Sarah goes to a party...and realizes she's an idiot.

Good morning!

So last week I wanted to support my friend Jolene in her new Jamberry Nails business.  For those of you who don't know, Jamberry Nails are these fun "wraps" for your finger nails and toe nails. They are very pretty, and, theoretically, they are easy to apply.  Basically, it's really pretty contact paper for your nails.

My fingernails and toenails tend to be a hot mess.  My toenails don't get much attention unless it's sandal season so I've got sort of a weird, jagged hobbit thing going on down there.  It's gross, and I'm a dainty flower of a girl, so I don't like to mention my toenails all that often.  

My fingernails I keep cut very short and my worst problem there is hangnails.  I develop really awful hangnails in the winter.  Again, gross, so I don't talk about it all that often.

I've tried nail polish.  I have.  I try to be that person who, when watching TV, actually does something constructive and beautifying with the nails.  I've tried and I've failed.  I tend to get nail polish on pretty much everything EXCEPT the nail.

So I was pretty excited to check out a nail treatment that was touted to last two weeks without chipping or failing or peeling or looking bad.  

Jolene had her friends and family gathered around her big dining room table and we were all instructed how to cut the wrap strips and buff our nails and push back the cuticles and then put on the nails.

I'll admit it.  I wasn't exactly paying a huge amount of attention.  I mean, the strips looked pretty self explanatory...so I was chatting with Jolene's mom in law and I must have missed a key part of the instructions..like which end was UP on the nail strip.

I cut the thing in half.  I trimmed it to fit my nail length.  I buffed my nail, cleaned it, pushed back the cuticle, heated the strip a tiny bit and stuck it on my nail.  Rounded side up, square side at the bottom of my nail.  As you can imagine...my nail bed isn't shaped with right angles.  So...I had a bit of wrap overlap.

Now, you'd think I'd look at that and say, hmmmm, something isn't right with this.  Nope, I pressed on, literally.  I stuck the other half of the nail strip on another finger, again, rounded side up, square side down.  

I was less than enthused about this look, but I'm a resourceful girl.  Instead of asking for help (why would I do that?) I grabbed a tiny scissors and started cutting off the excess.

It should be mentioned, I've never been terribly good with scissors.

At a point Jolene came down to our end of the table. Her niece and I were bemoaning how we were struggling (and blaming the product, because that's what you do).  She asked what our problems were.  Well, the niece had no problems. Her nails actually looked really beautiful.  Meanwhile I was hacking away at the overlap on my nail bed.  

"What would be really great," I said, "is if the end at the bottom was also rounded, instead of being square after you cut the strip in half.  Because this isn't fitting my nail at all."

Not my nails...yet.

What followed was one of those moments when everything sort of goes silent for me and I realize, along with everyone else at the table, that I'm a moron. I stared at my nails and then made a general announcement:  "I've put these on upside down."

Jolene has a spectacular laugh...and one you can't ignore.  So in about seven seconds the entire table knew what I'd done and was enjoying my blunder.  The upside was I was able to reassure the niece that yes, her nails looked really great and that as long as she sat next to me, no one would ever think she was anything but brilliant and beautiful.

I managed to apply a couple more nails correctly and I'm enjoying them now.  I'm still not a big nail person, but as I go on a job hunt, it's nice to look like I at least put some effort into my look.