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Published On: Fri, Jun 29th, 2018

Whatever happened to the good old natural nails?

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By Shola Blessing

“Mi amour, let me do your nails today, it will look very good on you” my hairstylist said as she tried to cajole me once again to fix artificial nails on my fingers but for the umpteenth time I said no. I noticed that every visit to the salon is like pulling teeth. The hairstylist either wants me to color my hair or fix well designed artificial nails. Sometimes, those who are faint of heart succumb to their request and within a short while become addicted to fixing artificial nails. As attractive as it may seem, fixing artificial nails has no health or environmental benefits. As a matter of fact due to the situation of our sanitary land field (dump) in St. Maarten, plastic nails should be discouraged if you ask me.

According to an online article and numerous studies, the chemicals used to apply acrylic nails are notoriously unhealthy and include such offenders as resins and formaldehyde, which have been shown to cause cancer. Rigidly adhered acrylics may also lead to serious nail breaks, infection and loss of the natural nail. Need I say more?

Despite numerous warnings from dermatologist about the dangers associated with wearing artificial nails, have you noticed how attached some of us have become to our artificial nails that we would rather take care of them than we would ourselves? Whatever happened to the good old short clean natural nails? Some of us have artificial nails that make us look like we borrowed somebody else’s hands because of how unkempt the rest of our bodies look in comparison to our “precious” artificial nails.

I carried out a survey recently and came to the conclusion that some women in St. Maarten spend more time taking care of their artificial nails more than any part of their bodies because they follow the bandwagon.

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I am not saying that wearing artificial nails is bad but when people look at you and first thing they notice about you is your extremely beautiful artificial nails, something is not right. Picture this, you walk into an office and while to speak to the receptionist, you notice that her skin looks like it could use some moisturizer but by the time she stretches out her fingers to type on the computer (which looks very awkward by the way), her artificial nails stand out so much that it looks weird. It’s like wearing a suit on the beach!

I like artificial nails when I see them on a well groomed lady but when the nails stand out like they mostly do, I always cringe because eventually this artificialness takes the focus away from you as a person and places it on a nonliving well decorated waste product.

I would expect that we would rather spend more time taking care of our overall health with emphasis on the skin first (as it relates to beauty) because in my opinion, the skin is an actual reflection of who you are, what you eat, plus your overall health status. Please realize that taking care of yourself is not only about outward appearance but what you take into your body. Please take good care of yourself today because if you don’t nobody else will.

Shola Blessing