It was a slow Monday morning the day I walked into the nail shop around my way, determined and fully prepared for my exit service. I was intentional in planning a day and time around when Kim’s Nail Salon might have a lower concentration of acetone and acrylic stanking up the air and, even more so, fewer legs soaking in the pedicure chairs that lined the shop’s walls.
I wanted to be in and out without polluting my lungs and wasting valuable time. I’m impatient like that . In fact, my impatience led me to wear gel nails and dip powder. Those particular services cut down the time it takes to get traditional tips and waiting—and watching— nail polish to dry.
The nail tech greeted me with the typical line of questions a person is met with when entering a nail salon.
“What you get?” He demanded.
“Refill or full-set? Acrylic, Dip or gel?”
“Take off,” I said.
He looked at me like I had three heads like I’d lost my mind, like I was not dead ass serious. In a chunky Vietnamese accent and great puzzlement, he repeated back to me, “Take off?”
His response and furrowed brow made it clear that he could not process the notion that I would not be picking my polish from the wall or selecting a color from the wheel that identified colors by numbers, that I would not be spending over an hour being serviced. I would not be spending upward of 100 bucks. He huffed, puffed a bit, and directed me to sit at his station. He snatched up the nail drill and shaved layers of acrylic from my nail bed with very little concern for how he handled my hand in his.
He cared even less that my nail plate was so thin it felt eerily similar to getting a root canal. The tool was as abrasive as his touch, grazing across my nerves. The more I’d tense up and draw back, the more he was annoyed, sucking his teeth and talking under his breath. Once all traces of acrylic were removed, I requested a manicure and a simple, clear polish to help strengthen my brittle nails.
“Your nails gon’ breaks either way,” he said in fractured English. “Manicure is ugly.”
There is some truth to that. But damn, man.
Before the days of being a slave to a full set, I prided myself on having naturally healthy fingernails. They didn’t necessarily look good, but they stood the test of strength when handling various day-to-day affairs, albeit unpretty. After four years of consistently wearing an acrylic overlay, dip powder, gel polish, coffin-shaped stiletto, or square tips, my decorative nails were lit, but my natural nails were dying. I, like many other Black women, have developed a fashionable, yet unhealthy, obsession with neat nails and fancy fingers and even make concessions for a regular expense that can total upward of a hundred dollars for various reasons.
I started wearing acrylic nails to fit into a clean-cut corporate environment. Joyce Davis had a different reason for investing almost $200 monthly in nail care. She shared that she loves how long painted acrylic nails look.
“They make me feel pretty and sexy. Also, I don’t want to do them, and they need caretaking, particularly at this age.”
Denene Milner had a similar sentiment, stating, “I love the way my nails look with rings and bracelets, how sexy my hands look when I’m using them to talk, caress a face… and other things. For the longest time, I didn’t even wear nail polish, let alone let my nails grow long and pretty. A lot of things have changed about me and the way I present myself FOR ME. My nails are a fine point on the exclamation I put on my presentation of me FOR ME.”
Karen Good Marable is more concerned with sustainability, especially being a mom on the go with an extremely tight schedule, but she has a preference.
“I like gel because the polish lasts longer. My nails grow pretty quickly, but I just started letting them grow back out now that [her daughter is] older. I prefer gel to dip; dip does the job, but it makes my nails feel unnaturally hard, which I don’t like. Right now, I’m taking a break from polish (on fingernails) just to let my nails breathe.”
KJ Edwards, once an acrylic nail wearer, ditched her full set due to cost and opted for a quick, affordable alternative. Edwards turned to press-on jawns to maintain the stylish look she’d grown used to.
“I’m not going back,” Edwards said. “These press-ons are easy and cheap and last about seven days.” I don’t need vacation nails every day. I really just need them for certain occasions.”
Since 1954, when Fred Slack, a dentist who inadvertently created acrylic nails —with a polymer substance after breaking his own nail—spending on nail care has been outta pocket. The fake nail game has evolved into a billion-dollar market, and not without Black women’s influence or commitment. I’d be remiss if I did not big up Black women whose faux nails are far more than an elevated manicure but also a cultural mainstay. Let us not forget Diana Armstrong’s 42-foot nails that made the Guinness Book of World Records, Florence Griffith Joyner, who bedazzled us with her decorative nails on the Olympic track and field and legions of professional Black girls who wear architectural acrylics long and strong.
In 2023, globally, the industry was worth $1.63 billion and is expected to grow to $2.54 billion by 2033, Yahoo Finance reported. After all, we’ve contributed to the art and appraisment of acrylic jawns. The University of California San Diego and the University of Pittsburgh recently shared that we may be walking ourselves into another health hazard. —And the ancestors know Black women cannot afford to add to the list of shit that slowly kills us.
Researchers found that chronic use of UV-emitting devices “can damage DNA and cause mutations in human cells.”
Their findings revealed that gel manicures could potentially be a risk for skin cancer.
Learning this gave me pause. As a two-time cancer survivor, I wrestle with exposure to the plethora of carcinogens that surround us every day. Thus, if it was time for my signature fake, natural nail-colored, OPI dip-powder nails with French manicure tips to come off and stay off for good or whether they were worth the risk. As my manicurist buffed the ruggedness out of each dehydrated nail, trimmed down a few hangnails, and filed down the jagged edges, erasing all signs of luxury and length—so too went an element of flyness and femininity. I surveyed my freshly manicured nubs and agreed with my nail tech. They were ugly AF.
Since that fateful day, I decided to be done, and my nails have been on the decline. I have extreme nail breakage to the white meat; my cuticles are so ragged they look like railroad tracks; random hang nails would make folks think I’m a nail-biter. Six months out, my fingernails no longer give off bad bitch energy, corporate cute, or sexy siren. They ain’t healthy. They are tragic and very much ungroomed.
I definitely don’t love that for me.
Most Popular
Comments / 0