Manicures - 10 Do-it-yourself tips

Manicures - Do It Yourself Tips


Ten Steps to Give yourself an at Home Manicure


This is a fun, easy, and safe way to achieve polished fingernails without paying the higher beauty store prices when going through these ten steps. This is for adults only, or to do with adult supervision for younger girls, always keeping safety in mind, and always putting the products out of reach of children and pets after use.


Before beginning, wash your nails thoroughly, even with the polish on your fingernails. Try mostly to get your nails clean underneath your nail cartilage where it is not attached to the skin before beginning. If you notice growths, tiny knobs under there, or any redness or dirt substance that does not come out from under your fingernail bed, stop this process, and go to see a medical doctor.


You will need:

• 1 pack of cotton balls
• 1 fingernail polish remover
• 1 emery board
• 1 nail trimmer
• 1 cuticle remover
• 1 bottle of fingernail polish
• A couple of paper towels

Removing Nail Polish

First, take out as many cotton balls as needed one at a time, and safely douse each fingernail with nail polish remover, until your whole fingernail is your natural true color. It is available now at the stores in bottle or sponge form in a bottle.


For the sponge type, you have to dip your finger into the container, usually a plastic one, and swish your finger around frequently checking it to make sure your fingernail polish is coming off. For the fingernail polish in the bottle without a sponge embedded in it, you have to carefully tip it about a fourth of the way over using the cotton ball at the top to stop up the top from spilling out all over, and If you need to, you can have some paper towel handy to wipe off any excess fingernail polish remover that spills over as a result. Whichever fingernail polish remover you choose, swab your fingernails one by one until they are your natural color.


If you frequently use fingernail polish, your natural nail can become tinted a little of a yellowing color, not to be confused with bold yellow, and not red or green, or swollen. If your fingernails or fingers start to become red, green, or swollen, seek medical attention immediately. If you are doing OK, and your nails are now their natural color, go to step 2.


Filing your nails with an emery board


Next, you should have what is called an emery board. An emery board is usually a very inexpensive fingernail board used for filing down rough nail surfaces that is rough on the surface at least on one side. An emery board should not be used to scrape your natural nail surface at all. It will make your smooth fingernails rough.


You can use the emery board quite effectively on the end of your nail, in order to give it a consistent shape and make the tip of your nail smooth, not rough. Emery board comes in all shapes and sizes, and you can even look for one to fit your personality or wardrobe color-wise. As soon as you are done smoothing the tips of your nails in a uniform manner, proceed to the next step 3.


Trimming your fingernails


A fingernail trimmer is used in your home nail process when you want to reshape or shorten your nails more efficiently than with an emery board. You can make your fingernails shorter using fingernail clippers, which are clippers that are small in size designed to fit your nail shape and be able to cut your fingernail tip surface, without having enough force in them to really do massive cutting damage, but still use safety.


You should trim your nails at least once a month if they are healthy. Never trim unhealthy, discolored or brittle fingernails. Never trim your nails to the quick, which is the place where your fingernail cartilage meets your skin.


Be mindful of safety, even at this stage of the process. If you have hypoglycemia, or any other disease such as Parkinson’s or nerves, do not clip your own fingernails if you might have an issue of safety. Some fingernails are hard, and take some sharper fingernail cutters to cut through them. If this is the case with yours, you may want to consider going to a salon or a simple medical visit and have a professional trim them. However, if not, trim away. Then start with step #4.


Cuticle removing


Next, you need to use your cuticle remover to remove your cuticle, or actually push it down. Your cuticle is that soft skin that forms at the bottom of your fingernail at the place where your fingernail cartilage and your skin meet. It is just like a foreskin. Its job is to cover the place where your nail cartilage meets your skin, and make a smooth transition for that to happen. As your fingernails grow, your cuticle skin stretches, and this process of removing your cuticle pushes back that excess to promote your nail growth and health.


Again, you would want to check your cuticle area for rashes, redness, swelling, discoloration of any kind, and if any of those issues are present in your cuticle, seek the advice of a medical professional before pushing it back.


If you find that it looks pretty much like your fingernail and finger color, but with a different smoother and softer texture, go ahead and push the cuticle back with the cuticle remover, which is a little stick like device with a softer but firm tip made especially for the cuticle. It is not a cutting type tool. It looks a little shorter than a chopstick, but has a necessary soft tipped end to make sure that your cuticle does not get damaged.


Push back your cuticles one at a time using the cuticle removing tool. These are available from nearly any beauty supply store, or store that carries fingernail accessories of any kind. These are also relatively inexpensive.


It is important to note that if at any time in your process for any reason, if your nails start to bleed mildly or a lot, stop this procedure at once. This is not likely to happen in a normal fingernail manicure, but it may be a nice way of warning you of a problem with your own nails that you may need to get medical attention for.


Choose a color


Now you are ready to pick out a nail polish color from your own home nail polish collection. Pick out a color that matches your skin coloring, outfit styles that you wear, or shade of lipstick. If you polish your nails frequently, make sure that you give them one or two days to air out and breathe naturally to promote healthy nails in between polishes.


Application of finger nail polish color


Each bottle of nail polish comes with it's own applicator inside the bottle, attached to the handle of the fingernail polish bottle. Just unscrew the fingernail polish bottle, and scrape off the excess fingernail polish on the fingernail polish brush applicator on the side of the bottle itself.


You can use a paper towel for this process, but you may end up with paper towel residue mixed into your color, so I would not recommend it. Also, you need to make sure that you have a steady hand for this in order to get your finger nail polish on your fingernail area only, not on your skin. Skin always needs to breathe, and cannot with polish on it.


When you are ready, take the applicator holding non-dripping color to your nails, brushing from the base of your fingernails upward towards the top tip of your nail. Make sure you coat your whole nail evenly. Starting at the base of the nail and applying polish in an upward motion helps you evenly coat your nail.


Correcting polish mistakes


If you make a mistake, take a paper towel and douse it with nail polish remover as you did with the cotton ball in step one, and try to get the excess polish off your skin using the flat edge of the paper towel. Then, if you need to re-coat that fingernail, go ahead. If not, great. Just move on to the next fingernail until you are done.


Second coats of nail polish


Wait at least ten minutes before applying a second coat. You should not paint over your nails another time unless your nail polish is dry the first time. Without air, or low to medium speed fans blowing on them, it will take about five minutes for your fingernails to dry. Using high-speed fans near your wet nail polish can move your fingernail polish around your fingernail and mess its even coat up.


Quick drying nails


You can buy the quick drying kind of nail polish at the stores, or a quick drying sealer that is clear over the color of your nail polish to quicken drying if you are in a hurry. As a reminder, do not attempt to polish your fingernails in an area that does not have proper ventilation.


Finger Nail Health: How to Strengthen Them


Finger nail health will keep you from suffering from some painful tissue conditions. Get those long nails you've always wanted, it isn't too difficult if you take some simple precautions.


Long fingernails have been the envy of women for ages and research is still being done today to find a way to create the perfect nail tonic that will turn dry, cracked and brittle nails into long, strong beauties in two weeks or less.


As of right now, there are no real miracle applications to make this happen or wed all be running around with three inch nails asking the guys to pick things up for us and open our soda cans. There are, however, a few ways you can build up the strength of your nails, get them to grow a bit and maybe keep them from splitting or breaking so easily.


One of the natural enemies of fingernails is water. Water softens up the fingernails and makes them prime target for disaster. Couple water with a vigorous activity such as cleaning, scrubbing, scraping, washing dishes, doing laundry, etc. and you may as well kiss your nails goodbye.


When you clean, wear rubber gloves no matter what. Even if your task will only take a minute or two, don those gloves. Rubber gloves keep your nails dry and they protect them from activities that normally cause nail breakage, like taking wet laundry from the washing machine.


At night, you can condition your nails while you sleep. Get some white cotton gloves and before you go to bed, slather on a generous amount of hand cream and put the gloves on over it. This well help condition your nails to make them more flexible and as an added bonus, your hands will be baby soft!


What you put inside your body can be just as important as what you do to the outside of it. If you want to have good strong nails, you have to be sure you are getting good nutrition. Calcium is a necessary nutrient for strong fingernails and you need plenty of vitamin D to help your body absorb it. When women are pregnant the often find their nails growing better than ever before, this is because of the bodies increased ability to absorb nutrients during this time.


Finally, never bite your nails and do not use them as tools. Nails can be great for picking off stickers, etc. but if you use them like letter openers, they are going to disappear faster than you can grow them.