My nails look like shyte

and that's AFTER I put on nail polish too.

So after deciding that the least I could do for my friend's wedding was get a decent pair of manicured hands and a decent pair of pedicured feet, I went to the drugstore to pick out some nail polish to work with. (Recently in random fits of renewed determination to live life in a minimalist fashion, I have made sweeping purges of my cosmetics and toiletries. Alas, the nail polishes usually didn't survive the cleansing campaigns) So I meticulously selected two colors that delighted me and with great excitement embarked on some DIY salon experience later last night.

Now giving yourself a good manicure require first of all, a decent canvas to work on. Your nails have to be smooth, the cuticles removed, the skin surrounding the nails need to be soft and pliant, not dry and cracking. My fingers really don't fit any of the above criteria as I consider putting hand lotion on my hands the pinnacle of pampering. (yes, I'm That lazy) Plus, there is the necessary hand-eye coordination skills required to apply just the right amount of polish to each nail in controlled strokes from one end to the other. For some reason, this simple physical act eludes my capabilities and my nail brush goes wild, splattering heavy color here, barely scraping by in other places from lack of polish. The end result? Uneven coating, bumpy veneer, streaked with airbubbles (from waving my hands in the air too vigorously) and polish spilling over on the skin. Good manicure it is not. If not for the fabulous color that my discerning eye picked out, my manicure would have to be classified as a complete failure. As it is, its irisdescent glow, its pearly sparkliness manages to still dazzle and somewhat pretend it's actually a good manicure job....until this morning when on another whim, I decided to streak some more polish on top of it. I thought, in salons, they always give customers at least two applications, so why not?

But then, Miss Genius here was running late for work and waved her hand frantically in the air again to dry it quickly. And after about 5 seconds, decided it was dry enough and rushed off. Out of curiosity though, I couldn't resist patting one of my nails and promptly placed a fingerprint indent on the polish, like embossing. On closer inspection, all my nails look pretty tacky, despite my best intentions and now it just bugs me to stare at them, knowing what an awful job I did of it all.

Yeah, even now as I'm writing them, I can't help but stopping every few seconds to inspect my nails. The verdict is the same everytime. They look like shyte.