Misadventures in Aesthetics or the Unnecessarily Long Story of My Ghetto Fab Nails and Foot Infection

TL;DR:
I went to an unfamiliar nail salon and walked out with ghetto nails and a foot infection. I had to have bandaids and meds on my painful feet for a full week, at which point I went and got the polish changed on my fingernails and now I have a pretty manicure and uninfected feet. Things I used to cure my infected feet: Neosporin, Hibbiclens, prescription topical antibiotic ointment, bandaids, and prescription oral Amoxicillin.

I didn't take a picture of my infected feet, because that's just gross.
Notice how the gold brought out all the yucky colors in my skin as well?

I have been to five weddings in the past eight months. That adventure will be a separate blog, because, seriously, FIVE WEDDINGS IN EIGHT MONTHS. In addition to this, I have been more sick than I have probably ever been. I had continuous colds from October to December, in December I got the flu, in January I got a secondary sinus infection from having the flu. In February I had strep throat. I was okay in March and April, and I am currently getting over a stomach bug I got from my baby.

My constant illnesses caused my nails, which are normally so very long and healthy and might I add gorgeous naturally, to peel, chip, and develop horizontal and vertical ridges. Biotin didn't help. Calcium didn't help. A wedding on the west coast was looming, and I'd be damned if I was going to show up in California  with ratchet nails among all those perfectly put together California girls. No. So I had already decided I'd go get a full set of acrylic nails. I was at Sally Beauty supply in Pflugerville, and there's a nail salon right next door. It's not my normal one, but I was there, and pressed for time, and they were advertising 20% off.

I rocked all these sexy shoes with toe bandaids.

Ladies, always go with your gut. And if you have a nail salon you regularly go to that you know is clean and safe, just go there, don't even bother walking in a random place. I went into this place and it was dark and dreary inside. I almost just walked back out, but I didn't want to be rude. I was seated at a foot spa that had obviously just been used by another client without being cleaned. As the nail tech started working on me, she pulled each instrument from a paper envelope and they didn't appear clean, just as if they'd been put in a paper envelope after they were used on the last customer. The nail tech cut too close to my skin on the outside of each big toe, and ended up slicing my skin a bit. I swear to you I could almost feel the bacteria feasting on my feet. I thought I'd end up with MRSA for sure.

My gorgeous gold heels

Then came the manicure. I haven't gotten my nails done since my wedding, since, like I said before, they're normally perfectly fine with no polish. It's been eight years since my wedding, and I know that nail polish trends have changed, but I wasn't sure what people were getting done. I had gotten a gold polish on my toes to match my sublimely awesome gold shoes I was planning to wear to the wedding.  I thought my manicure should probably at least sort of match my pedicure, so after consulting my friend Kristen I settled on a glitter fill for each of my ring fingers, and a gold gel polish for the rest of my fingers. The nail tech was too distracted and did not use the glitter fill I selected, and when I picked a gold gel polish, she pulled out a gold glitter I had not chosen, and added them together saying, "the one you chose was too dark, this one will lighten it". The gold on my feet was a true metalic gold, whereas the glitter she chose for me was an orange-bronze gold. Not only that, she put it on all my fingers. So I ended up with a manicure that cost me $70 and made me look like I was headed to Vegas. Not even the cool part of Vegas either, my manicure made me look like I was ready to hit up the Golden Nugget with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth as I took drink orders from sleezy old men.

I went home and tried to convince myself I didn't hate it. Later that evening, I awoke with both my feet throbbing in pain. I was mentally kicking myself for going to that place because I just knew it wasn't clean, you could tell from looking at it. Even though I don't get manicures very often, I get pedicures with relative regularity. I've been cut in pedicures before, it always heals by morning, or it might sting a little when I'm washing my feet in the shower. Never has it ever felt like this. My toes were red and swollen, and absolutely throbbing. Luckily (I guess) I happened to have some prescription anti-biotic ointment and Hibbiclens from when my daughter had a skin infection. So I scrubbed my toes with the Hibbiclens and smeared antibiotic ointment on the painful parts, took some advil and went back to bed.

In case you thought the "after" picture looked better just
because it was of my palm instead of the back of my hand.
Truth in advertising: the shoe pics have filters, but the nail
pics do not.

The next day my feet still hurt. Obviously I didn't have the time or inclination to return to such a place, since I had gotten this work done on Sunday and was leaving for California on Wednesday, and in the meantime needed to finish up work and make an arrangement for a song Kristen had somehow convinced me to sing with her at this wedding (and that will be another blog too.) So I went to California with my Neosporin, Advil and bandaids and rocked them the whole weekend, telling my sob story to anyone who would listen. I also took some leftover Amoxicillin for good measure. Don't look at me like that, my doctor told me to stop taking them after 10 days instead of finishing the whole bottle. After I got home my feet finally felt uninfected, and I was glad I didn't have to get any amputations or IV antibiotics.

This past weekend was my best friend's little sister's wedding which I was in (yup, two weddings in two weeks) and she wanted us to all get together to get our nails done (scary music plays). I told her I was not letting anyone touch my toes again, maybe ever, but I definitely needed a polish change on my fingernails. The place we went was just miles above the ghetto place in terms of cleanliness and professionalism. I picked a polish color, they used it. Just that color. They didn't cut me, at all, and they made sure I was happy before I left.