Covid At-Home Manicures Are Here To Stay

Nothing beats the convenience of laying out a couple of paper towels and shaking up your own bottle of nail polish, in your own home, on a whim. Well, that’s actually how I’ve always done it. I’ve never had a nail appointment.

Covid brought some ladies and men to tears with salons closing everywhere. In time, some opened their doors with dividers and masks in tow. In the meantime, many were forced to do what some of us have been doing for decades: We did our nails at home.

I asked for a manicure once and was turned down because I was too young. I never asked again, not for my bat mitzvah, not for prom, not for anything. I guess I’m the type of person who, once she has her heart broken, she just settles it there and doesn’t want it to happen worse.

The more I learn about manicures, the less I want to have one done, not even to fix a broken nail. Broken nails can be fixed with a teabag and a special kind of glue you can order from Amazon and can be delivered in a few days’ time. I learned about it on YouTube.

Seriously, did you know that they scrape some stuff away during a manicure? What seriously needs to be scraped away on my nails? I like them just the way that God made them. Why add color, then? I add color because God made these perfect little canvases perhaps just for that purpose.

You really don’t need a selection of 1,000 colors that salons have. In fact, picking out your own colors is fun and basically therapeutic, as one of those wellness activities that can be done in good times too, not just in bad, like riding a bike or drinking a cup of tea.

32 nail polish colors is really all you need to get started. You need a red, like a cherry red. You need it because that was the original nail polish color, and maybe it is still the best. Cherry red is feminine, it is a touch blue collar, it makes you relatable, approachable, and classic.

You also will need a few key seasonal colors, like spring blossom colors. A pink cherry blossom color will suffice for that purpose. Orange for Halloween is nice, and it can double as a Thanksgiving color. You already have the red, which can be used for both Valentine’s Day, and Christmas.

I recommend white as a good summer color. It looks good with a tan. White as a nail polish color also keeps spirits very bright during snowy weather. Which brings me to my next color soapbox, which is sparkles.

I would be humiliated asking for sparkles at a salon. However, when you’re shopping for nail polish at a pharmacy, sometimes supermarket, or online, sparkly colors are simply irresistible. After a while, you get to know their subtleties.

For me, at-home manicures are here to stay. It doesn’t mean it can’t be social, however. Zoom with Nanna.