Shellac.

Where my nails are concered, I'm an ex-acrylic lover now struggling to keep my nails looking nice and neat in the midst of an otherwise chaotic life. I had acrylics forEVER, then got them taken off, put back on, off, on again while pregnant (hey, some part of me needed to look nice and put together, even if my hands were the size of a NFL linebacker's.) Sidenote: do NFL linebackers have big hands? I'm just making an assumption there.

Anywhoo, after my sweet girl came into the world and three months later, we went back into the "real world" otherwise known as life after maternity leave, it became apparent I had neither the time nor patience to spend sitting in a chair away from my darling girl. Of course, my nails were the poor victims of this decision. So when I heard about Shellac, it piqued my interest. Nail color that would not come off, but did not have to be kept up like acrylics? Tell me more, tell me more!

So after many months of thinking that seemed interesting but never making time to actually make an appointment for a little hand-TLC, I finally found an occasion worth enough (a beach vacation, of course) to have said manicure. It was, in short, fabulous. My nails did not chip for - get this - 18 DAYS. That's a lifetime in manicures. The bad news? This stuff would NOT come off. I tried 100% acetone and everything. Wow! So maybe it requires a bit more upkeep than I thought, but I definitely looked better longer than acrylics ever did.

And at the end of the day, I was forced to get a manicure before anniversary fun day could commence. All in all, I'd say this story had a happy ending.

Have you Shellac'ed? If not, you should!