I used to pay almost no attention to my nails. I’d occasionally trim and file them, but going beyond that to apply nail polish seemed like way too much hassle. It’s not that I didn’t love adding a little color to my tips, I just hated the application process: the chemical smell of the polish, the even worse smell of polish remover (and its incredibly irritating habit of drying out my skin) and the enormous amount of patience it seemed to take for everything to fully dry.
The wait, in fact, was probably the most aggravating part, and no matter how long I gave my nails to dry or what topcoat I used, I always seemed to smudge my manicure irreparably by doing something innocuous like opening the door, changing the channel, or even just going to bed…