Can we start an anti "nail" campaign?

[2rebecca]

As a GP who frequently washes her hands, allotment owner and instrument player I really hate the trend for women to have immaculate nails that cost a fortune, scratch people and mean women can't do anything useful. Where t f did this horrible trend come from and how do we give women back the use of their wonderful hands?

Except they weren't actually sold then. I found this video which fits with my memory. So it was 1990s you got women wearing extra long nails.

And press on nails in the 1980s which were long, but not the ultra long ones of some acrylics.

don't remember seeing very long press on nails in the past Although can I check, how long ago are you talking about?

As I said, late 80s, early 90s. I was born in 82 and still a young child when that happen. She wore them for a long time.

And most people dont have ultra long ones. The talon type.

The 80s ones were definitely long and very easily manageable or popped off. So women had to be more cautious wearing them. Therefore more restricted.

But long false nails are not new. As I said, look back to Egyptian and Roman cultures.

Even if you consider something when it's been around 20 years. You surely dont consider something hundreds or thousands of years, to be new.

Or something from the 60s?

I think when you are old, recent has a very different meaning than for young people. I think of the 1990s as not long ago, and forget that some women on here would only have been young children. So apologies for that.
From memory, the first women who wore extra long acrylic nails with lots of painted patterns in any number, were black Caribbean women. It was a black fashion. I think it came from the US via music artists.

As someone who was 18 in 2000. I can assure you lots of white girls, were getting their nails done around that time, when acrylics were beginning to be more widely available as the cost of the product came down and salons did them at more reasonable costs.

Not influenced by black Caribbean women in music videos.

www.nailbou.com/the-history-of-acrylic-and-gel-nails/

I thought this was going to be a thread about modern slavery, given the problem of this in nail bars - is that not more the point than what women can or cannot do with long nails? Having your nails done is part of the expectation of grooming in some jobs etc. I would be more concerned about the conditions those doing the nails work in.

Holdthedamndoor There is a history of very high status women in the past wearing false nails as a sign they did not need to do physical things as they had servants. They were meant to be impractical.
But surely we should not be accepting the idea of women wearing something impractical, whatever it is, to demonstrate that she is rich and has servants?
Ironic that now long acrylic nails are seen as working class in Britain.

Like fucking everything women get castigated for, longer nails alongside genital waxing and make up, has been around forever but hey let’s just blame porn and advertising 🙄

@jennymanara so first they were associated with ‘black’ fashion now the ‘working class’-

Holdthedamndoor Yes it spread to white women. I am talking about the first women I saw in any number wearing these were black Caribbean women. I struggle to remember dates looking back, but probably was in the 90s.
Fashions, which this is, are either started by designers/marketers, or they grow from street fashion. At the beginning, this grew from street fashion in England.
And I know many women only get nails as long as long natural nails. They are far more practical. What I see round me where I live is lots more women with very long nails. I know that might be because of where I live.

What a ridiculous idea

katesmott Why the face?

Genital waxing is clearly porn inspired. Older midwives will tell you that all women they worked with up to a certain point had hair, and then it suddenly changed and they all did not have pubic hair. Such a dramatic change does not just evolve.

I'm in my 60s and have had (all natural) long nails since my teens. I just use nail polish, though, because I hate the look of fake nails. And "nail art" is awful.

Always manage to do everything I need to do.

But nails the length of natural long nails are not the issue in terms of doing things. It is the extra long ones that make things hard.

But surely we should not be accepting the idea of women wearing something impractical, whatever it is, to demonstrate that she is rich and has servants?

Why? Many women have cleaners. I have a cleaners. If a woman doesnt have to do the manual work around their house and wants long nails, because of this. She doesnt feel it stops her doing anything, but what she doesnt do enables her to have ultra long nails. Who are you to judge? No one wears them to say 'everyone will know I have a ckeaner' but if having g a cleaner enables her to have the nails she wants....why not?

The fact that it was used a status symbol still doesnt take away from the fact that it's not new. Regardless of the reason people having them, they are not a new thing. The reason may have changed. They are still not new.

And no. My auntie was not influenced by black Caribbean music. But had very long nails as fat as I can remember. She has had several office based jobs and trained in nails just to do her own.

It's not new and doesnt stop her doing anything she wants.

I'm around 60 and long painted nails have always been fashionable for some women

Exactly. My dm and dgm have had fabulous painted nails their whole adult life. My dgm’s final pleasure when she was deaf and nearly blind in the nursing home at the age of 90 was getting her nails done. It’s nice to look at your hands and like what you see.

Clearly OP as a GP has different considerations. I’ve not chosen a career where I stick my fingers into other people’s body parts so can do what the fuck I like with my nails. This includes being able to wipe my own arse thankfully no doubt to the astonishment of one poster

@jennymanara apologies, having a hairless vagina was totally a recent porn influenced dramatic change of recent times...

I was not saying your Auntie was influenced by anything. I was talking about the spread of very long acrylic nails and nail art.

Doing practical things is not just cleaning though. It is about everyday things. Doing up buttons, wiping your bottom, etc. Yes it is possible with very long acrylic nails, but it is difficult and women do have to find ways to do it.
I struggle to see anything that hobbles someone in that way as a good thing.
I have no issue with acrylic nails that are the length of natural long nails, apart from the exploitation of women working in nail bars and that many women will be ingesting toxic chemicals through their nails.

"This isn't a new trend . I'm around 60 and long painted nails have always been fashionable for some women. There will always be people who like them long and those who don't. It's not like "back in the day" everyone had solid hard-working hands - it's just always been a personal preference to either have long or short ones, painted or plain."

While this is true, it's also true that nail bars are a very recent thing. I'm 67 so "recent" for me means in the last 20 years! I absolutely noticed when the first one sprang up in my home town.

As a simple matter of interest, I'd like to know exactly HOW people with talons can type or play the piano? I use the pads on my fingertips for those tasks and I just can't imagine how it is done otherwise.

Also bad for the environment. Clean bare nails are much more classy I think!

Well, you have to love it don’t you. Wake up on a Sunday morning, have a look a some of the burning issues on mumsnet to find, from what I can see appears to be in excess of 200 posts critiquing women for having the right to choose to do as they wish with their nails. But better still this standpoint is masquerading as a feminist issue somehow - the level of misunderstanding here is glorious. Let’s empower our fellow woman by dictating what they can and can’t choose to do with their bodies

Also, @jennymanara , I don’t mean to be rude but I very much do not like the unpleasant undertones of “the first women who wore extra long acrylic nails with lots of painted patterns in any number, were black Caribbean women. It was a black fashion.” Let’s put it down to innocent inaccuracy as opposed to anything else that could reflect on your in a poor light shall we

katesmott Yes removing pubic hair in Renaissance times was common.
But I was not talking about that. I was talking about the dramatic change in more recent times to women having pubic hair and then not having pubic hair. THAT change was inspired by porn.

Going to bow out. I am interested in talking about this, but struggle with some of the more aggressive comments. I wish we could just talk about this without seeing treating it as a fight.

As a simple matter of interest, I'd like to know exactly HOW people with talons can type or play the piano?

I don’t and never have played the piano (damn my working class upbringing that evidently led to my distasteful penchant for acrylic nails) but I type quickly and with accuracy 5 days a week as part of my job. Any further questions?!

Lamaha You can play piano with very long nails, but you get the sound of the tapping of the nails as well.

Also not sure why there is any issue with recognising that some fashions come from black women. Just as some fashions come from the lesbian community. Did you know slacks were invented by a lesbian group in the US trying to promote to some lesbians a more "socially acceptable" version of trousers that lesbians could wear?

The history of fashion, which I find fascinating, is full of quirks like this. Fashion trends do not occur in a vacuum, and unless heavily marketed, do nearly always spring from particular groups who adopt them first, and then they spread.

But I really am bowing out now.