Keeping your nails long has its benefits (more real estate for nail art, superior back scratches, better ability to open certain types of packaging), but it also makes performing basic tasks a little bit harder. Washing your hair, getting dressed, using your touch-screen phone, typing on a keyboard, putting your contacts in — all seemingly simple actions that suddenly become a real challenge once your tips exceed half a centimeter.
But half a centimeter is nothing to Simone Taylor, a 16-year-old student from Germany who, according to The Sun, hasn’t cut her nails since August 2014. They’ve since grown to be nearly six inches long — a length which, as you can imagine, has complicated her life significantly. “I have exams at the moment and it’s hard to write; after one hour of writing my hands really hurt,” Taylor told the publication. “On the computer, I have to type using my knuckles.”
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It all started innocently enough: The teen, who’d never worn nail polish before, began watching YouTube tutorials to learn how to do it herself. She noticed that many of the nail artists she saw had long nails, and so she was “inspired” to see how far she could take it. “I guess you could say my addiction began that day, and I’ve been scared of nail clippers ever since,” she said. “It wasn’t my intention to grow them so long, but as they grew, so did the amount of compliments and they became more and more a part of me.”
Taylor has been documenting her various nail looks — and, more recently, the insane amount of media coverage she’s earned for her talons — on Instagram ever since. She says that, despite some of the negative comments she receives, she’ll never cut off her long nails. We’ll see if she feels the same way a few years from now, after she’s spent thousands of dollars on nail polish.