By my reckoning, about 75% of the pleasure of a manicure comes from the reaction other people have to a stellar nail job. Beware: the moment someone plucks your hand from mid-air (don’t you find you gesticulate a lot more in the first 48 hours after an appointment?) to gasp and compliment your nails can become addictive.
The remaining 25% is split pretty evenly between: the bone-deep contentment of browsing the colour selection at the salon; the (entirely different) serenity that comes with actually settling on a colour; the catharsis that follows placing your hands in bowls of warm water; and that tender, childlike feeling of being looked after when the nail technician pushes back your cuticles and oils your nail bed. Merely writing all that out has almost put me in a deep meditative state. Manicures are a simple joy in the world.
I get them a lot more since I moved to New York. It has become a part of my inadvertent “rebrand” (which also includes a soft return to vegetarianism and weaning myself off dating apps). I have tried designs and experimented with acrylics, adding length and sturdiness to my weakling nails, and reducing functionality by approximately 36% (on the plus side, since popping open a can takes me about 19.7 seconds, I have cut down drastically on fizzy drinks).
Typing is clacky good fun, too – I feel as if I am in a typing pool, except all the typists are me. Done nails suggest a person who knows where they’re going. They exude preparedness and, yes, polish. It’s the equivalent of putting lipstick on an otherwise bare face. “Here,” you are saying, “I have some standards.”
At least that’s what I tell myself, pyjama-clad at noon on a Tuesday.
