The Jammy Fail

I have been sitting at craft fairs the last two weekends with a table full of dog collars and toys, promoting Darla Jane's.  I have met a lot of fun people, and a lot of even more fun dogs. Ironically, I was beside the very same vendor at each event. What are the odds of this? Slim, I'd guess, and yet it was the way things were. This vendor was a consultant for Jamberry Nails.

If you're not familiar with Jamberry, you must really be living under a rock. No, really. I am not a girly girl. I do not follow fashion. I rarely host home parties and am invited to just as few. But with the modern day of everyone sharing their life on Facebook, Twitter and the like, I have become very familiar with Jamberry. It is a line of vinyl nail stickers that come in almost-way-too-many color and design choices, and are purported to last up to 2 weeks (or even longer, if you're lucky!). I will admit to being intrigued by these things, but not enough to actually buy them. I have my reasons, and they're good ones.

The consultant I spent the last two weekends with has been very helpful in talking me into trying the product line. She has given me all the information I can process, and even some that I can't. She happily showed me her nails from the previous week to further prove how well they last and how fresh they still looked. (They really did.) And then she even gave me a free sample, because free samples are the best way to sell someone on a product. I mean, once you have that wrap on your nail and it lasts a few weeks and looks super fabulous through the holiday season, you're going to want that same quality of awesome on your other nails, too, right?

Yeh. And then there's me.

Rules for putting the stickers on:

1. Choose the right size for your finger, or in my case, the right sized finger for the free sample.

2. Wash your hands with Dawn dish soap, and clean the nail with alcohol or white vinegar.

3. The "cold method" allows you to simply place the sticker on your nail, press it down well, and then apply a heating pad to seal it.

4. Trim the excess off the end of your nail.

5. Don't get your hands wet for a few hours until it's completely bonded to your nail.

6. You will have fabulous nails that will be the envy of all you meet, and you will want to call your consultant and order many sets of even more fabulous stickers.

One of the reasons I told this kind lady that I was not interested in the product was that I didn't have time to do my nails. I'm not kidding. I simply don't have 10-15 minutes of do-nothing time through my day that would be a good time to apply stickers. Especially followed by a few hours of not getting my hands wet. I have puppies. I wash my hands a lot. She suggested putting them on just before bed and then sleeping through the "no water" time. She's genius.

Today, I lost the battle with my head cold. It was a back-and-forth with medication keeping it at bay for a few days, but it came back with a vengeance today and really kicked me. I put aside all work for a bit and just sat down. And that's when I thought about the nail wraps and how this would be a good time to play with them.

Here's what happened:

1. I chose my pinky finger to place the wrap on, because the wrap was tiny. Turns out, my hands are tinier. I had to peel it off and put the sticker on my ring finger instead.

2. I don't have Dawn, washed recently after playing with puppies, and simply used vinegar on my nails. I did do this before applying the sticker, so there's that.

3. I applied the sticker, and as careful as I tried to be, I suck at things like this. I know this. This is why I didn't want anything to do with them, because the whole world would  know what a failure I am at simple things. I verrrrrry carefully aligned the sticker over my nail, then verrrrrry slowly eased it down onto the nail. It was crooked. And also didn't fit well. It was a tiny bit too small for my ring finger, yet too big for my pinky. For Pete's sake. I let it on my ring finger, and cut it off with scissors because I could use the other side for my other hand. That hand, however, was my right hand and my left hand is even worse at aligning small things. This sticker extended up onto my skin and had a wrinkle in it. It looked like a 2 year old applied it. It was fabulous....ly sucky. I held the heating pad to my hands religiously, trying to make right with heat what I did wrong.

4. I trimmed the excess with nail clippers.

5. I then forgot about the things and took a hot, soaking bath because my whole head felt like it was going to explode from sinus pressure and I needed to steam some things loose. It worked, for as long as I was in the tub.

6. My nails aren't exactly fabulous. I'm not wow-ing anyone, either. In fact, they started lifting (shocker!), and while the consultant said another application of the heating pad would re-seal that, I chose, instead, to just peel them off. It's not like they looked good anyway, because I'm just not good with this kind of stuff.

I'm really not a girly-girl. And I'm okay with this.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sealing the deal for me on these. I would have no luck getting them to look decent but because EVERYONE on facebook seems to say how easy it is, I thought maybe I could. I will save the $15.