Wednesday 16 September 2015

Handy Nail Tips and Tricks

For ages, I've kept a little folder with beauty tips and tricks I've heard or seen. I also picked up some valuable jewels of information when I trained as a nail technician. So I thought that I'd share some of them with you :) I'll do more posts with skin, beauty and hair tips, but I thought it was only right to start with nails as that's my forté.
Hope you find them useful...


Nail Tips & Tricks

  • If your nail is starting to break, don't reach for the clippers and file just yet. You can fix it with just a teabag, nail glue and your normal base coat. Cut a tiny square out of the paper part of the teabag, put a little drop of nail glue on it and place it over the tear in the nail. Wait a few minutes then use your normal base coat, colour polish and top coat. Voila! No more broken nail. 
  • If you've ever had Shellac or any other UV gel nails, you'll notice the nail technician wiping the brush along the tip of your nail. This is called capping/sealing the free edge. This stops the gel from chipping and lifting. You should do this with your normal topcoat too, as it will make your manicure last longer. If you aren't sure how to do this, you can find videos on YouTube that will show you how its done. Click here for a really short and sweet 'how to' video.
  • In my training, I was taught to 'squeak' the nails before applying any nail polish. Before you put your basecoat on, get a cotton wool pad and dampen it with a little bit of nail polish remover. This won't work as well of you soak it in remover so it's drenched. Then wipe it firmly over each nail in an upwards motion no more than 3 times, and you should hear a squeaking sound. This means your nails are free of oils and ready for painting. Again, this is a simple, quick tip that will prolong your manicure.
  • If your favourite nail varnish becomes thick and gloopy, never ever pour nail polish remover into the bottle to thin it out. This will be a temporary quick fix but will make your nail varnish even thicker after a while. You should always use a proper polish thinner, which won't thicken the polish. Boots sell a really effective thinner by Seche which you can buy online here.
  • If you want your nail polish to look even brighter, use a white polish as a basecoat. OPI have a white basecoat called Put A Coat On which I prefer to use over any other regular white polishes. Buy it from Nail Polish Direct here.
  • You may already know this, but never shake a nail polish bottle before using it. This creates air bubbles which will be visible on your nails. Roll it in between your hands instead, as it prevents those pesky bubbles forming.
  • If you find it hard to stick fiddly gems on your nails, use a sot wax eyeliner pencil tip to pick them up and place them where you want them to be on your nails.
  • I recently purchased a pack of different colour fine striping tapes for nail art from eBay. They are good quality and were really cheap. I use them to create patterns and shapes on client's nails. Peel the tape off while the varnish is wet, otherwise you won't get neat lines, and it will cause smudging. Click here to buy them on ebay for £1.49 with free postage (UK only).
  • Instead of using a nail varnish eraser pen for mistakes or cleaning up, use an angled eyeliner brush. These are much finer so you can be more precise about what you're removing. Plus you can get these really cheaply online or from most drugstores like Superdrug or Boots.
  • If you come across and odd bits of lace, hang onto them. You can place them over a dry nail (make sure its dry otherwise the lace will stick!), and paint over it in a colour of your choice for lace effect nails that everyone will ask you how to do!
So there's a few of my favourite nail tips and tricks. As usual, if you have any questions or some nail tips of your own, comment on this post.

Love,

Lauren xo

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