Artificial Fingernails -- A Tutorial

Acrylic nails are beautiful and stylish. But what do you do when you can no longer wear them? When you take off acrylic nails, you nailbeds look like they have a disease. In fact, they may be infected with fungus or bacteria.

People also develop allergies to acrylics where the skin around them itches, weeps and sluffs off. In acrylic nail salons, clients are often nicked by the motorized filing head or the manual nippers used to clip off lifting acrylic. There are occasions where these instruments are not properly sterilized.

You can still have beautiful nails at a fraction of the cost by using artificial fingernails. These are easy to find, and if you like short- or medium-length nails, you can find the in WalMart, Walgreens, Sally Beauty and just about any drug or department store. You can even purchase them online.

Long artificial nails are available in the same places, but there is a technique where you can use nail tips, customize them to cover the entire nail and wear them for up to two weeks without removing them.

For this, you are not going use artificial fingernails. Instead, you use nail tips. Sally Beauty Supply sells a line of Cala Nail Tips. There are 10 of each size nail, and they run at around $10.00. This rounds out to $1.00 per set of 10.

There are 10 different sizes of nail tips in the box. Choose the nails that are closest to your natural nail sizes.

Use a finger/toenail cutter to customize the nail tips to fit your nail. Clip the curved edges of the nail. Then file the base into a U-shape to fit your fingernail. Remember that it is going to cover the entire nail. Arrange the clipped and filed nails in this order: thumbnail, pointer fingernail, middle fingernail, ring fingernail and little fingernail. Then do the same thing for the other hand.

Cala nails come in several different colors. You can also purchase them online.

Remove all fingernail polish.

Soak your fingers in warm sudsy water until your cuticles are soft.

Push back your cuticles.

Rinse your hands and dry them thoroughly.

With the softer side of an emory board rough-up your fingernails slightly. This will help the artificial nails to adhere better.

Now you are ready to glue.

You can glue on your Cala (or any) fingernails with your nail glue or nail gel of choice. The fastest sticking glue is Broadway Jet Dry Nail Glue (also called Broadway 3-Second Nail Glue). Be VERY careful when gluing the artificial fingernails to your own nails.

First, place a drop of glue onto your natural nail. (A little goes a long way.) Stick the artificial nail onto the base of your natural nail. Then press down the rest of the artificial nail. Hold the nail down by the tip and apply pressure for three seconds, and that's it!

You may want too squeeze together the nail top and finger bottom to adhere the nail further. Do this at your own risk. Glue can leak from the underside of the nail and glue one finger to another. If this occurs, soak the stuck portion of your fingers in acetone nail polish remover or pure acetone while moving the stuck fingers very slightly in opposite directions, and they will eventually separate. You will have to re-apply those nails because acetone melts artificial nails.

You may want to file the tips of your fingernails to a desired shape. You can paint them and remove nail polish with non-acetone nail polish remover. You can even apply nail art decals to your new artificial fingernails.

If there is residual glue on your finger, dip a Q-tip in acetone remover and then rub the Q-tip over the glued area. It will come off. You can also use a nail file to gently file off the unwanted nail glue.

Your nails should last you up to two weeks.

When removing artificial nails, soak them in acetone, and they will fall off on their own.

The other way to keep your nails fresh is to replace each nail with a new nail when the old one becomes loose or damaged. Just soak the loose nail in acetone, and reapply a new one. By replacing each nail individually, your full set of nails will last indefinitely.

Every time you apply a new nail, paint the entire set you are wearing with clear nail polish. This way, they will look freshly manicured, and you won't be able to tell the new nail from the older ones.