Nail care basics :)

Hello :)

In today's post I'm going to give a brief inside to the world of nail care. I've made quite a few posts now about nail art and en essencial part of creating art on your nails is to take care of the canvas aka your  nails.

I used to be the kind of person, who would just paint my nails as decently as I could and then once the nail polish had nearly chipped off all of my nails, I'd remove it or just put on another layer of nail polish...yes I am ashamed of those days. Anyway I'm older and wiser now, I know painting my nails is so much more than just layering polish on them.

First and most important thing, at least in my humble opinion is base coat. It's a type of clear polish that you put on your nails before putting on any colour. I couldn't even imagine doing my nails and not putting base coat, it's like wearing your jeans without first putting on your underwear, unimaginable..unless you're into that stuff, then go for it...but not when it comes to your nails.

But before you can put on your base coat, you have to make sure your nails are up for task waiting ahead, so you have to make sure they're hydrated and happy, no hangnails or dry cuticles.

To do that you have to create your own nail care routine. I'm going to describe mine with a few comments and additional steps.

• remove nailpolish - an easy step, you can use nail polish removers that contain acetone or the one's without acetone, under secrecy I can say the first ones remove nail polish way better, but they're way worse for your hands and nails, so the decission is your's. Some tips as well, if your nailpoils is thick, you have glitter on them or nail art, then it's wise to let the cotton round or whatever you're using to remove your nail polish, sit on your nail for a while (you obviously have to have nail polish remover on it first) and then the polish comes off easier, you still might have to give it a proper rub though, glitter polish is pretty, but it's the devils creaton when it comes to removing it.
• wash hands - I don't know if I have to add any instructions here, it's just to get any residue of nail polish remover off your nails.
• apply nail oil - there a lot of different nail oils out there, I have quite a few and all of them seem to do the job well, I just put it on my nails with the applicator and rub it around the nail and the skin around it, if you don't have a nail oil, you can use olive oil, almond oil, cocnut oil or something like that, they'll also work well at moisturising the nails and cuticles. Let that sink in for a little while.
• apply hand cream - as a final part of my moisturising session I also give a little bit of attention to the rest of my skin on my hands, since it had contact with nail polish remover.
• wash hands again - have to remove all oils from the nails before putting on any nail polish, since otherwise it might peel off faster.
• apply base coat - we've already talked about that. :)

That's my basic nail care routine, fast and easy and seems to be working. Now sometimes I do add some steps to it, so I'll just briefly talk about those steps as well.

• cut and shape nails - usually I don't cut my nails with scissors, unless I want them to be a lot shorter than they are at the current moment, I just file them a bit shorter and give them all a similar shape, I usually go for square/squoval nails, unless my nails are very short, then they're round. I'm not very adventurous with my nail shapes, but there actually are a lot more to choose from, I'll add a little photo of all the possabilities here:
  
• remove cuticles - those are the little skin like parts near the edge of your nail, between nail and the actual skin, some people want them completly gone, some just push them back, mine look pretty good, so I just push them back a little, when I feel necessary, but you can buy cuticle creams, to make them softer and cut them, although that's not recommended, cause you can cause bacteria to get under the skin, don't want that. You can also use cuticle removers, which I've never used so can't give any guidelines about those, but they come in bottles just like nail polish and you apply them to the nail and it's supposed to magically remove your cuticles.
• a little extra step you can do to improve the state of your nails is to drink enough water and have a well balanced diet so that your nails would be strong and healthy, I might do some research into it and write about foods that make our nails happy, but I won't go indepth into it today.

So that's it, hope it was helpful or at least fun to read, see you next time.

Kaiela :)