New Trend: Horse Girl Nails.

There was a big trend for awhile where humans were sold products either explicitly for, or marketed as being for, animals. Don’t worry, I’ll explain. Mane n’ Tail Shampoo is horse shampoo… or is it? Udderly Smooth was, the story says, created to moisturize cow udders and then became THE hand cream sold at craft and fabric stores(?). Bag Balm too, was originally intended as a cow udder moisturizer (Is the udder the “bag”?! And are the cows… okay?) (Also, Bag Balm smells AWFUL so learning it was a veterinary farm animal medicine made perfect sense to me). Although all these products predate the 90s, I see them (at least Mane n’ Tail and Udderly Smooth) as 90s trends. But the dream of the 90s is alive in our hearts, and I have become obsessed with Hard as Hoof Nail Strengthening Cream.

Hard as Hoof, as far as I can tell, was never made to be used on actual animal hooves, but the marketing is clear. Want nails as tough as a literal workhorse? WELL HERE YA GO.

I was not expecting any miracles from this little pot of moisturizer, but I got them anyway. Here’s the scenario: I wear press-ons on my fingers, and just use a regular polish on my toes. I’d recently started re-doing my pedicure, and my bare nails were looking ROUGH. They were peeling, and had white flaky layers on the top… They truly looked like they were crumbling. I wasn’t sure if I should throw some fresh polish over them, or run screaming to an exorcist/nail tech. I left them bare, put some of my just-received Hard and Hoof on them, and went to bed.

When I woke up, I was in absolute shock. My nails looked easily 80% better. The white flaky layer was almost entirely gone. My toes looked like my toes again. I repeated the process the next night (the second time I’d used Hard as Hoof ever) and the next day my toes were completely normal looking again. I went to paint them and there was still a little weakness and damage once you got close, but you can use Hard as Hoof on polished or press-on’d nails, so I’m still applying to my fingers and toes every night.

And while the packaging says to apply Hard as Hoof Nail Strengthening Cream 3-4 times a day, I only apply at night and I’ve had absolutely incredible results. If you too suffer from dry, peely, weak, and generally disappointing nails, I can’t recommend Hard as Hoof enough. I know it wasn’t made for farm animals, but it’s giving the effortless horse girl energy that we need in our lives.