Why Does Painting Your Nails Make You Feel Like You’ve Suddenly Got Your Life Together?

There is a very specific kind of optimism involved in painting your nails.

You can have washing waiting to be folded, three mugs mysteriously scattered around the house, something questionable lurking at the back of the fridge and absolutely no idea what you’re having for tea…

…but give me ten minutes and a bottle of nail varnish and suddenly I’m a woman with standards.

Apparently.

The decision usually comes out of nowhere too.

I’ll notice the bottle sitting there and think, I’ll just quickly do my nails.

There is, of course, no such thing as quickly doing your nails.

First comes the careful painting. Then the inspection. Then the discovery that one nail looks as though it was painted during an earthquake.

So you fix that one.

Then another.

Eventually you’re sitting completely motionless with your hands suspended in front of you like a surgeon who has just scrubbed in.

And that is exactly when your nose itches.

Or you need the loo.

Or your phone rings.

Or you suddenly remember something incredibly important that requires opening a drawer.

You spend the next fifteen minutes attempting to live an ordinary life without allowing your fingertips to come into contact with anything.

I’ve genuinely found myself opening cupboards with my elbows.

Then, just when you are absolutely certain they must be dry, you touch something.

Dent.

Right across the middle.

And somehow that tiny dent feels disproportionately personal.

But here’s the funny bit.

I still love it.

Not because anybody else particularly notices my nails. Most people probably couldn’t tell you what colour they were five minutes after seeing me.

I like them because I notice them.

Every time I pick up a cup, type something, turn a page or reach for my keys, there’s this tiny flash of colour.

It feels like I’ve done something purely for me.

And I think we sometimes underestimate those little rituals.

Doing your hair when nobody is coming over. Putting on the nice perfume even though you’re staying home. Shaving your legs because you like the feeling. Wearing your favourite underwear beneath clothes nobody else will see. Or painting ten tiny bits of keratin pink and then walking around for half an hour like a bomb-disposal expert.

None of it needs an audience.

That’s something naturism has made me think about quite a lot.

We spend so much of our lives being encouraged to think about how our bodies appear to other people that it can be wonderfully freeing to start asking a different question:

How do I feel in my own body?

Naturism strips away a surprising amount of performance. There’s no outfit to perfect, no label to impress anybody with and nowhere particularly useful to hide.

You’re simply you.

But that doesn’t mean those little expressions of personality disappear.

Quite the opposite.

A necklace. Painted toenails. A favourite hat. A tattoo. A bright towel. A ridiculous pair of sunglasses.

Sometimes when there is less to decorate, the smallest details become wonderfully personal.

Perhaps that’s why I smiled so much at this photograph of a frog calmly painting its nails pink.

Apart from the obvious question of where on earth a frog bought nail varnish, there’s something gloriously familiar about it.

No occasion.

No audience.

No explanation.

Just sitting there giving itself a little manicure because apparently today felt like a pink nails sort of day.

And frankly, I respect that enormously.

Because perhaps self-expression doesn’t always have to make some grand statement.

Sometimes it’s simply looking down at your hands and thinking:

Oh, I like those.

And that is reason enough.