat-activated one, though, so some of the monomers are pre-connected into what are called oligomers. This means that the nail technician can keep reshaping the nails until light is applied. These initiators absorb UV light from the little lamps you stick your hand into and use this energy to polymerize the monomers and set the nails. Second, to surpass the time sensitive nature of heat-activated initiators, they use a photo-activated initiator.
First invented in the 1980’s, these variations on fake nails use the basic chemistry of their acrylic forefathers with a few variations.įirst, instead of EMA, they often use as their monomer urethane acrylate methacrylate ( UAMA) (hence why calling gel nails “non-acrylic” is a misnomer). This sounds pretty easy to do until you remember that nail technicians only have a few seconds after mixing these until they harden.Įnter gel nails, the low-odour, non-time-sensitive solution to acrylic nails. The ratio of powder to liquid used has a huge impact on the quality of the nail created, as you ideally want a homogenous distribution of polymers, which is only achieved when the powder and liquid are mixed in approximately equal proportions. These polymer chains wrap around the bead-like polymers from the powder, hardening and creating the strong fake nails. The initiator molecules break apart with heat, creating free radicals that can energize the EMA monomers to combine and form long chains.
These monomers are commonly ethyl methacrylate (EMA), though they used to be methyl methacrylate (MMA) before it was banned for damaging nail beds and causing finger damage! The liquid contains the monomers that need to combine into polymers in order for the nails to ‘set’. The powder is a mixture of polymers that carry the initiator molecules (often benzoyl peroxide which activates with body heat), and other things like pigments. What we call acrylic nails are created using a liquid and powder system. If you’ve ever had fake nails (or seen someone else’s) you know that they’re pretty strong and durable, a feat all the more impressive when you realize they’re basically hardened goop. All fake nail systems require certain compounds: monomers which, when activated by an initiator molecule, combine to form polymers, as well as catalysts to make the reaction go faster. Even this distinction, though, creates an element of confusion since both of these systems actually use acrylic products. Fake nails come in two major varieties: acrylic and gel.