If, like me you have masculine looking fingernails, but love having long manicured ones then artificial nails are the only way to go.

Obviously you can buy pre-coloured nails, but I have found that not only do they look too perfect, but they are also limited in colour, style & size. My preference is a brand called 'Kiss' whose glue on nails are slightly bigger than your average fake nails, and are therefore perfect fo t-girls. They come un-coloured, but I recently discovered a wonderful web site describing how to paint artificial nails easily, & have cut & pasted the entire section below:

One of the more distictly pleasurable feminine sensations I get comes from having long finger nails. All my life I have been a nail-bitter, a nasty nervous habit I am stuck with now. It was my partner who introduced me to the pleasures of long nails, and now I don't feel my look is "complete" until I've done my nails.

Although my hands are small for a man, they are still rather large in terms of what the manufacturers of artificial nails deem the size of women's hands to be. But I found a kit in the local Caldor that seems to work fine. The brand is called "Kiss" and the kit contains 100 nails, 10 each of 10 different sizes. As it happens, only the four largest sizes fit my fingers. The smaller ones work for my partner, so she now has a lifetime supply of artificial nails.

These nails require glue (I've never used the press-on type, but it seems they would fall off easily, like the first time I tried to open my purse). Nail glue can be tricky. There are quick-drying formulas and long-wearing formulas and herbal formulas and so on and so on. I opted for the fast drying. I never have my nails on for more than 24 hours anyway. The first advice I have is to ignore most of the instructions for using the glue. They assume the nails will be left on for extended periods. On the other hand, if this is your plan, then by all means, follow the directions carfully.

When I first started using artificial nails, I did them the same way I had watched other women do their nails. First I would glue them on, then I would spend the next four hours, on a good night, trying to get neat, even, smooth layers of polish on them and not my hands. I think I was successful once, but I can't be sure.

I thought about using the pre-colored nails, but the size ranges were more limited and they were more expensive. I also wanted to be able to choose from all the different polish colors available, and not be limited only to the colors in which the nails were available.

At this point, the creative energy kicked in, and I startyed to slowly grope towards a solution. My first attempt at a new method was to paint the nails before putting them on. At least I could clean the polish off my hands while they dried. This was a marginal improvement. Often then nails still smudged, or else I would set them on a paper towel to dry and the paper would stick to the wet polish around the edges of the nails, or I would drop them on the floor while still wet (they always landed wet side down, too).

I liked the idea of painting them ahead of time, but needed some way to hold them in place so I could paint them and not me and so they could dry. That was when the idea came to me for "The Nail Gizmo".

I like doing some work with wood occassionaly, and it is one of the few things I am handy at around my house. I gathered up a two foot length of pine 1X3 and some wooden dowels. These can be purchased at an arts and craft store. They don't have to be too wide, not more than 1/4 inch in diameter. I cut the dowel into 10 eight inch lengths, then I drilled two rows of holes into the 1X3 the same diameter as the dowels. The holes were more or less evenly spaced and the two rows were staggered. Then I fitted the dowels into the holes.

The result look something like this:

The unpainted nails are mounted on the ends of the dowels using small pieces of double-sided 3M tape, the kind that is sometimes used for hanging posters on walls. I found a role from which I cut small pieces and stick them to the ends of the dowels. Then I press the nails onto the mounting tape. The pieces of tape should be smaller than the nail itself, so as not to touch the edges of the nails.

At this point, I can paint them and all the polish goes only on the nails. I let them dry for a while, do a second coat, then leave them overnight. When I'm ready to use them, they are completly dry, I can press on them all I want when I'm gluing them on and my fingers don't end up matching the color of my nails!

I later improved on this simple design in two ways. One row of dowels is taller than the other so the nails are not on top of each other. This way, there is less chance of touching wet polish. The other is to use more than 10 dowels (no, I'm not going to reveal that I am an alien visitor and really have 12 fingers. Sheesh!). Read on.

When I go out en femme I like to take some precausions. It's important that I keep my confidence level high, and taking some steps before leaving the house helps me a lot. Artificial nails probably won't break, but they do fall off, and you won't always know where or when. So I have taken to carrying extras with me, as well as a tube of glue. The extra dowels allow me to paint some extra nails at the same time, which I then drop into my purse.

Applying artificial nails

If you are only going to have nails on for a short while, less than 24 hours, don't use a whole lot of glue. I put a drop or so in the center of my nail, then press the artificial nail firmly in place. I prefer to use a fast-drying glue, so I hold the nail firmly in place for about 10 seconds, and it's on for good.

If your natural finger nails are very wide, and none of the sizes covers it, you can try flattening the artificial nail by pressing very hard as you glue it on. Sometimes this flattens it enough to be convincing. You may split the base of the fake nail if you press too hard. You can fix this by filling the crack with some glue. Work very carefully, using a toothpick or hair pin to fill the crack. When it dries, touch up the spot with polish.

Since I started using the Gizmo, my preparation time has gone down dramatically. Nails used to take the longest, now they take 5 minutes! I have several sets of nails in different colors, with extras, ready to use.

Removing artificial nails

There are various acitone-based removers that dissolve the nail and glue. They come in small jars that have a built-in brush you insert your finger into. But a crossdressing friend gave me an even better idea.

Since I don't leave my nails on very long, it seems a shame to discard them so quickly. If you don't go wild with the glue when you put your nails on, you can probably lift the nail off using some kind of sturdy tool such as a metal nail file or a small, flat-head screwdriver. This takes a lot less time than dissolving each one, and I have usually been able to use the same set of nails three or four times before the glue build-up on the back makes them unusable. I still have to dissolve the glue that remains on my own nails, but the jar of cleaner also lasts much longer this way. Resusing nails has cut way down on my trips to the store for supplies.

If you shudder at the thought of trying to lift the fake nails off, then another money-saving trick (we can always use a few more of those) is to use a nail clipper to clip off as much of the fake nail as possible before soaking the rest off. This will also give you a few more cleanings before having to buy a new jar of remover.

A few other tips...

My only experience has been with the type of artificial nails I described here. There are many options available depending on how long you plan to keep your nails long. Obviously, the most natural is to let your own grow. You would be surprised at how few people will notice this.

I mentioned that I carry a tube of glue with me when I go out. Two words of warning about that. Keep the tube in a plastic bag in your purse. You wouldn't want to be out and find it leaked all over your car keys. Then there is the oppposit problem. Either the cap is glued shut or the opening is clogged with glue. Be sure to check this before you leave the house. I usually buy an extra tube of glue that always stays in my purse.