This colour fills my soul!

I’m new to the world of nail polish, having been a nail biter and skin picker for 37 years of my life as a way of calming anxiety. I’ve lurked here for a while and I would like to share my story. I never in a million years thought i’d be able to stop the habit and resigned myself to always having red, swollen and inflamed fingers until the day my 23 year old cat passed away. I was devastated and on the day it happened, my wife happened to have a manicure booked so she asked if I’d like to come with her and have one too.

In my bereaved state, I agreed. I had never had anything done to my hands or fingers in my whole life before so I didn’t even know what a manicure was! I found myself apologising for the state of my nails and fingers to the technician who thankfully treated me with kindness and understanding. She tidied my fingers up as best and she could and gave me a gel polish with a subtle skin colour so it didn’t look like I had anything on my nails.

I was blown away at the difference it made to how my hands looked and I kept staring at them! My nails were very short because of biting but they looked the best I’ve ever seen them look.

Fast forward to 6 months later and the reason I joined this subreddit and community - I have not bitten my nails or picked the skin once since that first manicure. My hands have healed, the skin has calmed down and it’s healed like nothing had ever happened. My nails have grown and are strong and healthy. I now love my hands and don’t hide them. When I look at my hands now, I remember the loss of my cat and honouring her memory became the reason I broke my habit.

I found I didn’t like gel so switched to nail polish and my discovery of this community and all these amazing indie polishes that I now have an worryingly large collection of!

I adore blue and this one I’m wearing (excuse the chips, I’ve had it on a while) is called ‘Dreams didn’t make us Kings’ by Prism Polish UK with Sally Hansen miracle gel shine top coat and it absolutely fills my soul. It’s winter here in the UK currently so the lighting doesn’t quite show the full effect but when the sun shines, it’s a bright sparkly deep electric blue which literally catches people’s eyes and makes them stop me to ask what it is!

Anyway, thank you for reading :) I’m enjoying my nail polish journey and discovering so many amazing colours and textures :)