My friend Angela takes a selfie, instead of showcasing her great figure, or a hot new party outfit, or a new pair of shoes, her attention is drawn to her beloved, elegantly manicured finger nails. Which is why this blog post about her painful Christmas holiday party experience is an especially disturbing one for my frustrated, Yuletide-loving friend.

While I don’t mean to say it’s all she does – Angie is a lawyer – but her friends, me included, like to kid her about the countless hours she spends in her favorite nail salon cajoling her manicurist into applying every conceivable form of acrylic decoration to her long, languorous fingertips. And, the manicurist, negligently we’ve discovered, is happy to oblige her. But the trauma of constantly wearing acrylic nails have left Angela’s little pride and joys in a sorry state. In fact, her real nails are now jagged, wafer thin, ingrown at the edges and prone to breaking whenever she performs the smallest of household chores, like trying to hang the mistletoe for her Christmas party on the doorway to her bedroom.

Twas the night before her big holiday party (last weekend) and all through Angie’s house not a finger or toenail was ragged, not even a pinkie. Or so she thought.

She woke up on the day of the party and called me in tears. She said she felt like her fingernails were on fire. Her dermatologist – who luckily happened to have an opening that day – told her she had an acute infection on the pad of skin underneath two of her nails and that other nails also could become infected as well. Her nails not only looked awful but they were really sensitive. Angie said it even hurt too much to hang the mistletoe.

I could see how miserable she was when I got to her apartment that night for the party. She was so self-conscious about her hands she was constantly apologizing for the way they looked. She kept trying to keep them hidden. This would not be a Christmas party Angie would want to remember.

Her dermatologist told her she thought her problems began when she was persuaded by her manicurist that her nails would look better for longer if she tried acrylic tips. “The application of the acrylic tips requires vigorous scraping and filing,” her dermatolgist explained, “which can lead to permanent damage where the nail lifts from the nail bed.” The doctor said it could take as much as a year for her weakened nails to recover and they may never be as strong as they once were. Her dermatologist explained that more aggressive styles of nail treatment – a long way from the old-fashioned, straightforward file and polish – are leaving women vulnerable to infections, rashes and even skin cancer.

In situations where injuries or fungal infections of the nails are serious, the customer should investigate filing a lawsuit against the nail salon or beauty parlor by contacting The Ashley Law Firm.