One of the most consistent devotions to Aphrodite that I have practiced for the past (almost!) two years is nail painting/art. (“Nail art” typically refers to painted designs rather than simply a base color polish, but I will be using the term more generally because I believe that even the selection of a polish and the act of painting itself are a type of body art.)
I’ve never been good at taking care of my hands. Even before things got really bad and I got my official OCD diagnosis, I washed them way too much. I never bit my nails (lots of OCD ick with that) but I would tear away at my nails as an anxiety behavior. As a result, they were never very long. All the frequent handwashing meant that my polish would chip or peel in as little as a day, so I never really saw the point in trying unless it was for a special occasion. This all changed in April of 2023.
As I was preparing for the Festival for Isis that I was leading for my local Pagan group (inspired by this song and the thoughts behind this post), I got into my head that I wanted to paint my nails. I would be performing a dance with wings that I had choreographed – Two of my friends were also performing with me and each of us had a different color for our wings and outfit. Mine was pink (shocker!), so I dug through some old nail polish bottles I had and chose one to match. The ritual was so much fun – It’s the closest to a big honoring festival in the style of what would have been performed thousands of years ago that I’ve ever gotten. For reasons unknown to me at the time, I decided that I wanted to continue painting my nails.
Just seeing my nails brightly colored brought me so much joy – The kind of joy that I intimately associate with Aphrodite. One of my friends from university had gotten into nail painting and nail care during the pandemic, so I reached out to her to get a masterclass in what it would take to do it right! She had recently gotten some polishes from the brand Mooncat which released a Goddess-themed collection that featured – you guessed it! – Aphrodite!! So all the pieces sort of fell into place and it felt like fate.
I ended up placing my first official nail polish order (any other polishes I had purchased over my lifetime I got from the grocery or drugstore), and of course I had to snag Aphrodisiac! I then began the fun and devotional journey of learning how to take care of my nails and my hands. In addition to the quiet happiness of always having a pop of color on me no matter what I was wearing, the practice quickly took on a much more personal flavor.
For the first time in a long time, my hands could be a source of joy instead of always a source of anxiety. The majority of my thoughts around my hands for years has been mired in stress, such as:
- Are my hands (OCD-level) clean?
- Did I touch that?
- What other things have touched that thing I just touched?
- What germs are on this thing that I touched that are now on my hands?
- What things have I touched since touching the germy thing, and thus all those things are now contaminated?
- Now I have to go wash my hands and sanitize everything!
And so on. You get the idea.
My relationship with my hands has revolved around my OCD since middle school. The only reprieves I really got from that were the three years I played flute and the semester I took a visual art class. Even though dancing uses your whole body, it didn’t really center my hands, and since I did modern dance (which involves a fair amount of floorwork), the OCD impulse was still strong with dance. So it had been about 15 years since I had anything really positive to associate with my hands.
But now I did! I got to pick out pretty colors that I loved and wear them all the time. Wanting to make my polish last longer also encouraged me to be more gentle with my hands, and to learn how to care for them properly. It even helped stop some of my OCD handwashing loops at the sink because somehow taking care of my hands for the sake of my manicure was easier to do than just trying to take care of them for my own sake. It also functioned as a kind of progress benchmark – I could tell when I was or wasn’t doing a good job.
I’ve only ever done my own nails (aside from the two kind-of-traumatic nail salon experiences for prom in high school (with literal physical trauma – they were not gentle and I bled) and one less traumatic experience in undergrad). With aforementioned OCD behaviors, I am very selective about who gets to touch my hands, and with the pandemic, I wasn’t about to try out a random nail salon, so I decided to do my own at home. It became a fun hobby – A skill that I could develop and grow. It was also much cheaper!
I got to pick the kinds of nail polishes I wanted, satisfying my OCD/environmentalist need for fewer icky chemicals in my life by picking “10-free” polishes. I got to explore lots of color and finish choices, and I discovered I love specialty polishes like shimmers, glitters, flakies, magnetics, and thermals. It became a fun creative playground! It also meshed really well with the evolution my personal style was in the process of undergoing – a trend to more feminine and sexy looks (also inspired by Aphrodite).
I also decided to try growing my nails out – something I had never done before. All the nail polish models looked so glamorous with their long nails that I wanted to give it a try. It was a long journey, and sometimes I will have breaks and setbacks, but my default nail length is actually pretty long now!
So how does Aphrodite tie into all this?
Throughout my time working with Her, Aphrodite has always been the loudest advocate in my life for self-care. Our physical bodies are how we show up in the world, express ourselves, and make change – of course She would want me to take care of that part of me as well. It’s all connected. You can’t have the spiritual without the physical. Aphrodite has also been my biggest Divine ally for healing from and learning to cope with my OCD. So an activity that was full of joy, self-care, and healing just seemed to sing Her name.
I think of Her and devote the practice to Her every time I paint my nails, which at this point is a little more than once a week. I overcame the hurdle of my polish chipping the next day, but it is rare for it to last more than a week at a time. And I’m okay with that. I think that’s probably the max I can realistically hope for with my OCD habits, plus this weird biological quirk I inherited from my mother where my nail polish just starts to peel off in one sheet after about 5 days (even without using a peel-off base coat).
Another fun aspect of this devotional activity has been matching my nail color to my outfit. That’s been a union of two practices that I’ve developed while working with Aphrodite, and it just makes me so happy to be matching! It’s not ever a requirement, but it’s fun when I can pull it off.
Of course, I have particular polishes I associate more with Aphrodite than others – particularly reds and pinks (and some purples). Bright colors and sparkly finishes also remind me of Her. And I have one polish that is a thermal that looks like waves on a beach, with the warm color being sand and the cool color being ocean blue!
Nail Care and Painting Tips
If this is a devotional practice that you would be interested in starting, here are the things that have helped me the most on my nail journey! All of these were learned from my dear friend – so much gratitude to her for teaching me!
Nail Health / Growth
- Use cuticle oil – This has been indispensable for my nail growth. Cuticle oil also helps your nails to stay more flexible to prevent breaks, and really helps with hangnails. I like NBM’s Cuticle Buddy, which comes in lots of fun scents and has a crystal rollerball applicator to add a little magic to your routine.
- Treat wet nails delicately – This is when your nails are the weakest and most prone to breaks.
- Stop using your nails as tools – This is a hard one!! I never realized how many things I use my nails for until I was trying to grow them out and make my polish last longer. Using them to open packages, peel off stickers, break seals on medication, or anything of that nature puts stress on the nail and wears away at the edges if you are wearing polish. Keeping scissors easily accessible really helps. I also swear by my kitchen tweezers – a pair of eyebrow tweezers that I only use for random kitchen tasks. These are great for breaking seals, pulling off plastic wrapping on supplement bottles and food containers, and so many other things. They are more precise than the scissors, which really helps with some tasks.
- Keep your nails covered with polish – Nail polish is like armor. The vast majority of my breaks have happened when I was in between polish colors and my nails were bare.
- Learn what your realistic/practical length is – This will vary for each person and your lifestyle. Some folks will naturally be using their hands more than others, so a really long length may not be reasonable to maintain and may result in more breaks all the way down to your quick (ouch). This will take some trial and error to figure out, and your practical length may also increase as you learn to be more gentle with your nails (Mine did).
- Cut shorter for travel – This I had to learn the hard way several times. There are so many situations in travel in which you just can’t be gentle with your nails, whether that is pulling your luggage off the baggage claim carousel before it gets away or not having other tools available when you are away from home and need to open something. It’s a lot easier to cut them a little shorter than your practical length and then grow them back after your trip than it is to have a break and grow them back from zero (which I have had to do).
- Be careful with tricky and slippery objects – That’s a quick way to a nail break! Slow down how you are handling the object and see if you can get help with the object (like a gripper for opening a jar or a pull-tab lever tool for opening cans).
- Grab laundry with the pads of your fingers instead of digging into the washing machine nails-first – Outside of travel, most of my broken nails have happened because I wasn’t careful with laundry.
Tips for a Longer-Lasting Manicure
- Wear a base coat and a top coat – A base coat helps the polish stick to your nail better (and protects your nail from staining from vibrant colors) and a top coat helps your polish dry faster and be more resilient.
- Wrap the tip – (Insert sexy joke here!) This refers to wrapping the polish around the edges of your nail with each coat. This helps to seal the nail plate from water exposure (which can cause your polish to chip or peel faster) and adds to resiliency for bumps and such.
- Give your nails time to completely dry before engaging in activities that heavily use your hands – If your polish isn’t fully dry, it could dent if pressed up against something (like taking silverware out of the dishwasher or pulling on a tight pair of pants).
- Limit water exposure – Water causes your nail plate to expand and contract, which breaks the bond with your polish over time. Avoid prolonged water exposure like soaking in a tub or lengthy dishwashing sessions without gloves.
- Treat your nails and hands with care – Not banging your hands and nails on stuff goes a long way!
Brightest colorful and sparkly blessings to you on your journey!
