Sourcing products for fake nails

For fake nails, Guitar Player Nails are an excellent source. Many guitarists I know use their pre-formed nails. I personally use the kind of glue-on nails you can get at a drugstore, because they're smaller and a bit easier to fit, and actually often of very high quality. (GPNs are easy to trim but they are a bit big for me.) What makes them good is that they are tapered toward the cuticle side, a bit thicker toward the tip, they sound great and file easily. Interestingly the best of the "drugstore" nails are *not* the so-called "acrylic" ones. The brand I get is called "Kiss".

While I don't use GPNs it's not for lack of quality but rather simply size of nail. I do apply KISS nails via the "GPN" method, or a variation thereof. GPN sells a brush-on glue and a "surgical" type cyanoacrylate glue, and tiny pipettes for precise application. I apply the KISS nail by applying a coat of the brush-on glue, set the nail in place and hold it for 30 seconds. Then I back-fill along the edges and cuticle with a drop of the cyanoacrylate glue in a pipette. A nail applied thus will last me two weeks easily. If I must remove -- I usually just let them fall off, by which time my natural nail has grown back -- I've been using a product from Static Nails. It's a non-acetone remover which is a lot kinder to the natural nail. Costs a lot but if you only do occasional fakes it's worth it: it's an oily remover that just needs to soak a bit and the fake comes off easily and wipes clean, leaving your nailbed in reasonable shape.