Tips and Tricks for Doing Your Nails

Hello everyone, so today I thought I'd share a couple of my little tricks that I do when I paint my nails. Or better yet my nail care routine. Nails seem to be that tricky part not many people talk about unless it involves nail art but the care is very important. I've learned that the hard way these past few weeks.

• My first recommendation is to find a nail strengthener that you can use as a base coat as well. A couple of years ago I thought I had pretty good nails, they always grew pretty long on their own and I didn't think anything of it. I started noticing them slowing down in their growth and I picked up a strenghtener + growth polish that, you guessed it, could be used as a base coat.  

                                                             

Salley Hansen Green Tea+Olive Growth

I love this little gem. Let me just say I had no idea how bad my nails really were until I started using this. My nails were so much stronger and healthier looking. And they did grow a bit faster. 

   I picked up a different base coat when I finished this bottle and I think I need to go get this again now that I haven't been using it my nails are the shortest they have ever been and they constantly flake. I hate that. 

• Next I say always always file your nails before painting them or even just to keep them in check. I figured out otherwise you might paint them all nice only to have a random jagged end snag and break. Or they might look ok but be weak and break. So frustrating!
• Next is probably a little weird but take the little file thing out of the nail clipper (I hate those things so I personally use the thick end of special tweezers I designated just for my nails) and gently scrape along the base of your nails. Why you ask? Well because even when we wash our hands a lot of gunk that we may not notice builds up there. When you scrape I bet a bunch of white (gross I know) stuff will come off. After this I always wash my hands with soap so my hands are nice and clean before the polish goes on.  For me this helps the polish not have a weird edge on the back of my nails and stay on longer.
• Ok so now that's all the prep work so just choose your color and paint like normal. But I do have to say my biggest thing is to do all this at night. For me this is relaxing and I need to relax at night. Plus I don't have to chase a toddler around or anything. But the biggest thing is if you paint sloppy like I do, don't worry about getting it on your skin!  I used to take hours doing my nails because I had to go in with a Q-tip and fix up the edges and every once in awhile i'd take off polish and ruin it and I'd have to do those nails again. Plus it's just a pain. So I just do it at night, don't worry about it, go to sleep.  The next morning in the shower just shower like normal and I bet you most if not all those little bits on your skin are now gone! I sometimes help some stubborn parts but it comes off easy and you don't even really have to think or take extra time since you were going to shower to begin with (I hope haha) 

Another note on doing it at night and not showering right away is that polish really takes 4-5 hours to completely dry. Even if it's not super wet and all that it still technically wet. I know I've done the nail test only to go about my business, look down and see my polish completely ruined by who knows what. Well this is the secret! 

So those are my few little tips, I hope they help out!