You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard about acrylic nails. The fashionable icons have been staples of nail salons since they were first invented in 1954. Yep, you read that correctly. You might also be surprised to know they were invented by a dentist. The story goes that Dr. Fred Slack broke his fingernail and created an artificial nail to replace it. He experimented with chemicals and the use of dental acrylics to create an artificial nail that fit over his old, broken nail. Acrylic nails were born. But actually, that’s only partially true. Acrylic nails were used as far back as ancient Egypt. Egyptian women wore long, fake nails as a status symbol. Some of the artificial nails uncovered by archeologists were made of bone, but others were made of ivory and gold. The material acrylic that we associate with artificial nails today was discovered in the late seventies by Doctor Stuart Nordstrom . The good doctor invented the liquid and acrylic powder system many