Do most women in the area you live in have their nails long and manicured?

Not here. Strangely, it seems that secretaries often have the longest nails of the people I see. I always wonder how it affects their typing.

On occasion I’m sure, as I do, but…us country girls are usually too busy gardening and riding horses and rafting/playing in the river to be prissy little things. My community is primarily hippie cowgirls. lol

Not most women, no.
Some do get manicures regularly with long or short nails. Many get a manicure for a special occasion. Most probably don’t get a professional manicure done regularly, but many do their own.
Some of us have only ever done our own and never had one done by someone else.

I don’t know about grown women, but a surprisingly large number of girls my age have these long, rectangular fake nails on a pretty regular basis. They are so obviously fake and tacky that I often wonder how anybody could think that they look good, honestly.

I honestly don’t know. I’ll have to look. I have noticed a couple of my friends from my cul-de-sac have beautiful hands and nails. There fingers are long and slender and although they are both in their early-70s, their hands look so young. Their nails are natural and never painted. Just that natural buffed look.

I am a pedicure fan though, just had a great pedicure with hot stone massage. Bliss out to the 10th power! I also do massage, lots of massage therapists in my area.

I live in an affluent area as well and most women have their nail manicured. Not necessarily long, but manicured. And yeah, there are 2 nail salons on each corner where I live.

No. I’ve lived in both affluent and poor areas, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the majority of women having long, nice nails. Always just a percentage. My best friend does, though, because she bit her nails for years and they won’t grow right now. She opted for fake nails.

@wundayatta I used to have quite long natural nails, and could type 130 WPM or so. Never interfered. I miss those nails.

No. It’s common to have them manicured, but of the DIY variety. And short is much more common than long. There are lots of salons, but I live downtown in a city, so that doesn’t really mean anything.

Ha ha I saw a young woman begging on the interstate ramp with a long french manicure. Most women here have manicures but they are short with dark polish. The long thing is out. Some of the women wear the long kind, I see it on cashiers, people working at McDonald’s, all walks of life. I used to get them and wonder how people afford it!

Au contraire. To be really “in,” means you weed, hew, plant, paint, tend to pets and wield a chef’s knife at 120 chops/minute. Your hands are the witness to that.

The occasional woman with the fake nails is seen as silly and in the wrong community.

If I were younger and had a better back, I would love to build dry walls and use a chain saw and run a brush hog.

Ha ha. No not really. I’m in the Midwest (Michigan) and it seems to be a thing more suited to city/rich suburb areas.

It’s a bit too frivolous for Midwestern sensibilities.

But I know what you’re talking about. I used to live in Philly and a good friend of mine (a S. Philly Italian girl) wouldn’t even leave the house to run to the grocery store or gas station without spending at least an hour on her makeup and hair. She had the complete look. Big bouffant teased hair, long nails and tons of makeup. And there were plenty others in her crowd with the exact same look. They could have been clones. Really high maintenance to keep up with he demands of that look, nails and all.

Obviously they weren’t digging up the garden for planting on a regular basis :)

I’m with @gailcalled and @Buttonstc . Those who get fake nails and fussy manicures on a regular basis are probably not pulling weeds in a garden, changing diapers or sticking their hands in a scrub bucket. Sometimes I wish that my hands and nails looked nicer, but that isn’t practical for my life. I’m also not willing to spend money on that sort of thing.

Not really. Some of my female friends have their nails manicured every so often and there is always one or two that seem to have permanently long, manicured nails but most of the time, that kind of thing is a more of a treat than a regular thing amongst the women I know.

I look after my own nails and they grow quite well anyway. I paint them every so often and keep them nicely shaped but I probably wouldn’t bother paying anyone else to do that. I had acrylic nails once but they damaged my own nails so much that I never bothered with them again.

A nail salon has recently opened in the main high street of the town I live in.

Playing the harp means I have to have short nails… I’ve grown up cutting them so frequently that I can’t cope with them even “normal” length now. Around me I see the odd person with fake nails, but for the most part people just have their own natural nails but painted.

Where I live, most women do have manicured nails but not long or flashy. The natural shape and French Manicure style of color is still popular.

Growing up, in the 80’s, most of my friends and I got manicures at a nail shop but not fake nails jobs weren’t anywhere as usual as they are now.