Nine Inch Nails

By Diane Kaye

My story begins with my desire to grow long natural nails, and to learn how to use them. Over the past few months I had been letting them grow and trimming them when they got too long, for a man in a business suit. I had a two week vacation coming up and decided this was an opportunity to get a little more length out of them. I had always wondered how women managed with these long nails without busting them and using them for picking things up. At any rate I proceeded with my plan.

At the start of the trip, which was a camping trip to boot, they were a good quarter inch long over the end of the finger. By the time I got home, two weeks later, they had grown another sixteenth of an inch. For the first week, my wife never noticed their length, then almost as if she were struck by lightning, she remarked one evening, "my god look at the length of your nails". Well they have been long for more than a month so lightning doesn't strike very often on her door step. I said I was experimenting with long nails and would have to trim them when we got home. With that aside all went well.

Now for the fun parts. While I did bust one thumb nail, the rest faired well. Nails can be a blessing if you are trying to pick up a coin off a smooth table, but try to grasp a pole tightly and they dig into your palms. Opening bottles that normally would require the tips of your fingers now requires you to use the pads of your fingers, thus requiring you to relearn simple skills of the hands. They make great scratchers but watch out, you can tear some serious flesh if you get carried away. Trying to scratch your eye? You'll rip it right out of its socket if you are not careful. My wife loved their use as a back scratcher though. They make great tools for opening sealed wrappers and the like. Just shove the thumb nail into the seam, and it opens like a ripe melon. Now just letting them grow does not constitute a good lady like appearance. You need to taper them.

Some styles leave the ends flat or slightly rounded, but the sides must have a taper for the feminine touch. The problem in length versus look boils down to the length and width ratio. I've found that the total length of the extended nail should be about half the width of the nail for an acceptable feminine look while not having overly long and conspicuous nails.

A taper on each side with a rounded end with smooth lines gives a nice look and is the one I use. Squaring the ends of wide fingers seems to give a bad showing in my opinion. Use a nail board to taper them, and in extreme cases careful clipping first to start the shape. Then use the buffer board or a finer board to clean up the sharp and rough edges. By buffing them, the tops of the nails are smooth and will take polish well without heavy coats required. I'm sure professional manicurists will differ with me, but I tend to experiment and choose my own approach that works for me.

Once the nails are shaped to my liking I us a primer first, followed by the polish. . For day casual use I go with a clear or light pastel like pink or beige. While I do see red on many women, I don't want to attract attention to my hands which are shaved and will still show an occasional hair on the fingers. Reds are great for night time but not during the day.

I apply the polish wet enough so that I get a smooth even coat flowing without any drips. This is sort of like spray painting your car and using a "wet" coat. Not having enough polish on the brush leads to blobs and globs of rough polish on the nail. This is a real mess that is hard to clean up. At this point you are better off to start over again.

Getting this degree of coat thickness is a trial and error process. After a good drying of at least half an hour, I apply a top coat. Most of us will find that we do one hand better than the other. I try to brace my weaker hand to steady the bottle brush. I try to push the brush up to the edges without touching the skin. The centers of the nail are brushed the full length with one steady stroke. If I do touch the skin with the polish, I will either use a pointed knife to gently scrape the excess away immediately, or wait until it dries and use an emery board to sand it off.

This sanding process doesn't remove skin, only the paint which by now is hard and brittle. On occasion, I will completely clean off the finger and start over again if the coat is bad. As far as cleaning the nails of polish goes, I've found that a bottle of "Pretty Nail " works well and is quick to boot. You just stick your finger into the bottle, swirl it around, pull it out, and dry it off. Its great for those quick undresses we sometimes need to do.

I concluded, from the trip, that long nails are gorgeous, but totally impractical for a crossdresser who must come back to reality. So I stick with a middle of the road tapered shape that is quite passable but acceptable for a man also. Good luck with yours and practice, practice.