Since freshman year, I’ve seen a certain number of girls wearing acrylic nails ranging in shape, length, and design. I didn’t get any until junior year — reason? I had heard of the bad things that come with getting acrylics put on professionally.
There were negative comments about the price and the up-keep. And let’s not even start on the long list of things that could happen while wearing the nails, leading to a world’s worth of pain. Instead of being an observer, I wanted to be a participant to form my own opinions and here’s what I learned.
The simplest things are now the hardest – I’ve basically have had to re-teach myself how to do basic tasks that I’ve been doing for years because of the acrylics. I can barely put on clothing and jewelry, let alone write and type. Now that my “nails” are longer than usual, it’s harder for me to do anything requiring the use of my fingers.
With beauty there is pain – Don’t get me wrong, acrylics are pretty and certainly make my hands more attractive, but the pain I get while having them is pretty ridiculous. Since acrylic nails are indeed fake nails, they’re pretty much glued to my nail beds along with the acrylic material covering the whole nail. So any type of resistance or blunt contact against the nail along with rushed grabbing will cause a whirlwind of pain that sticks around for more than a couple seconds.
Athletes should not wear these – I’m a very athletic person; I run and play basketball. When I got the nails, I didn’t think that it would affect me that much when it came to playing. I was so wrong. All the physical contact from playing ball and and simple errors while running makes me hate myself for even getting acrylics. Moral of the story: don’t get them if the idea of a throbbing finger bothers you.
Overall, I like acrylic nails, but I probably won’t be getting them again anytime soon. Just becauses of all the irritation and little annoyances I had after having them put on.
