I was at my sister’s house today and noticed a lovely shade of nail polish on her counter. I did my typical girlie oohing and ahhing and complimenting her choice, but she merely shrugged,

“I don’t even bother painting my nails anymore unless it’s a special occasion, no point in it.” “Well, if you get a really strong topcoat-” I began, but then, seeing her shake her head, I shut up.

A jeweler is not known for pretty nails, even less so for pretty hands. Emily basically gave up her right to nice hands when she first sat down at the jeweler’s bench so many years ago. The bite of the steel file, the whirr of the spinning carbide teeth, and the rough corundum deburring wheel make sure she can never keep a manicure. Constant polish rouge deposits- black and shiny- necessitate obsessive hand-washing, destroying any natural moisture the skin could ever have. Despite extreme care, her fingers are rough at the tips, nails usually broken or dented with tiny cutting wheels. The black polish rouge grinds down into the fiber of the skin, staining the nail bed and permanently altering the fingerprint.

But they are beautiful hands, nonetheless. They are quick and sure when setting a diamond into a wedding band, and accurate when cutting a seat for a ruby earring. Give her a broken chain and she will have it soldered before you even know what she is doing, and when she goes to drop it in the ultrasonic fluid, she will quickly dip her fingers in as well, ignoring the caustic chemicals wicking the moisture out of her skin. If she has to run out to wait on a customer, her hands need to look somewhat presentable, after all!

I don’t have quite the situation that she does, my work is mostly on soft wax. Sure, I get Goo-Gone on my fingers often, which does a number on nail polish and moisturizers. I hit the sides of my fingers with my files, but I can keep a manicure for a few days longer than she. I occasionally drip boiling wax on a fingertip, but rarely sink a bur into my skin at 12,000 RPMs. I guess you could say I’m a bit luckier in the hand beauty department, although I have plenty of pants with little red wax drips on the side!

Emily used to be embarrassed by her hands, and I remember back to the years when we did mass production during the summer for Renaissance Faires, all of our hands looked their worse. Blackened fingernails, shiny patches of peeling skin, hangnails galore, and ground-off fingernails. But those ugly hands worked like the dickens, and hundreds of people now wear our silver Celtic bands, our one-of-a-kind gemstone rings, and our multitudinous fantasy designs because of that hard work.

So, if you’re ever in our store (or any real jewelry store, for that matter), and someone has to run out to wait on you, and their hands are blackened and smudgy- don’t recoil. Be assured that you are in a place where experts reside- people who can change your watch battery or tighten your stone setting. People who sit hunched over a wooden bench for the better part of a day, making sure your ring fits you in time for your wedding, your chain is strong enough to hold that Saint Christopher medal, and that your earrings fit comfortably. They are people who give up a tiny part of their life- their comfort, their aesthetics- to serve you.

They’re really some of the most lovely hands in the world.