Mandi
Well-Known Member
Hello
I have been meaning to post this interesting article I read in last sundays times style magazine. It is written by a regular contributor who is somewhat funny. She has got an infection from some unsanitary nail tech and has written about it..thought you all may be interested
will post the link the the whole article
The Sunday Times - Style
July 20, 2003
Extreme beauty: Vanessa Wilde's secret diary
In which Vanessa discovers that even the perfect manicure has hidden dangers
have been crying all week. I havent been able to go out. Im desperate. Im dis-bloody-figured. I thought I knew everything about beauty treatments, but I was so wrong. Ive just lost my lovely long nails because they started going green.
Well, some of them. Three of them look like theyre going bad. Rotting. Youd think it was gangrene or something, but actually its fungal. Thrush! A fungal infection on my nails! God. I wont be able to see anyone for months.
Its my fault, I suppose, for getting my nails done by someone I didnt know. Thats what infected them. Its all quite complicated not that youd think you could go far wrong with a bloody manicure. The thing is, my nails are acrylic. Normally, its brilliant: your nail technician just paints a layer of plasticky glop on your own beautifully formed nails, files and buffs, and then they become totally indestructible. You can even wash up in them. No chipping, no breaking, no maintenance.
I used to have lovely Michelle, who came to my house, but unfortunately, she spends so much time with megacelebs on their film sets that I can never catch her these days. So Ive taken to going to a really good little nail bar around the corner from work. But, one day, when they were busy, I stupidly went to a place I dont know. And about five days later, my nails went pale green. Underneath. Sort of radioactive-looking.
So I rushed round to Valérie, my French- intellectual beauty therapist in Thurloe Place, in the heart of French South Kensington. Talk about colonisation stuck-up French tax exiles. Anyway, Valérie is brilliant, even if she is French. And, though I didnt realise for some reason, she has someone who does acrylic nails Rhona, with very lovely Irish skin, rather like my own, always so reassuring in your beauty technician. Rhona broke it to me very gently that Ive now got the fungal fingers of Jabba the Hutt. And she quietly and caringly explained that I should probably lose all the product, cut my nails very short and rest them until the fungus disappears. Plus get medical treatment, maybe.
But first Rhona had to get the product off. That meant bathing my nails in acetone until it melted a bit eek! and then wiping and filing it off. Even the nails beneath the goo were pretty weak from all the buffing too weak to grow long, so that means months of very, very short nails (like no nails at all) until the whole thing grows right out.
I think my nails will be fine in the end in time for Christmas, if Im lucky. Then Im going back to acrylic I mean, Im completely dependent, and it has worked brilliantly for at least five years. But, from now on, I am going to be so, so careful. First of all, nobody is ever going to touch me again with their own equipment. Im taking mine with me everywhere. Clippers, buffers, files, products.
I dont want to share. I know its a bit Michael-Jackson-and-mad-mask, but the brush that applies your perma-nail goo has touched other peoples nails. So has the polish remover. Nasty little germs can hop from flaky, unhealthy client to cotton pad to remover dispenser, and back the same way to you and your nails. You just cant sterilise everything.
I should have thought of this long ago. I had a pedicure last year with a girl who had worked a lot in LA, and the first thing she did when I bared my pretty feet was to snap on a pair of surgical gloves. I was pretty hacked off. I dont think youll be needing the surgical face mask, actually, I said, sarcastically. My feet are probably cleaner than your hands.
But then she explained that nail care is a health hazard for you and for your technician. It seems that if a client has herpes or Aids or hepatitis or something, as well as broken skin, or if she (or he, these days) gets nicked with scissors or clippers or those nasty prodding things they have or if the manicurist does, then youve got a portal. Or two portals. A portal is where nasty germs can come out or get in. Or both. Onto her, onto her instruments, onto you.
Tell me it isnt true, I begged. Well, she said, its not a very big risk. And most places sterilise all their equipment pretty carefully. But not everyone does. Its not a risk I feel like taking. Not in Los Angeles, anyway. Or London.
Looking, very sadly, at my short, pale-green nails, I knew how she felt. And, of course, I wont be able to see my Mr Wrong, Rafi, for months.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2104-741611,00.html
I have been meaning to post this interesting article I read in last sundays times style magazine. It is written by a regular contributor who is somewhat funny. She has got an infection from some unsanitary nail tech and has written about it..thought you all may be interested
will post the link the the whole article
The Sunday Times - Style
July 20, 2003
Extreme beauty: Vanessa Wilde's secret diary
In which Vanessa discovers that even the perfect manicure has hidden dangers
have been crying all week. I havent been able to go out. Im desperate. Im dis-bloody-figured. I thought I knew everything about beauty treatments, but I was so wrong. Ive just lost my lovely long nails because they started going green.
Well, some of them. Three of them look like theyre going bad. Rotting. Youd think it was gangrene or something, but actually its fungal. Thrush! A fungal infection on my nails! God. I wont be able to see anyone for months.
Its my fault, I suppose, for getting my nails done by someone I didnt know. Thats what infected them. Its all quite complicated not that youd think you could go far wrong with a bloody manicure. The thing is, my nails are acrylic. Normally, its brilliant: your nail technician just paints a layer of plasticky glop on your own beautifully formed nails, files and buffs, and then they become totally indestructible. You can even wash up in them. No chipping, no breaking, no maintenance.
I used to have lovely Michelle, who came to my house, but unfortunately, she spends so much time with megacelebs on their film sets that I can never catch her these days. So Ive taken to going to a really good little nail bar around the corner from work. But, one day, when they were busy, I stupidly went to a place I dont know. And about five days later, my nails went pale green. Underneath. Sort of radioactive-looking.
So I rushed round to Valérie, my French- intellectual beauty therapist in Thurloe Place, in the heart of French South Kensington. Talk about colonisation stuck-up French tax exiles. Anyway, Valérie is brilliant, even if she is French. And, though I didnt realise for some reason, she has someone who does acrylic nails Rhona, with very lovely Irish skin, rather like my own, always so reassuring in your beauty technician. Rhona broke it to me very gently that Ive now got the fungal fingers of Jabba the Hutt. And she quietly and caringly explained that I should probably lose all the product, cut my nails very short and rest them until the fungus disappears. Plus get medical treatment, maybe.
But first Rhona had to get the product off. That meant bathing my nails in acetone until it melted a bit eek! and then wiping and filing it off. Even the nails beneath the goo were pretty weak from all the buffing too weak to grow long, so that means months of very, very short nails (like no nails at all) until the whole thing grows right out.
I think my nails will be fine in the end in time for Christmas, if Im lucky. Then Im going back to acrylic I mean, Im completely dependent, and it has worked brilliantly for at least five years. But, from now on, I am going to be so, so careful. First of all, nobody is ever going to touch me again with their own equipment. Im taking mine with me everywhere. Clippers, buffers, files, products.
I dont want to share. I know its a bit Michael-Jackson-and-mad-mask, but the brush that applies your perma-nail goo has touched other peoples nails. So has the polish remover. Nasty little germs can hop from flaky, unhealthy client to cotton pad to remover dispenser, and back the same way to you and your nails. You just cant sterilise everything.
I should have thought of this long ago. I had a pedicure last year with a girl who had worked a lot in LA, and the first thing she did when I bared my pretty feet was to snap on a pair of surgical gloves. I was pretty hacked off. I dont think youll be needing the surgical face mask, actually, I said, sarcastically. My feet are probably cleaner than your hands.
But then she explained that nail care is a health hazard for you and for your technician. It seems that if a client has herpes or Aids or hepatitis or something, as well as broken skin, or if she (or he, these days) gets nicked with scissors or clippers or those nasty prodding things they have or if the manicurist does, then youve got a portal. Or two portals. A portal is where nasty germs can come out or get in. Or both. Onto her, onto her instruments, onto you.
Tell me it isnt true, I begged. Well, she said, its not a very big risk. And most places sterilise all their equipment pretty carefully. But not everyone does. Its not a risk I feel like taking. Not in Los Angeles, anyway. Or London.
Looking, very sadly, at my short, pale-green nails, I knew how she felt. And, of course, I wont be able to see my Mr Wrong, Rafi, for months.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2104-741611,00.html
but wouldn't you think these writers would do more research :?: :idea: 
