Hi girls
Some of you requested a beginners guide to nails and nail polish. Leave me a question if you think I haven't answered all you wanted to know and I will either respond to you or I will add the question to the blogpost with the answer - so this post might be updated and there could be reason to check back again some other day:)
If you are a nail biter go to this post first: http://kuchensclaws.com/?p=137
Lets get started! Basics first
Getting strong nails:
If your nails are week you may be unlucky but there is some things you can try to make them better.
Supplement pills such as B Vitamin can help you if you don't get the max your body can take. It will give you protein to build both your nails and hair with and it will give strength from the inside. There is no way the pills will do you any harm if you only take one per day. If your body has gotten the vitamins max through your food is will just come out of your body with your pee, and if that is the case you will not get any effect out of the pills and your week nails might just be unlucky. If it works for you however you will love this supplement and it can do great things for you.
I will recommend supplements before anything else because it will strengthen from the inside and it will last the longest after you maybe stop taking the pills so you can pause the intake and it should not make a big problem.
The other thing you can do is to use basecoats that strengthen. Some as Heromes are also a 14 days cure, but it will strengthen the nail growing out of you that in some time will be chopped of, so its not like you use the product 14 days and you have strong nails forever, it just makes a new stronger start where a ordinary hardening basecoat may help you rest of the way.
How to behave with long nails:
A rule is that you don't use your nails as tools, cause there is no way they can open a can of soda without being damaged. A great idea is to always carry a little knife or be creative as me and use a key you don't need for all things possible where you would think you cut use your nails. When you first get used to thinking you can use anything else this will not be a handicap, and it will not take any time. If you still use your nails after reading this you don't care enough and you may first learn the day you get a really bad break into your finger. I think this is very important as you can tell:P
Next step is how to behave to make your manicure last as long as possible without chipping. A good basecoat is of cause needed and will be mentioned later, but your way to use your nails is also important. My nails almost never chip but they get worn on the tips because I scratch myself to much, but I am aware of that and if you know what is causing the problems you can begin behaving in other ways. Don't make excuses as "Well such is life, I type a lot on my computer", cause even that you can change. I don't ever touch the laptop with my nails. I had a time where I had extremely long nails and I got used to having my hand much more horizontal while typing so I only touch with my flesh parallel under my nails. It works just as fine or even better because I don't have to type slowly. So think about this and see what you do often that may not be good for your nails.
Filing or cutting - what's best for the nail?
Cutting your nails can actually make the nails break a little bit inside and therefore if you do something with your nails it will have more reason to break. That's not nice, and therefore filing is the only way to shorten your nails in my head. Filing also gives much more control over the shape you want to reach and it is possible to make the nail more unlikely to break - this I will show you next week where my theme is to tell about my filing.
Buffing is great if you have slight ridges or you have some other reason to want your nails to be shiny and smooth. Don't do it to hard to often though, we don't want to weaken our nails by making them to thin. A buffer is a nail file with four different sides with different grit, and a ordinary nail file will never be a good idea for this as it's grit often is to harsh.
Lasting manicures?
Even the finest nail polish needs a clean base and the best way for getting your nails ready to grip the polishes is degreasing the nail, most efficient is clean acetone. It is drying because it removes the natural oils on the nail but these oils will make nails polish peel off.
Hot water and baths with steam will probably make your many go wet again if your mani just dried. Baths to often will weaken every manicure (as its also bad for the would you should think about maybe only bathing 2-3 times a week, some people can actually with no problems only bath one time a week - anybody want a blogpost about baths or cleaning the body?)
Basecoat is the thing that will bind the nail polish to your nail. It can make your nails whiter, it can be a hardener, it can make them grow and it can prevent discoloration... there are so many ways they can help and so many products that even I myself haven't got one favorite yet, I am still trying a lot of things out. But something I have found out that I like is to dilute. If a basecoat is to thin it doesn't protect enough for me and i like it to make a smooth surface with no ridges being seen and with completely ordinary basecoats I can get this effect with always having the right thickness. I usually go between OPI and Essie which are very thin at start. When the polish then gets to thick I always have a new bottle I dilute with. In that way I always have the perfect consistency.
This is actually also the case with Topcoat for me, I don't like it to thin but I don't go diluting different products for my basecoat. Topcoat is for sealing the polish/design, make a smooth surface and it can harden the manicure as letting the mani dry more quick in depth than others. I long loved Rimmels superdry topcoat, but of cause I have to give Poché credit after I finally went and tried it. It does dry way more quick in depth and it does make every thing more easy. Other people loves seche vite fast drying topcoat but it is not 3 free as Poshé is (if you don't know what 3 free is then google it, it is some chemicals that isn't put in the product because they can be bad)
Nail Polish:
The quality of nail polish can vary much. My favorite brands is OPI and Essie but there are many and many possibilities. One thing you must always remember is that all brands, even the expensive ones, does have some fails in their collections. Therefore google is your friend in many ways both for looking up swatches, searching for the perfect color and for reading about if this gorgeous polish have a good or bad consistency.
One-coaters are very rare, two-coaters is great, three-coaters is okay but everything above that may be to much, especially for a beginner.
Applying nail polish
You don't need to wait long time between every layer cause each new layer will make the layers under be wet again. If your nail polish is decent quality you should be able to apply second layer to nail number 1 when you finished first layer on nail number 10.
If you are too quick or just not that trained (it will get more easy in time) and you get some out of the lines a easy way to make this right again it to take something as your nail files tip or your cuticle cutter and just remove the polish from the skin. If it's very runny or there is to much polish you have to do it some times until its fine. This is easy to do with no harm as long as the polish is wet. If it happens you don't finish your manicure with this problem but you straighten it up immediately. And they you will be happy I promise:) After this it is easy to clean up any other mistakes with a swab dipped in polish remover/acetone. If you only use acetone it will be a good idea to use hand creme more often.
How many strokes and which order you do the strokes I don't care about, its most crucial that the polish lays good on the nail and covers all. For me it is very important that the polish covers evenly. A way to check this is to watch what you do and check the layer you think is the last by holding your hand up against some light. Is your polish very opaque you should not see any light through your nails, is this not the case you can see if a nail have a hole in the lower layers. This can show imperfections I would later see and get frustrated about, but again, I am a perfectionist and this may not irritate you.
A good light and a table with the right height is important. To me its also important that I sit comfortable, else I will not enjoy polishing as much as I do.
Follow me with bloglovin: http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11162099
Some of you requested a beginners guide to nails and nail polish. Leave me a question if you think I haven't answered all you wanted to know and I will either respond to you or I will add the question to the blogpost with the answer - so this post might be updated and there could be reason to check back again some other day:)
If you are a nail biter go to this post first: http://kuchensclaws.com/?p=137
Lets get started! Basics first
Getting strong nails:
If your nails are week you may be unlucky but there is some things you can try to make them better.
Supplement pills such as B Vitamin can help you if you don't get the max your body can take. It will give you protein to build both your nails and hair with and it will give strength from the inside. There is no way the pills will do you any harm if you only take one per day. If your body has gotten the vitamins max through your food is will just come out of your body with your pee, and if that is the case you will not get any effect out of the pills and your week nails might just be unlucky. If it works for you however you will love this supplement and it can do great things for you.
I will recommend supplements before anything else because it will strengthen from the inside and it will last the longest after you maybe stop taking the pills so you can pause the intake and it should not make a big problem.
The other thing you can do is to use basecoats that strengthen. Some as Heromes are also a 14 days cure, but it will strengthen the nail growing out of you that in some time will be chopped of, so its not like you use the product 14 days and you have strong nails forever, it just makes a new stronger start where a ordinary hardening basecoat may help you rest of the way.
How to behave with long nails:
A rule is that you don't use your nails as tools, cause there is no way they can open a can of soda without being damaged. A great idea is to always carry a little knife or be creative as me and use a key you don't need for all things possible where you would think you cut use your nails. When you first get used to thinking you can use anything else this will not be a handicap, and it will not take any time. If you still use your nails after reading this you don't care enough and you may first learn the day you get a really bad break into your finger. I think this is very important as you can tell:P
Next step is how to behave to make your manicure last as long as possible without chipping. A good basecoat is of cause needed and will be mentioned later, but your way to use your nails is also important. My nails almost never chip but they get worn on the tips because I scratch myself to much, but I am aware of that and if you know what is causing the problems you can begin behaving in other ways. Don't make excuses as "Well such is life, I type a lot on my computer", cause even that you can change. I don't ever touch the laptop with my nails. I had a time where I had extremely long nails and I got used to having my hand much more horizontal while typing so I only touch with my flesh parallel under my nails. It works just as fine or even better because I don't have to type slowly. So think about this and see what you do often that may not be good for your nails.
Filing or cutting - what's best for the nail?
Cutting your nails can actually make the nails break a little bit inside and therefore if you do something with your nails it will have more reason to break. That's not nice, and therefore filing is the only way to shorten your nails in my head. Filing also gives much more control over the shape you want to reach and it is possible to make the nail more unlikely to break - this I will show you next week where my theme is to tell about my filing.
Buffing is great if you have slight ridges or you have some other reason to want your nails to be shiny and smooth. Don't do it to hard to often though, we don't want to weaken our nails by making them to thin. A buffer is a nail file with four different sides with different grit, and a ordinary nail file will never be a good idea for this as it's grit often is to harsh.
Lasting manicures?
Even the finest nail polish needs a clean base and the best way for getting your nails ready to grip the polishes is degreasing the nail, most efficient is clean acetone. It is drying because it removes the natural oils on the nail but these oils will make nails polish peel off.
Hot water and baths with steam will probably make your many go wet again if your mani just dried. Baths to often will weaken every manicure (as its also bad for the would you should think about maybe only bathing 2-3 times a week, some people can actually with no problems only bath one time a week - anybody want a blogpost about baths or cleaning the body?)
Basecoat is the thing that will bind the nail polish to your nail. It can make your nails whiter, it can be a hardener, it can make them grow and it can prevent discoloration... there are so many ways they can help and so many products that even I myself haven't got one favorite yet, I am still trying a lot of things out. But something I have found out that I like is to dilute. If a basecoat is to thin it doesn't protect enough for me and i like it to make a smooth surface with no ridges being seen and with completely ordinary basecoats I can get this effect with always having the right thickness. I usually go between OPI and Essie which are very thin at start. When the polish then gets to thick I always have a new bottle I dilute with. In that way I always have the perfect consistency.
This is actually also the case with Topcoat for me, I don't like it to thin but I don't go diluting different products for my basecoat. Topcoat is for sealing the polish/design, make a smooth surface and it can harden the manicure as letting the mani dry more quick in depth than others. I long loved Rimmels superdry topcoat, but of cause I have to give Poché credit after I finally went and tried it. It does dry way more quick in depth and it does make every thing more easy. Other people loves seche vite fast drying topcoat but it is not 3 free as Poshé is (if you don't know what 3 free is then google it, it is some chemicals that isn't put in the product because they can be bad)
Nail Polish:
The quality of nail polish can vary much. My favorite brands is OPI and Essie but there are many and many possibilities. One thing you must always remember is that all brands, even the expensive ones, does have some fails in their collections. Therefore google is your friend in many ways both for looking up swatches, searching for the perfect color and for reading about if this gorgeous polish have a good or bad consistency.
One-coaters are very rare, two-coaters is great, three-coaters is okay but everything above that may be to much, especially for a beginner.
Applying nail polish
You don't need to wait long time between every layer cause each new layer will make the layers under be wet again. If your nail polish is decent quality you should be able to apply second layer to nail number 1 when you finished first layer on nail number 10.
If you are too quick or just not that trained (it will get more easy in time) and you get some out of the lines a easy way to make this right again it to take something as your nail files tip or your cuticle cutter and just remove the polish from the skin. If it's very runny or there is to much polish you have to do it some times until its fine. This is easy to do with no harm as long as the polish is wet. If it happens you don't finish your manicure with this problem but you straighten it up immediately. And they you will be happy I promise:) After this it is easy to clean up any other mistakes with a swab dipped in polish remover/acetone. If you only use acetone it will be a good idea to use hand creme more often.
How many strokes and which order you do the strokes I don't care about, its most crucial that the polish lays good on the nail and covers all. For me it is very important that the polish covers evenly. A way to check this is to watch what you do and check the layer you think is the last by holding your hand up against some light. Is your polish very opaque you should not see any light through your nails, is this not the case you can see if a nail have a hole in the lower layers. This can show imperfections I would later see and get frustrated about, but again, I am a perfectionist and this may not irritate you.
A good light and a table with the right height is important. To me its also important that I sit comfortable, else I will not enjoy polishing as much as I do.
Follow me with bloglovin: http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11162099
Follow me on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KuchensIngredienserBlog
Follow me on instagram: angeleamalie
Love and sweets
Kuchen
Thank you so much for the sweet comment! I always intend to be honest and informative as that is what I would like to read from others :) So happy you liked it!
SvarSlet