Lunch Break Mani

Look, an hour long lunch break is not nearly enough time to run out and get a mani. By the time you drive there (5 minutes) and pick your color (20 minutes), half your break is nearly gone! There is no way that tech, no matter how good they are, is going to be able to clean up your ratchet cuticles, slap on that polish, gel, SNS whatever, gossip about how horrible your shoes are in a language you don't understand, and get you out the door and back to the office before your boss is freaking out.

If you're like me, your lunch break is literally your only hour to yourself during the day. I am stingy with mine. If I meet you for lunch, you best feel blessed by my presence because I am giving you one of my five hours a week that are MINE! My weekends are so full of ballet rehearsals, house work, errands, SEC football, and church, that unless there is an act of God, I don't have time for a mani then either. My nails always look sad.

So one day last week, I took my hour lunch and bee bopped around Target. I always look at the nail colors and I ran across this:

                       Target.com

  

Look, I grew up in the late 80's and 90's, the hay day of the cherry red press on nail. Those suckers were total garbage. But these little beauties, oh man have I been impressed (no pun intended). First off the natural matte color is beautiful and the glitter accent nail is just enough pop to make you feel fancy AF. The kit comes with 30 nails, 6 of them accent nails, a wooden cuticle stick, a nail prep pad, and a small file for shaping. All you have to do is wash your hands and soak your nails to be able to push the cuticle back. There is NO GLUE! Each nail has a little adhesive tab on the back which you peel off and then you just press the nail firmly down in the center and on both sides and TAH DAH! Insta mani! These look like I spent time and money in a salon and I totally did not. You could easily pop over to Target, grab a pack and apply these during your lunch break and still have time to swing through Starbucks and grab that after lunch latte without being late getting back! Now I know you're asking how they hold up, and I'ma get to that but first let me let you peek at my nails!

                   

 

Ignore my swollen hands and my oh so professional photos. But look at how cute! Now me personally, I had to trim these down a bit because, if my nails are too long I can't type at work. But I just used regular nail clippers to trim them down and filed them with the file provided. I put these on Thursday night and I STILL have them all on today, Monday morning. I went to work, went and road carnival rides, went the pumpkin farm, a birthday party, sat in the tub for 30 minutes and washed my hair, dried my hair, did dishes, and I have washed my hands a thousand times and these guys are still hanging in there! Here they are today!

                   

 

Right? There are a few bumps and bruises at the tip on the nail, but that can easily be filed out. I've just kept pressing them down here and there throughout the day to ensure they have good contact between the adhesive and the natural nail.  The cons to this is the fact that the adhesive sticks out past my natural nail and can pick up some fuzz and dirt so I feel like I have to constantly pick at the underside of my nails. I wonder if there is a way to cut that little tab down? The only other thing I had to do was shape my natural nails just a bit. While there are several size press ons for each nail, I usually keep my nails square and had to go and cut them and file the natural nail where it poked out from under the press on, but that was no biggy.

All in all, if you have an event coming up or a weekend trip, these are a quick and cheap way to look like a million bucks! Oh and I forgot to mention the best part! This particular set only cost me $5.99! The sets range from $2.99 on clearance to $7.99, that sure beats the pants off the $40 plus you may end up spending on gel nails at the salon!

**While there is a link to Target in this post, I am in no way affiliated with Target and get no money from you clicking that link and purchasing this product.**