Dear diary, remember my first manicure? ๐ ๐ฝ๐ ๐ฝ
pardon my french tips but this is where it all began.
Growing up in a small town affords you small pleasures like gathering at communal hotspots with the rest of the locals: shopping centers. We were lucky enough to have two in Slough โ Queensmere and The Observatory โ and during those years when my world felt infinitely small, these hotspots were the epicenter. Every opportunity to walk around for no reason was a treat and even more so when landed my first job at H&M, but more on that another time.
At the heart of small-town weekends were trips to my favorite retail havens. The icing on top of the cake was going to Tesco with my mum to do our weekly food shop. Two hours of pure bliss were spent cruising up and down the aisles with a trolley, making big life decisions about what to have for lunch that week or whether we needed half or a full pint of milk. Bonus points were awarded (to me) if we needed to pop into the shopping center to run an errand or do one of mumโs famous return-some-shit sessions.
The Observatory was on the other side of the high street and we all knew it wasnโt the cool kid. Rundown and eerily quiet, there were no shops of interest over there, not enough at least to entice an eager teenager. Queensmere was where the party was really at. You could tell that the local council had splurged a little revamping the place that ran through the high street with one entrance on Queensmere road (aka the back where we all hitched rides home from our parents) and the other just off Wellington Street.
It was here that I got my first ever manicure.
One April, my parents were out of town leaving my older sis to keep a watchful eye on us. Always striving to reach the level of cool that she exuded, I was thrilled when she gave me a crisp twenty to go rogue.
Already having spent the past two years experimenting with 99p glue-on nails from the local pound shop, I knew it was time for me to go and get a grown-up manicure. โYou should get acrylics done,โ Raj said, so casually the words almost brushed off of her shoulder and poofed into the air. It felt like the kind of task you would do every day, like brushing your hair.
The nail shop had some big American name, like Empire Nails or something and I was thrilled as soon as I walked in and asked, โCan I get a full set of acrylics with french tips please?โ I was fucking BEAMING. This was it, I had reached peak grown-up shit. Iโm sure we werenโt really allowed nails at school but whatever.
Back in the day, it was around 15 quid for a full-set (inflation is a bitch coz sometimes I surprise myself with what I spend now). Given that youโre paying to ruin your nails it does make sense that it was so cheap, but I didnโt care. I sat in the uncomfortable chair, leaning forward, straining my neck ever so slightly just so I could watch the technicianโs every move. From the way she chose the different nail sizes for my tiny hands to applying the glue for the tips and layering the acrylic, which, if youโve done before will know just how tricky it is to use a brush to make sure you have an even enough layer that doesnโt look thick when you hold your fingers up to your eyes and get a side view.
The next part was always my favorite: airbrushing. Watching the artist use a stencil and the airbrush tool, and how she neatly created the perfect white tip was always fascinating to me. The precision of the spray tool meant there was no room for error. None. It was a cherry on top of the cake that took 45 minutes to bake, signaling that we were almost at the finish line. A slick, glossy topcoat and off we went to dry. I canโt remember if we dried the nails naturally that day or used a fan but either way, it took forever. I walked out of there around an hour or so later, my heart racing. Stretching out my fingers in front of me, I finally got the first look: it was the most perfect french manicure Iโve ever seen.
That night, I lay in bed, all ten of my fingers burning from the filing. I didnโt care one bit. It was 2005 and it was the best thing that ever happened to me and nothing was the same after that.
Miss you,
H x