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TikTok is full of beauty tips designed to make users’ daily lives easier and lighten their cosmetic budget. Most of them anyway, because some turn out to be surprising, not to say crazy. This is the case of ‘peanut nail’, a totally unexpected new routine that consists of making false nails from peanut butter. You didn’t dream of it, TikTok did it anyway!
Beauty and gastronomy often go hand in hand when it comes to drawing on the riches of Mother Nature to meet the needs of the skin. But the TikTokeurs, visibly freewheeling, have chosen to dig a surprising food from their pantry, peanut butter, to display one of the most original manicures: false nails made entirely – or almost – from of this processed product much appreciated by Americans.
She’s the nail artist @ilysmnails, followed by 9 million people on the Chinese social network, which is one of the first followers of fake peanut butter nails. Accustomed to creative manicures, often having recourse to food to finalize them, the nail artist surprised her subscribers by using the said transformed product to display acrylic nails of a new kind, more greedy but unconventional and absolutely not practical.
In a video viewed nearly 20 million times, the user begins by spreading a thick layer of peanut butter on one of her nails, then covers it with a clear acrylic nail, before removing the excess to using a spoon. The final step is to fill in the gaps by dipping your fingernail into the jar of peanut-flavored spread, then smoothing and finishing with a makeup brush. A few rhinestones were added by the nail artist for an (even) more glamorous look.
The process may seem surprising, and probably very limited in terms of food waste, but it has nevertheless managed to convince tens of thousands of users. Still, most remain skeptical about this beauty trick, not to say outraged. “It’s going too far”, “I’m calling the police”, “I’m screaming, I’m crying, I’m vomiting, why did you do this?”, “You can’t be serious” are among the many comments posted under the video.
And when they are not shocked, users prefer to laugh: “I am allergic to peanut butter”, “And my parents who told me not to play with food”, or even “If you have a little peckish you hit a fang in the nail”. It is better not to play with food, whatever it is, and be satisfied with a good coat of varnish or a proper nail application in a salon or institute.