From Adolescence to Grown Men (Painting Their Nails)

As the world watches a family fall apart, hundreds of men try to piece themselves together - in a rebellious nail painting experiment exploring healthy masculinity.

Adolescence is essential not because of the noise it creates but because of the quiet ringing in our ears, where an explanation ought to be.

The gut punch of the series is that we’re all answerable, yet no one has the answer.

The blundering of the parents, the teachers, and the police is eye-watering. But all of us are them (there but for the grace of Netflix).

We have been seen, our fears have been heard: We hoped our children were safe. We knew we should be doing more. We’re afraid we don’t understand.

If Adolescence is the diagnosis — I would like to offer Hard As Nails as part of the cure.

The morning after Adolescence landed, we launched Hard As Nails live on Sky News.

Both use creativity to expand masculinity; a week later, there’s a global conversation short on solutions and a fast-growing social experiment offering some insights.

So far, Three hundred and forty-eight men have signed up to take part: some alone, some in groups, some with their sons, partners or daughters, and many in the safe (and well-manicured) hands of our partners, Townhouse Nails.

What they’ve agreed to do is simple:

1. Take a robust psychological assessment of masculinity, identity and empathy.

2. Paint their nails and go about life completing anonymous observation diaries.

3. Retake robust psychological assessments.
   

Most expected awkwardness. Some expected ridicule.

None expected the depth of introspection or connection they’ve found.

“I’m realising now how much energy I’ve spent all my life trying not to seem weak.”

It turns out that when men start to pay attention to the subtle rules of masculinity — the clothes they wear, the way they speak, what holds them back — a kind of emotional archaeology begins.

Layers unearth.
Conversations start.
Attitudes shift.
New behaviours emerge.

And that’s not me trying to write poetically.
That’s the research results from the pilot and interim data.

”Hard As Nails improves empathy and mental health markers, increasing men’s confidence to break out of ‘the man box’ and challenge stereotypes.”

The experiment is halfway through (men can join here until 31st March), but to contribute to the broader conversation, here are three insights we’ve seen so far:

1. What Happens When the Armour Comes Off

Many of the men describe, often with surprise, what painting their nails has made them feel.

Not mocked. Not Attacked. Not Shut down, as they expected.

But exposed. Vulnerable. And then, often, deeply relieved.

(Only 5% of responses so far are reported as negative, 55% as positive, the rest as mixed or ambivalent)

“I’ve spent my life armouring up and didn’t even know it or need to be.”

“I look at my nails and feel seen, judged and categorised in a way I never asked to be. In a way, a lot of people are. I mean,n I knew that. I’d just never felt that”

“Even how I hold my hands has changed — I used to clench without noticing.”

It’s a tiny act that reveals a massive truth: that masculinity, for many men, is a performance so constant they barely realise they’re acting.

And performing takes energy. A lot of misspent ‘masculine energy’ leads to exhaustion, which adds to anger that could be going elsewhere — to love, to parenthood, to presence, to creativity, to self-care.

Many men were almost disappointed with the lack of response they received when it had taken so much courage to walk into the street/pub/meeting with bright nails.

And now, they’re wondering what else they’re holding back on due to fear or internal limitations.

What relationships, conversations, emotions or experiences have they also judged as not being ‘manly enough’ or too vulnerable?

2. A Deep Hunger for Connection

We thought Hard As Nails might make men nervous.

What we didn’t expect was how many men would find it nourishing.

80% report feeling more connected.

70% have had meaningful conversations about masculinity they’ve never had before.

“It’s not the polish — it’s the permission. To feel. To talk.”

“I ended up having the deepest conversation with my son in years — about how he hides his feelings too.”

The WhatsApp group of participants is one of the most tender corners of the internet I’ve ever seen. No bravado. No posturing. It's a surprising dichotomy of conversation.

The chat is roughly 70% of some of the most profound conversations I’ve ever seen between men about being a man.

And 30% are nail care tips and colour coordination conversations.

Just men swapping colour suggestions, photos, encouragement, fear, pride.

Men bravely showing up for each other with painted nails.

3. The Revolution Will Be Gentle

“This is about softness and solidarity at the same time — when do men ever get to share that?”

It’s easy to talk about toxic masculinity. Adolescence shows what happens when we don’t.

But Hard As Nails is showing what happens when we do, when change is made visible, contagious, and safe, when men are offered a different way of being — not just through arguments, or armourment, but through each other.

“Seeing other guys doing it gave me courage. I didn’t realise how much that would matter.”

The conversations and reflections of inner monologues have taken hundreds of men to places we don’t often go, from depression to suicide to relationships to fear.

And I’m experiencing the same; I find myself wondering if maybe I started this because I never got to ask my dad these questions — he died when I was five.

Maybe I’m doing it now so my five-month-old son won’t have to.

Adolescence is a global conversation, rightly so; it’s a great work of art.

But in a few weeks, we will have the data from all this research, where, hopefully, the cultural conversation and our scientific investigation can meet.

This isn’t just a campaign. It’s live academic research overseen by Dr Stephen Burrell with additional research design support from the good people at Movember.

So far over one hundred and fifty men have completed validated psychological measures: the Man Box Scale, Empathy Scale, and Identity Rigidity Scale.

The data we’re collecting will be published — and offered to shape policy, programmes, research design and workplace change.

But it’s also a grassroots and community-led campaign. This all started when I took my daughter to see Harry Styles, and she asked if we could get our nails done together.

The unexpected conversations I had with men the following week (because it turned out gels were bloody hard to get off) led to a pilot study.

But as I faced my own fears of failure and pressures of masculinity, my anxiety nearly got the better of me, and if it weren’t for the encouragement of Daniele Fiandaca and the support of the men he introduced to the idea, it proved its potential.

And that essence is in everything about Hard As Nails; we’re not trying to ‘fix men’ or blame men. We need something positive, powerful and pro-men that allows for the sort of inner depth of reflection, almost epiphany-level experiences that can change the way men see themselves in relation to the challenges they experience.

And from watching the insights, data, questions, and conversations come in, I think the bigger shift is happening in real-time, one nail at a time.

In living rooms, group chats, pub toilets, playground gates, and boardrooms. Every painted hand is a conversation being invited to happen.

“I didn’t realise how much I was hiding. I don’t want to hide anymore.”

If Adolescence asks, How do we stop boys from becoming dangerous?

Then maybe Hard As Nails asks, How do we let men become whole?

Maybe it will be something more or less: I was wrong in my first assumptions, and I’ll be wrong again.

All we know now is we’re halfway through, and we’ll share the answers we find as honestly as we’ve shared the questions we’ve asked.

And that there’s still time to participate; sign-up is open until 31st March 2025.

If it makes you nervous, that probably means it matters.

If you’ve already done it — thank you, you really are Hard As Nails.