Most of us have to trim our toenails as soon as they become even slightly uncomfortable, but for “long nail beauties” like Arinda Storm Weaver that’s not an option, as their nails are the objects of desire for thousands of people around the world, and a valuable source of income.
The 58-year-old from Ohio used to work as an account manager at a manufacturing plant, but she accidentally discovered the world of LNBs (long nail beauties) 14 years ago and she never looked back. Weaver was blogging about her journey battling breast cancer in 2006, when she noticed that some of her readers were paying a bit too much attention to her long fingernails. She had always liked to take good care of her talons, growing them as much as possible, but she had never realized that there was a full fledged community of long nail enthusiasts willing to pay for the chance to admire them freely. Arinda eventually quit her job in 2008 and has been making a living selling videos of her six-inch-long toenails ever since.
Photo: Arinda Storm Weaver/Twitter
Arinda Storm Weaver’s twisted toenails may make a lot of people sick to their stomach, but her fans are willing to pay $14.39 for a short clip of her doing all kinds of things with her toenails, from popping bubble wrap to tapping them on the ground. Some even pay a premium for one-to-one video calls that focus on her toenails, obviously.
“I opted to start growing them for the toenail guys. I had already been in the nail community and I discovered I could make money from having long toenails. So, I just let them grow,” Arinda told Metro.co.uk. “My toenails are rarer thus making them more popular than the fingernails.”
The 58-year-old long nail beauty says that the toenail community completely changed her life and that even though living with extremely long toenails can be very challenging, she is willing to make sacrifices. She can’s wear high-heels anymore, and most closed tip footwear is out of the question either. Unless it snowed, she mostly goes out wearing comfortable sandals, to minimize the risk of accidentally breaking her toenails. She has also stopped driving and wearing anything with buttons, because her fingernails are exceptionally long as well.
Arinda admits that she gets a lot of attention from people whenever she goes out, but she always tries to be nice to people that approach her. Most of them tend to first notice her long fingernails and they usually get into a conversation about how she does things with them, after which she points at her feet and people have an “Oh my God” moment.
Even though she tries her best to keep all her nails in the best possible condition, they sometimes break, and when that happens she has to either look for the broken piece and glue it back on, or trim the others down to size. She says that she regularly has to trim her toenails a bit, just to make living and walking with them bearable.
If you want to keep an eye on Arinda Storm Weaver, you can follow her on Instagram, where she regularly post pics of her fingernails and toenails.