Okay, so I have decideded that I would like to start blogging about my life in polish land. I wasn't sure what I wanted the first post to be about or how I wanted to introduce myself into the wold of blogging. So after a little thought I decided I would talk about my go to products for every manicure.
***All photos in this post were taken from google***
So I will just go in order of how I would do any manicure. For starters I do not use pure acetone for nail polish removal, I usually grab my stores brand of the pink non acetone polish remover because most of them say they are enriched with protein and vitamins. I don't like using pure acetne for removal because it dries my cuticles out.
If I have on a glitter polish I use the aluminum foil removal method which I will show at a later date with a pictorial.
To prepare for a fresh mani I always file my nails to smooth the edges out, occasionally Ill give them a little buff, and at least once or twice a week I do my cuticles. In my opinion (based off of personal experience) doing my cuticles once a week helps them stay maintained. Even if they don't look to bad I always do them just to keep them in order. I feel like most people go wrong buy waiting until they look bad until they do something about it when really they should always make it a priority and you will not have to deal with unruly cuticles. I use either Sally Hansen Cuticle Remover or Essie Disappearing Trick to soften and remove my cuticles. I like these products, but like I said I don't really have problem cuticles so I cant say that these are miracle products, though I do feel that with repeated use at least once a week and you would begin to see good results with these products and maintain healthy cuticles.
Okay! So lets keep this going. First I use Nail Life Nail Revitalizer as a strengthener and a base coat. There are two different formulas of this product, I use the original formula. I am completely in love with this product. I could immediately tell a difference when I started using this strengthener. At first it made my nails mostly harder just while wearing it, but after about 2 weeks I could tell an extreme difference with or with out it on. One thing I would recommend with this is to make sure this is pretty dry before you move on to the next step and start painting your nails. I noticed that if it's not completely dry it makes your polish apply weird and not very smooth.
Next up! after applying my nail color I use Out The Door top coat by INM. It is my favorite top coat ever. Its quick drying, and I rarely get shrinkage like some other fast drying top coats. If I have a chunky glitter polish (most of the time) I may use two to three coats of top coat just to get everything smoothed out and I make sure to let each coat dry a little in between.
Okay so every nail polished obsessed person knows the importance of the clean up brush! Clean up is such an important detail in every mani. Its what pulls everything together and makes it look nice and clean. For clean up I use an Elf cosmetic concealer brush and pure acetone. I like the elf brushes because they are cheap ($1 at most stores) and they work perfect! I would advise that you clean your brush with soap and warm water shortly after use so that you get more then one use out of it before the acetone splits all the bristles and stiffens the brush up. Even though they're only a dollar, when you paint your nails nearly every day that could get expensive if you only get one use out of it!
So after I am done cleaning up usually my nails are pretty dry, I like to apply Beauty Secrets Cuticle Oil. I love the smell of this oil, and that it comes with a brush for application so you aren't paranoid about messing up your fresh mani! I just put it on all the edges of my nails and under the nail too! Then just sit back and relax, and let it soak in!
That's it! I do use a lot of other nail products through out the day which I will talk about at a later time, but these are my go to products for every manicure I do. I hope you all enjoyed this blog post and I look forward to doing more in the future! I would love any feedback so let me know what you guys think and what you would like to see in future posts.
Happy Polishing!
-Brittney
