Virtually There

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Editor’s Note: “Beauty Queen” is a monthly column that sends fashion reporter Xazmin Garza out into the field to test the latest beauty products and services.

I f the teeth imprints in my pen caps, water bottle lids and drinking straws didn’t prove that I like to put things in my mouth, then my latest beauty adventure sure did. Fake nails or Virtual Nails, as they’re officially called, just don’t work for women with oral fixations.

By the end of the two weeks I had them on, it took everything in me not to bite down on my index finger nail vertically until I heard a distinct crack. That noise couldn’t compare, however, to the one I created by gliding my nails across the bottoms of my top teeth, like running a scale on a piano. While entertaining myself with both habits, I thought of how disappointed Amy Piccolo of Cloud Nine Salon & Day Spa would be if she could see me.

The petite nail tech took so much care applying the Virtual Nails and explaining why they make women faithful to acrylic nails convert. No fumes, no drilling, no damage, she said from her Dashing Diva station. Dashing Diva franchises Virtual Nails everywhere from New York to Japan to Australia. They also provide Tailor Fit nails, which take 25 to 30 minutes to remove and come pre-decorated in a box tinted the same pink shade my Barbie dolls used to be in. I chose the Virtual Nails because, with 16 sizes and 160 nails, their fit is “virtually perfect.” Plus, if the Liberace-like designs of the Tailor Fits didn’t dissuade me enough than the tween in the ruffled skirt who couldn’t stop fawning over them the day of my first visit sure did.

Once Piccolo measured all 10 of my nails we discovered every one fit an Extra Flat Medium size. I knew my nails had a flatness to them but “extra flat?” No wonder they look so horrid when I try to wear them long. Piccolo assured me, however, that the Virtual Nails would help “shape the bed” of my nails, and eliminate the funky shapes when they grow.

I started to wonder if Piccolo could come up with something about her prized Virtual Nails that wasn’t absolutely wonderful so I decided to ask. After a very long pause, she answered “Well, the time it takes to take off the Tailor Fits can be a disadvantage.” Clearly the Virtual Nails are her first born.

As Piccolo measured, cut and shaped the Virtual Nails to my medium length, squared preference, I started to notice the missing sounds and smells I’m used to at a nail salon. Just like she said, no potent fumes disturbed us, which meant I didn’t have to sit across from a nail tech wearing the kind of mask that makes the client wonder why she doesn’t have one on as well. Plus, I couldn’t hear or see the tool that, inside a salon, looks like it lost its direction on the way to the garage: the drill. Couldn’t say I missed either.

About 20 minutes into my appointment Piccolo applied what she called “the magic,” the surgical glue only hospitals and Dashing Diva have access to. While she placed each nail firmly on my real ones, I started estimating the time it would take to get my smooth, natural nails back to normal once the fakes came off. Probably the same amount of time it will take Nicole Richie to look like a real pregnant woman — several months to never.

I paid Piccolo my $28 and left with a look I hadn’t sported for about seven years when I last rocked acrylic nails. Somehow knowing they were holding on with glue made me feel like everyone else knew, too. I started asking people if they looked like acrylic nails. “They’re not?” was always the response. I didn’t expect anyone to think they were mine but I didn’t want them thinking I had Lee Press On Nails either. Having them mistaken for acrylics didn’t bother me one bit.

When I returned to Cloud Nine two weeks later to have the Virtual Nails removed, I sat with my fingertips dipped in acetone and lanolin like the old lady in the Dawn commercials. During those 10 minutes, I started to think about the things I couldn’t wait to do once I had them off: type without hunting and pecking, comb my hair with my fingers and text without creatively abbreviating everything.

None of those fantasies compared to the sight of my natural nails when Piccolo removed the final remnants of the Virtual Nails. They looked untouched. Like that, Piccolo’s fascination with this product made sense.

Her babies, the Virtual Nails, lasted two weeks (my right pinky nail popped off after a week and a half). I think they could have made it to three if I would have either started wearing mittens or dipped my fingertips in jalapeño juice every morning. For that reason alone, pen caps, water bottle lids and drinking straws will do just fine.