What Is in the Box, and What Each Piece Is For

Ten in the hand-finished sets, in one size — XS, S or M — arranged on a printed card and marked R and L so each nail goes on the finger it was shaped for. Twenty-four in the colour sets, covering every size, so you pick per finger.

Keep the card. It is not packaging — it is the thing that makes a second wear possible, because a set returned to its slots stays sized and ordered, and a set tipped into a drawer does not.

The small tube. It is a cyanoacrylate adhesive, and it is what gets you the full fourteen days. A thin even layer on the underside of the false nail, a small dot on your own, and fifteen counted seconds of pressure.

More is not better. Excess squeezes out at the cuticle, stays soft, and soft edges are where lifting begins.

The sheet of clear pre-cut pads. Double-sided, sized to nail shapes, and the piece most people never open.

They hold for a few days rather than a fortnight and they come off in warm water in seconds. Use them when you want the set off again soon, or to test the fit of a whole set before committing glue to it. The glue-or-tabs guide covers the choice properly.

The small board. It has two jobs and one of them is not what people assume.

Its first job is your own nail: one light pass across the surface before applying, to take the shine off. That is what gives the adhesive something to grip. Light — you are dulling the surface, not thinning the nail.

Its second job is the false nail: if a nail is a fraction too wide, file the sides down until it sits corner to corner. This is why you take the larger size when you are between two. You can make a nail smaller and you cannot make it bigger.

Pointed at one end, flat at the other. Before applying, the flat end pushes the cuticle back so the false nail can sit flush against it rather than on top of it.

Afterwards it is the removal tool: the flat end slides under the free edge to lift a soaked nail, and it peels the dried glue off the underside so the set can be worn again. Never use anything metal for either — a metal edge under a nail is how the natural surface gets torn.

Push back the cuticles. Wipe every nail so it is clean and dry, with no hand cream anywhere. One light pass with the file. Check each false nail against its finger and file the sides of any that overhang. Then glue or tabs, and fifteen seconds per nail.

That is the whole thing, and it is the difference between four days of wear and fourteen.