Toenail Polish

I was going to write a highly educated, informative post about child psychiatry.  Really, I was.  I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone, so I took my laptop upstairs, and sequestered myself in the guest bathroom with a beautiful unopened bottle of Chanel Madness polish – a rich, black/brown – and got out my toenail polishing arsenal. Might as well paint my toes between paragraphs.

Why am I stuck up here and not in my own bathroom, you ask?  That would be because my husband Adam is like a polar bear when it comes to nail polish fumes.  (A male polar bear can smell a female polar bear up to 90 miles away, whether or not she’s wearing deodorant.)  He hates the smell of nail polish.  If I do my nails in our bathroom in the morning, Adam will come home late at night and say, “Ugh!  I’m going to throw up!  You did your nails in here!  I asked you not to do that!  Now I can’t sleep in my own room.  Gag!  Gag!”

You can’t even lie.  His nose knows.  “You did!  I can smell it!  Gag!  Gag!  Help!  Can you make the smell go away?” he’ll yell.

No, I can’t.  Because there is only one molecule of nail polish left in the bedroom, and his nose keeps breathing it in and out.  The rest has dissipated.  If the molecule was color coded, I could grab it, but it’s not.

I meant to write something meaningful, but I look at my toes, now chipped and ugly, and ponder the world of toenail polish.  I’m meticulous about my toenail polish during sandal wearing weather, but once shoes and boots come out, I loose impetus.  Only Adam and the boys see my toes during the winter, and they don’t seem to care.  I’ve never heard Adam say, “Honey, do you want to snuggle….wait!  Ugh!  Chipped polish!  Get away from me, Wench!”

The current dying polish about to come off was Chanel Black Satin – the funkiest, most up to date nail polish of the season.  When it comes to toenail polish I believe in following the moronic, slobbering fashionista croud.  No individualist thinking for these feet.  I have friends who are classicists, and go with a flattering red at all times.  Perhaps this is a sign of classic beauty – like Coco Chanel, or Nicole Kidman.  Then why did Coco invent Black Satin?  Oh yeah.  She didn’t.  She’s dead.  Moving on . . .

When weird colors were in, I slathered them on my toes.  Turquoise blue, Kelly green.  Reading, PA, the town I live in, is very conservative.  When I first moved here, I’d round on adolescent inpatients on the weekend wearing shorts, Burkenstocks and green toenail polish.  The head of the Psychiatry Department called me into his office for a chat.

“Robin, it has come to my attention, from the nurses, that you wear green toenail polish on the weekends.”

“So?” I asked.

“Well, this is a very conservative area, and this bothers them.” he explained.  To his credit, he turned a little red.

“Don’t worry, they’ll get over it, “I assured him, and patted him on the back.  “Wait till they see my Grateful Dead t shirts.  They’ll miss the good old days of green nail polish.”

“Nice strategy,” he admitted.

I’ve never painted my fingernails.  The fingernail polish chips too quickly, and I find it distracting.  But toes last forever.  Viva La Toenail polish!

I leave you with toenail polish color recommendations.  Feel free to share your faves with me.  I’m always up for experimentation, but I don’t do Sally Hansen.  Shiver.  Nail Polish is cheap.  My toes deserve the bestest.

Faves:  Black Satin, Madness (really new), Organza and Ballerina from Chanel.  “I am not a waitress” by OPI.  Any red by YSL.  Any bronze by Nars.

Always remember:  Darker colors chip more.  Colors with shimmer chip more.  Chanel chips the least.

I’ll write something deep and meaningful another time.