Bright colors aren't really my thing. I love neutrals, I really love soft pastels in the spring and deep, dark colors for the fall. I have some brightly-colored dresses, but nothing extremely bold or overly loud. If I paint my nails, they are usually red, light pink, or blue. Pretty typical.
Last month I signed up for an Ipsy subscription and I received my first package this week. I was ridiculously excited to receive fun new products, and I love all of them! One took me by surprise though. A little bottle of nail polish. Neon pink nail polish. When I say neon pink I mean neon pink. Imagine bubble gum pink amplified one hundred times and possibly possessing the ability to glow in the dark.
Naturally, I was pretty taken aback by this color. The last time I put something this bright on my nails or had an accessory this bright was probably in middle school, if I would have even dared to wear something so bright then. If I had seen this color in the store I would have probably laughed and walked past it. But I guess something about having it delivered right to my home made me feel obligated to try it. So I made one brush stroke on my thumb, looked at it and wiped it off. Nope, not for me.
A day or two passed by, and without giving it much thought I was suddenly up in my room applying the scary, abrasive pink paint to my fingers. "What in the world is wrong with me?" I thought as I did this. I painted my nails with as much care as I would have a sophisticated color and let them dry without a smudge. Then I kept the polish on. And I kept it on the day after that. And I have worn it all day today. And I have gone out in public multiple times with this color on my nails. So what in the world possessed me to paint my nails a color I would usually hate?
I wasn't completely sure at first. In the true form of a seventeen-year-old girl, once my nails dried I Snapchatted a picture of them to about ten friends to get their opinion. A couple of them simply said things like "wow," but most of them actually liked it. They said it looked fun and perfect for spring and summer. Those had been my thoughts as well, but I hadn't felt at liberty to say them without knowing that someone else agreed with me.
I think my nails didn't suffer acetone removal mere minutes after being painted because I decided that being bold, even about something as small as nail polish, is okay. I like the nail polish because of how different it is from everything else that I tend to wear. I know some people think it looks silly, and they might be right. I still feel a little bit like a twelve-year-old in Panama City, Florida wearing it. But it is fun. Life is so short and in twenty years I probably won't be able to wear this kind of nail polish and uphold my reputation, but right now I definitely can; and because of that, I'm gonna wear the heck out of this nail polish.
My neon nails are definitely going to come off before my fast-approaching high school graduation, and they will probably be replaced by my go-to red polish. I might never touch that bottle of paint again. But for right now I can't look at my hands and see a crazy pink color and I like that! It's been fun to do something that feels kinda fun and silly, even if it is only a color on my nails.
