I used to bite my nails until I was about nineteen years old. I suddenly stopped and took great pride in my talons, painstakingly learning how to file them and paint them. It was a big deal for me, having bitten my nails for the longest time!

Fun fact: I still don’t know how to use a nail cutter on my own hands.

So one fine day, when scrolling through Nailed_It_Ke‘s instagram feed, I decided it was was high time to get my deteriorating nails sorted out. A couple of months ago, just before I travelled, I’d had the gel nail varnish done. It lasts long and doesn’t chip, which is especially important when one is travelling and not able to carry all the nail paraphernalia along. It was all good until I got back and my nails became really brittle. They’d break at the oddest angles, split down one side, became filled with ridges and made me feel conscious.

I made an appointment with Sapna and I’m just going to take you through the process of getting the nails sorted out. It’s been quite fascinating!

So as you can see, my nails haven’t really been shabby. They’re generally strong and I do enjoy looking after them.

Then, this happens…

Look at that! Also, they tend to get very messy because I paint. Sometimes the acrylic paints don’t come off easily.

Sapna gets me comfortably seated and starts off.

Sapna starts by gently cleaning up the nails, filing them into shape, buffing them, getting rid of any cuticles I may have.

By the way, her nail colour is awesome!

Then she proceeds to put on various hardeners and a super bond gel, and then I’m asked to put my hand inside the infrared light lamp.

A lot of people aren’t too keen on exposing their skin to this but this literally took less than a minute! I was sceptical and kept asking her if she was sure. She laughed and assured me she knew what she was doing.

Now look at this. Can you see how badly this nail broke? It was pretty painful too. I told Sapna to just work around it and she said I shouldn’t worry about anything. She could fix it. I looked at her, unconvinced. How do you fix a nail that’s broken at a right angle?!

Sapna: Challenge accepted!

You do realise I was gasping through the whole process. I couldn’t believe the magic that was going on in front of my eyes! She actually fixed it! It didn’t even look unnatural at all. I was totally transfixed. What was this sorcery?

Thank you Sapna for making my hands look decent again!

Also, I’ll have you know that my nails haven’t got ruined despite getting acrylic paints on them almost every day.

Nailed It is situated at Aromatics Spa in Lavington and the Instagram handle is @nailed_it_ke.

I paid Kshs 3,500/- for the whole process and so far, two weeks on, the manicure is still going strong.

💅🏻