Reply #251: The amazing world of stick-on nails

[TorchTheWitch]

They come with a superglue type adhesive already on them, and you peel off the protective tape that covers the adhesive and keeps air from getting at it which dries it, and stick it on your real nail. However, I'm finding more and more companies are selling the stick-on nails with a little separate tube of glue to stick them on because the ones that have the adhesive already on them generally just suck... you have to stick each nail on immediately after taking off the protective tape or the adhesive dries too much before you can stick it on your real nail, and if you have to pull it off to reposition it, forget it, it's already too late - the glue's dried. Also, if they've been hanging around on the drugstore shelf for awhile you can peel off the protective tape and find the adhesive has already dried out. The ones with the adhesive already on them are quickly becoming "old-fashioned".

When they first came out with these things (20 years or so ago?) the adhesive was much like double-sided sticky tape, but they stayed on so badly that just zipping your pants or putting your hand in a pocket would make the nails pop off. And naturally, if you could even find the popped off nail(s) again there'd be hair, lint, dirt and other crud stuck to the adhesive, so trying to put it back on was a joke.

I stopped at the 24 hour CVS on the way home from work tonight for shampoo, nail polish and other girlie stuff and couldn't even find any of the "old-fashioned" stick-on nails. Now they even have stick-on short nails where barely any of the nail goes past the end of the finger (what in the world is the point to that?... must be for lazy folks that don't want to bother with polishing their own short nails).