Tough As nai sA DARING EXPERIMENT CHALLENGESSTEREOTYPES AS WE KNOW THEMText and photography by BENJAMIN MAYPhotography by CHARU SRIVASTAVA

Male nail polish. Yup, it’s as ri-diculous as it sounds. But, believe it or not, there’s a business for it, and it’s growing.

Thanks to this trend, celebrities, rock stars and hipsters can all come together and

paint their nails, being shown in countless websites and magazines (for good or bad). AlphaNail, a division of Blakk Cosmetics, is in the forefront, changing the very idea of “painting” a man’s nails.

“AlphaNail is for strength, for style, for swagger, for protec-tion, or to cover up your fugly toenails,” reads the AlphaNail web-site. “It doesn’t matter your age, your profession, or your style, AlphaNail is going to set you apart from the crowd. And while putting it on won’t make you Alpha, chances are that if you do it, you already are.”

At this point I wonder why people would even bother with this. It’s taking manliness so far that it circles around and then bites you in the back. You could defend your masculinity by saying that

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AlphaNail has wrestlers sponsoring its products and apparently wear it. (Because WWE is baller.) AlphaNail is the only company strictly making a name for itself in the field of male nail polish, but I couldn’t say that being AlphaNail is a positive thing.

But, as a true man would say, “don’t knock it until you try it, bro.” So that’s what I did. (Insert YOLO-like cliché phrase here.) I chucked out about $16 for a starter kit (including shipping), with one pen and two CleanSlate wipes, a specific product similar to a damp cotton round, that AlphaNail offers to take off the nail polish.

The process itself, not going to lie, was pretty bad. I’m not bashing the product specifically, but now I understand why women complain so much about painting their nails. The pen was a bit too thick to hold, causing some minor slip-ups. The job was far from perfect, with some colored cuticles and rough textures. Ugh.

After some “troubleshooting” I got the hang of it, and, to my surprise, it looked decent. Time to weather a soon-to-be crazy seven days.

NOT-SO-ALPHANAIL: This was taken at the beginning and the end of the experiment, from left to right. After seven days, the nail polish had flaked and peeled off to the point in which it was just plain ugly.

LPERSPECTIVES

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The first day of school was even worse. Wow, are some peo-ple offensive and plain ignorant! Here’s a handful of comments I heard from the “men” of Palo Alto High School: “Are you gay?” “Are you retarded?” “What the f*** is that?” “Are you a f****t?” and some in between.

On the other hand, women were generally neutral or positive, and gave a much warmer welcome.

As an added bonus, AlphaNail initially forgot to ship some CleanSlate cleaning wipes. But, after a quick call and email, the company promptly responded and I received the cleaning wipes the next week. The cleaning wipes are acetone-free and smell most like a citrus cleaner instead a nasty chemical, which made me and my family much happier. It takes about one or two wipe per hand, which fortunately matches the advertising.

However, it’s not all sunshine, rainbows and teddy bears. The durability of AlphaNail is awful. The nail polish started to chip in less than a few days, which is not acceptable considering that teenagers are usually too lazy to do their weekly load of laundry

by themselves, let alone repaint their nails. If you play a sport in-volving your hands like I do (which is Ultimate Frisbee), expect AlphaNail to chip quickly and readily. (A reason could be the lack of a topcoat, but hey, what do I know?)

Now that AlphaNail is out of my life, I can definitely say it was an odd experience. If you haven’t noticed yet, men wearing nail polish is definitely breaking some gender stereotypes that are still quite apparent at Paly. You’d think that we’re the happy-go-lucky liberals that accept all people, but after this experience, I’d have to say you’re wrong. Very wrong. Protip: At Paly, wearing Al-phaNail does not make you appear manly. Don’t wear it for solely that reason.

However, I would have to say that my nails were stronger. Instead of chipping my nails, I chipped the nail polish, which I would much rather prefer. Paly is not quite ready for the male nail polish craze. Would I recommend the product? Maybe. Would I recommend the experience? No freakin’ way. v

WHY THE PEN: The pen applicator was ex-tremely hard to hold, and with the “refill” button (like a mechanical pencil) was on the top, which made me fiddle the pen many, many times. I need bigger hands.

BUY TWO, GET ONE FREE?: Upon receiving my CleanSlate wipes late due to a shipping error, I received three tubs instead of the two I ordered. I’m not com-plaining, but hopefully this isn’t another shipping error.