The man, the nails, the polish
The man, the nails, the polish
'Menicures' won't stop anybody from catching those hands
T-Boz will forever be one of my favorite entertainers. From her music choices to her humanitarian efforts to her thoughts on Trump to her feel-good dance posts, she always seems like a good time. And in one of her more recent interviews, I co-signed with her heavily when she told athlete Cam Newton she can’t date a man with dirty fingernails. I felt that.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve glanced at someone’s nails (including male family members and male friends) and pulled out a spoon nail cleaner to make their nails presentable. I have sat on the floor with a foot spa and clipped my (late) grandfather’s nails, from his gardening days until his last days. I’ve pushed back cuticles and massaged hands.
I like neat nails. I’m not someone who heads to the spa regularly (exclude that trip to Maui and birthday celebrations) to get my fingernails and toenails done, primarily because one of my childhood hobbies in elementary school was designing nails. Still, my toenails are always polished and neat, even if I’m wearing a hoodie and a ponytail. It’s the one thing I get very particular about — on men and women.
I never saw anything wrong with men who have neat nails, or men who get “menicures” (i.e. manicures for men). In fact, I prefer neat nails over that disgusting black line under a man’s nails. Who knows what that’s from. Cigarettes? Dirt? Feces? But lately I’ve been noticing a few men complaining about menicures, and I don’t understand why this is such a big deal.
“Why all you n**gas in here with these shiny ass nails?” Karlous Miller said on Funny Marco’s “85 South” interview. “I’m doing a show with a bunch of bad bitches today.”
Then menicures came up again on The Breakfast Club.
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“Street urban culture as a whole is in such a funky place,” said a guest on the Power 105 radio show. “You could like a rapper, dawg, and he could be your guy. He bustin’. He got all the cuts, but then he do some ho a** shit, and then you’ll be stuck with him. Some shit that don’t represent you. Like you might like this rapper, right? And then cuz gone wear some fingernail polish.”
Now I could excuse Karlous’ gripes, mainly because he was still mad the entire interview about Funny Marco pranking him with a wild animal. So anything Funny Marco did was going to annoy him, including having nice nails. But I wasn’t interested enough to listen to the other guy’s diatribe on homophobia — from nail polish to purses to how he thinks all men should act.
Why? Because a man can have the best looking nails in the world and still throw you against a wall. Look no further than the boyfriend of Rihanna — the one who ended up in a Swedish prison for clearly winning a fight against a few guys harassing him in Stockholm. All the purses and fingernail polish Rakim (aka A$AP Rocky) Mayers has worn to award shows, red carpets and modeling events didn’t mean a damn thing when someone tried him. (And that’s not including another arrest for a firearm.)
Mind you, I wholeheartedly believe that A$AP Rocky is talented and bigger than his rap sheet. But to assume a “street dude” is soft because he has nice nails is naive. I will never understand this mindset that a man must look a specific type of manly to appease other men. He’s not trying to date you, so why does his physical appearance have to meet your approval?
Even Joey Bada$$, yet another rapper who got in trouble overseas, doesn’t play about his nails. I 100% understood him putting on gardening gloves before repotting his plant. Why? Fresh manicure. I repeat, you can catch these men’s hands while they’re taking care of their hands. Both results can work simultaneously.
And that’s not even including the flood of Rock n’ Roll artists who polish nails and can hold their own. Rock n’ Roll trends aside (who are drowning in men with fingernail polish), I’m not even seeing a line of “street dudes” try to run up on MMA fighters like Cristiano Ronaldo. (I still haven’t seen Mike Tyson confirm he wears black toenail polish to protect nails from fungi like Ronaldo though.)
The fingernail painting may be as innocent as Tom Arnold, who was rocking painted nails because his daughter decided to do them. (Tom Arnold has been arrested seven times and served 20 days in jail — and survived his Trump-supporting wife Roseanne. Let’s not hardly act like he’s soft.)
Now have I dated a man who had polished or manicured nails?