I'm 100 years late to this thread but googling brought me here. Actually I find google always gets me here, why I dont start here I'll never know. I'm from Utah like the original poster, and I am here to say the flares are here to stay! (That was a tongue twister) I think, as demonstrated here, people love em or hate em, theres rarely an in between! Maybe that's why people wear em? Perhaps like geeg said they are a very loud "take me as I am or nothing at all and I DGAF" sort of thing. I think the ones shown are.... wow! I'll admit, when I first started seeing huge flares like that my thought was "How does she wipe her butt!?" But SOME flare-age has grown on me. I HATE tapered nails. I hate long acrylic rounded nails. I hate stilettos, (someone explain how these arent witches nails) I am not nuts about stillettos, but I would never tell someone "don't tell anyone I did these" as long as I put my all into it. Especially because they are HUGE here in Utah. Just as a lot of the gel polishes are NOT huge here. We like obnoxious, what can I say? But it is VERY hard to find anyone under 60 with fake nails that arent squared, flared, or at least squoval. We dont do round. It's like an age indicator or something. And generally techs charge more for flares either because they use more product, the tech HATES them and wants to be paid a little extra for the "trouble" if you will, or both. Lol obviously they havent become the "hot thing" anywhere outside of maybe the western side of the US, and maybe it never will, but if it's the thing here you can believe I'll find a way to offer it and take the money!