You can have nice nails.

I polished my nails today with Mooncat’s Queen of the Dead and noticed how nice my hands looked.

Polish – reasonably neat and uniform, tidy, and completely un-frustrating to apply.

Nail shape – I went a little short on one hand trimming but I didn’t panic and cut everything off. I recovered and got a nice shape that is not crazy short.

Cuticle – I have like nice hands now? Nothing peeling, bleeding, or picked at. I don’t think my cuticles are even noticeable.

I was a life long nail and cuticle biter and picker. I went through phases where I regularly got gel polish applied and the polish was pretty nice but I never felt like my hands looked good.

Back in April, on a whim, I spent way too much money ordering nail polish from Mooncat with my 19 year old daughter. We started doing each other’s nails. I found a picture of my first manicure in Mooncat’s Pangea and included it. I also included some pictures I found from shark tooth hunting the summer before to show how my nails and cuticles used to look. (I was using my fingers for scale in photos).

None of these are great pictures, am certainly no hand model. This is, without a doubt, the nicest my hands have ever looked. I noticed that my nails are easier to shape and that my c curve is much stronger than it used to be. Especially on my middle fingers, the nail used to grow in a flared out bell like shape. I probably haven’t bitten my nails since June and I think that has allowed them to heal.

I was always kind of embarrassed of my large, dry, wrinkled and generally unattractive hands. I thought I just had ugly hands and always would. Sometimes taking time to paint them felt like putting pearls on a pig. When we started doing each other’s nails mine would chip and peel but my daughter liked doing it and I like her, so I took extra care of my nails to give her the nicest “canvas” possible. Now, at 41, I have nice, pretty hands.

I didn’t expect a full hand glow up but it happened anyway. If anyone else feels like their hands will never look good, that polish will never look as good on them as it does on other people, or that they aren’t worth the effort, I hope they read this and know other people feel that way too.

Maybe you won’t ever have the most beautiful hands, I sure don’t, but you can have way prettier hands than you can imagine. It won’t happen in a week or even a few months. You will just do things to make your polish last and to make it more fun to apply a new color or technique. One day you’ll look down and you won’t see flaws you see today. You might even feel pretty.