Short and Sweet: Two Fab Looks for Short Nails

Do you guys also have the pet peeve of having your nails different lengths from each other? Personally, anything asymmetrical drives me nuts. (Unless it's lopsided in a purposeful way, like the braid I wear over one shoulder, or a diagonal accent color across one side of a nail.)

One of the absolute worst is nails that are different lengths from each other, since it's not just an aesthetic but also a tactile asymmetry. This is one reason why I will pretty much never leave the house without a nail clipper in my bag, just in case some emergency surgery is necessary.

Unfortunately, when moving into a new house, washing a million dishes that have been in storage for six months, and wresting the tops of tons of unruly boxes, nails are prone to breaking.

Oops.

On the bright side, now I have nails short enough to show off some of my favorite understated short-nail looks (and all the dishwashing has made it necessary for me to wear two of them over the course of the last week).

Number one: White. There are many things to love about it:

• Its a true neutral and goes with anything.
• It always makes your hands look cleaner (a major reason I like having my nails done).
• It matches your Easter shoes. (Happy Bunny Day!)
• It's easy to pull off - not exactly a statement manicure - and yet totally on-trend this spring.
• It looks pretty good even after washing countless loads of dishes; since it's a light color any chips or imperfections are less noticeable.

Imperfect, but still sexy.

Number two: Purple matte. So right after I last posted about not being sure purple was on-trend, I read a whole bunch of blog posts saying that it is. Yay! I'll soon have an eggplant-colored office, and purple has been one of my go-to shades for a while, so I'm ready to celebrate all the different shades from the richer ones to those reminiscent of the springlike scent of lilac.

Purple! Yay! 

(And even in artificial overhead lighting, 

you can see the reduction in shine.)

I used a new base coat and a new top coat in this manicure. The top coat is designed to dampen the manicure's shine - that is to make it look matte - and the bottle proclaims it as "new," which I think is supposed to mean trendy. I actually loved this look in about 1997. (Especially with black nails; I was a little dramatic as a teenager.) So to me, it's better than new: it's a comeback. From the '90s. So here are my new kids on the (nail polish) block:

The right stuff: 

Revlon 790 Matte Top Coat

 Revlon 955 Quick Dry Base Coat

What are your favorite short-nail looks? Are there any looks you like on short nails but not on long nails? Or vice-versa?