I was performing close-up at a corporate event in Vienna — cards, intimate setting, about eight people gathered around a cocktail table. The set went well. The reactions were strong. I finished with what I considered a strong closer, a moment that should have left the group buzzing.
Afterward, one of the spectators approached me. She was friendly, complimentary, genuinely enthusiastic. And then she said something that lodged in my brain and has not left.
“That was amazing. Also — and I hope this is not rude — you might want to do something about your nails.”
She said it with a smile, the way a well-meaning colleague might mention that your shirt tag is sticking out. Not malicious. Not judgmental. Just honest.
I looked at my hands. My nails were not dirty. They were not grotesquely long. They were just… unremarkable. Slightly uneven. A hangnail on one thumb. Cuticles that had not been tended to in who knows how long. The kind of hands you have when you think about your hands only in terms of what they can do, not what they look like.
I had spent hours perfecting the technical aspects of my card work. I had practiced in hotel rooms across Austria until the moves were seamless. And then I had presented those moves with hands that had received zero attention from a visual standpoint. It was like framing a masterwork painting in a cracked and dusty frame.
The Magnifying Glass Effect
Close-up magic has a unique property that separates it from virtually every other form of performance: the audience is watching your hands from a distance of two to four feet. This is the distance at which every imperfection is visible. Every dry patch of skin. Every ragged cuticle. Every bitten nail. Every callus.
In stage performance, distance is your ally. From twenty or thirty feet, the audience sees your overall silhouette, your gestures, your broad movements. Details disappear. A slightly wrinkled shirt is invisible. An imperfect manicure is undetectable.
In close-up, distance is eliminated. The audience is not watching a performance. They are watching your hands. Specifically, closely, intensely. They are staring at your fingers as you handle cards, coins, or other objects. Their eyes are tracking every movement, looking for the secret, trying to catch the moment where something impossible becomes possible. Your hands are under a magnifying glass, and every detail is amplified.
This means that the visual condition of your hands is not a background detail. It is a foreground element. The audience is looking at your hands more closely than they look at almost anything else in their daily lives. Your hands are, for the duration of the performance, the most scrutinized surface in the room.
And human perception does not neatly separate the functional from the aesthetic. The spectator who is watching your hands for the secret is simultaneously processing the visual information of what those hands look like. If what they see is well-groomed, clean, cared-for hands, that information is processed positively and filed away. If what they see is neglected, rough, or unkempt hands, that information creates a negative impression that colors everything else — including the magic.
Fitzkee on Grooming
Dariel Fitzkee was explicit about this in Showmanship for Magicians. His grooming checklist includes, specifically: clean hands, manicured fingernails. Not as a suggestion. Not as a nice-to-have. As a baseline professional requirement, listed alongside freshly pressed clothing and spotless shoes.
Fitzkee was writing in the 1940s, and the fact that he felt the need to spell this out tells you something. Even then, performers were neglecting their hands. Even then, the basics of physical presentation were being overlooked in favor of the tricks themselves.
What I appreciate about Fitzkee’s approach is that he treats grooming as part of the routine, not separate from it. His argument is that your routine should be as well-groomed as your clothes. The preparation of your physical appearance is preparation for performance, no different from rehearsing your script or setting up your props. It is all part of the same discipline.
This framing shifted something for me. I had been thinking of hand care as personal grooming — the kind of thing you do or do not do based on personal preference. Fitzkee made me realize it is professional preparation. It belongs in the same category as cleaning your props, pressing your shirt, and polishing your shoes. It is part of the job.
What I Actually Do
After the Vienna incident, I started a hand care routine. I am going to describe it here not because I think my specific approach is the only right one, but because I know many performers — especially men — have never given this any thought at all, and having a concrete starting point is useful.
I get a professional manicure every two to three weeks. Not a fancy one. Not with any kind of polish or treatment. Just the basics: nails trimmed to a consistent length, shaped, cuticles pushed back and trimmed, hands moisturized. The whole process takes about twenty minutes and costs less than a nice lunch.
Between manicures, I maintain. I carry a small nail file in my travel kit — the same kit that holds my cards, my props, my performance essentials. If a nail chips or a hangnail develops, I address it immediately. I use hand cream every night. Hotel rooms are dry environments — all that air conditioning, all those hours of climate-controlled air — and dry hands look older, rougher, and less healthy than moisturized hands. Since hotel rooms are my practice studios, I am in dry air for hours every evening while I rehearse. The hand cream is a direct response to the conditions of my practice environment.
Before every close-up performance, I do a final hand check. I look at my nails under good light. I check for hangnails, dry patches, anything that might catch a spectator’s eye for the wrong reasons. If there is an issue, I address it. If my hands are dry, I apply a small amount of unscented hand cream and give it a few minutes to absorb before handling cards or props — you do not want slippery hands.
This entire process adds maybe five minutes to my pre-show preparation. Five minutes, against the hours I spend on technical practice, scripting, and effect selection. It is a trivially small investment for something that the audience will be staring at for the entire duration of my performance.
The Gender Disparity
I want to address something directly: there is a gender disparity in how performers think about hand care, and it is not in anyone’s favor.
Among the female performers I know, hand care is generally already part of their routine. It is not something they need to be told about. Among the male performers I know — and this includes many highly skilled, deeply dedicated practitioners — hand care is often an afterthought at best and a non-thought at worst. The attitude is: I am a man, I am not going to a nail salon, my hands are fine.
Your hands are not fine. Or more precisely: your hands may be perfectly functional, perfectly capable of executing everything your craft requires, and still visually below the standard that a close-up audience deserves.
This is not about vanity. This is not about gender norms. This is about the professional presentation of the tools you use to create wonder. A carpenter does not show up with rusty chisels. A chef does not present food on chipped plates. A close-up performer should not present magic with unkempt hands.
When I first started getting manicures, I felt mildly self-conscious about it. This was, I recognize, a product of my own conditioning rather than any rational objection. By the third visit, the self-consciousness had evaporated entirely. By the tenth visit, it was simply part of my professional routine, no different from getting a haircut or having my suits altered. It was preparation for the job.
What the Audience Actually Notices
I have tested this informally. After performances, I sometimes ask spectators what they noticed about the experience. The responses are instructive.
Nobody has ever said “your hands looked great.” Well-groomed hands, like well-pressed clothes, register positively without being consciously identified. The audience does not think about your hands looking good. They just feel that the overall experience was professional, polished, and considered. The hand care contributes to an aggregate impression of quality without drawing attention to itself.
But people absolutely do notice the negative. The spectator in Vienna noticed my unkempt nails. I have heard other performers’ audiences comment on dry skin, bitten nails, dirty fingernails, even calluses. The negative stands out. The positive blends in.
This asymmetry is actually good news for performers. It means that the goal is not to have remarkable hands — it is to have unremarkable hands. Hands that do not trigger any negative observation. Hands that the audience can watch for extended periods without being distracted by anything they see. You are not trying to win a hand modeling competition. You are trying to eliminate a potential distraction.
The Card Handler’s Hands
For card workers specifically, there are some additional considerations. Frequent handling of playing cards takes a toll on hands. The edges of cards can create small cuts, especially during extended practice sessions. The friction of shuffling and dealing can create calluses on specific parts of the fingers. And the ink and coating on cards can dry out skin.
I have found that doing hand care after practice sessions, rather than before, makes a significant difference. Practice, then wash hands, then apply hand cream. This sequence means that the drying effects of card handling are addressed immediately rather than compounding over time.
I also pay attention to the condition of my cards as a hand-care measure. Old, worn cards with rough edges are harder on hands than fresh decks. I rotate cards regularly — partly for performance quality, partly for hand preservation. It sounds like an odd connection, but the condition of your tools and the condition of your hands are directly related.
The Message Your Hands Send
There is a deeper principle at work here, one that goes beyond the practical issue of audience distraction.
Fitzkee talks about character being revealed through mannerisms, dress, conduct — and through what a person owns and how they care for it. Your hands are not something you own, exactly, but they are something you care for. And the degree to which you care for them communicates something about your character as a performer.
Well-maintained hands say: I pay attention to details. I take this seriously. I have thought about every aspect of what you are about to see, including the aspects that might seem trivial. I respect you enough to present myself at my best.
Neglected hands say: I have not thought about this. The details do not matter to me. The technical execution is what counts, and everything else is secondary.
Both messages are received unconsciously, below the level of articulated thought. But they are received. And they color the audience’s entire experience.
I want to be the performer whose audience walks away thinking: everything about that was polished. Not just the magic. Not just the script. Not just the effects. Everything. From the way he was dressed to the way his hands looked while he was holding those cards. Everything was considered. Everything was professional.
That level of thoroughness — that refusal to leave any element of the experience unattended — is what separates a good performance from an excellent one. And it starts, literally, at your fingertips.
A manicure costs less than a deck of good cards. It takes less time than learning a new technique. And it addresses something that your audience is going to be staring at, from two feet away, for the entire time you are performing.
There is no rational argument against it. There is only the irrational resistance that many performers — particularly male performers — feel toward what they perceive as an unnecessary indulgence. It is not an indulgence. It is a professional obligation. Treat it as one.