My nail lady and I are practically besties, usually only communicating in a series of soft smiles, appropriate chuckles here and there, and nods for yes or no. But as of late, she’s really overstepping her boundaries and telling me I need to “contour my nails.” Please. Please, God. Tell me you’re joking.
NOPE. This is not satire and I did not make this up. People are literally contouring their nails to make them look longer. Because actually like, letting your nails grow out is too practical a solution? Look, I don’t care if your nail beds suck, stop trying to make nail contouring happen. First there was face contouring, then more specifically nose contouring, then butt contouring—when does it end? All I’m asking for is ONE part of my body that I don’t have to contour. Is that so much to ask??
While we used to be proponents of nail art, this shit has really gone off the rails within the past year. We started with the deeply sus phase of gluing actual fur on your nails. You know, just in case people weren’t clear on how many cats you owned/how much time you spend listening to Taylor Swift. Now your bearded lady fingers can tell everyone what’s good.
@ay0brandiiii RT @BeauTuts: these furry nails are cute pic.twitter.com/A67XG3H7EF
— PRSZN (@Prizzle_) March 1, 2017
And then there was the whole succulent nails trend. Too many green thumb puns to make, not enough time. I thought I saw enough cacti at Coachella, but learned the hard way nothing and no one can fight a hipster’s allegiance to their Insta likes—no matter how many plants they kill to glue onto their nails, no matter how many succulents they leave dead and bloody along the way, just as long as they can make a name for themselves as an Instagram beauty model.
I thought a lot of things were gonna happen in 2016 that didn’t. For example succulent nails never quite took off pic.twitter.com/bvCJZkfWll
— Jen O. (@Jenodd) December 30, 2016
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, here we are (honestly, that’s a metaphor for 2017). The nail contour. So people literally paint their nails with a clear/light coat, and then do a thin strip of a darker, brighter color down the middle to make their nails look longer.
Nail Contouring Is The New Beauty Trend You’ll Actually Want To Try: https://t.co/EAZEOc1N6n pic.twitter.com/mxtgkXogfb
— Girlfriend (@GirlfriendMAG) January 24, 2017
Don’t get me wrong, I’m eternally grateful for the Kardashian wisdom that so blessed me with the benefits of contouring. 15 minutes and 5 steps later, I watched myself go from a 6 to an 8 right in front of my very bathroom mirror. But nails??? At least let’s pick a part of the body that needs to shed a few.
Said benefits of the “nail contour” from manicurists—manicurists I would never let within 15 miles of my hands—are:
1. It’s “cool”. Guess we’re gonna have to disagree here, nail experts. If you have a cosmetology license, that shit should be revoked.
2. It creates the illusion of longer nails. But who asked for this illusion?? And why can’t they just pay $40 for acrylics every month like the rest of us???
3. Easy execution. Well, I would hope the execution would be easy considering you’re LITERALLY SKIPPING HALF THE MANICURE. I wish life worked like this. Like, whenever I was in the mood for something easy, I could just skip half the work and just claim it’s the new trend. As I wonder why I’m still single and unemployed.
Overall, -2/10 do not recommend. America, let’s stop being so goddamn lazy and finish painting our whole nails. This is coming from the girl who just microwaved my food for 1:11 because I was too lazy to move my thumb to the 0 button. DO BETTER.
