Nataly Tornel
A beautiful manicure is not the same as the right one. What should be avoided during the procedure?
1. Cut the cuticle
Manicurists, who can call themselves professionals, say relentlessly that a trim manicure should never be done. The explanation is very simple. The cuticle is a strip of skin that protects the root of the nail from contamination. By cutting the cuticle, we deprive the nail of this protection. At the same time, we should not leave the cuticle untouched. It is important, for instance, to exfoliate it with special removers which help remove keratinized cells and make the cuticle look tidier.
2. Sawing your nails back and forth
Absolutely everyone seems to be doing this. In order to get your nails shorter, they’re given a quick two-pronged sawing motion, which shouldn’t be done. The experts claim that this damages the nail, causing microcracks and making it weaker and more brittle. The correct way to saw nails is in one direction, starting at one of the corners and moving towards the other side. This takes more time and patience, but it keeps the nails healthy.
3. Applying thick coats of varnish
It’s better to apply three or four thin layers than two thicker, greasy ones. Thin coats will dry much faster while thicker coats will bubble up and because they take longer to dry, create a risk of ruining your manicure. It will be easier to smudge the polish.
4. Shaking the varnish bottle
To make the varnish a little more liquid and therefore easier to apply, do not shake the bottle up and down. This causes small air bubbles to form in the coating. After application, it will bubble up on your nails, and few people want a bumpy manicure. Instead, just roll the bottle of nail polish in the palms of your hands.
5. Leave nail tips untreated
To keep nail polish on longer without chipping, you need to ‘seal’ your nails at the tips. When applying your nail polish, brush a couple of times around the edge of your nails to create a kind of protection against chipping and cracking. This trick helps extend the life of a classic manicure.
6. Careless application of the topcoat-finish
Because the finishing coat is transparent, it is no longer applied to the nails with the same care as a colored polish. This is not visible at first. When all the coats of polish dry, the fact that you’ve gone beyond the boundaries of the color will be noticeable. In addition, it is in those areas where there is no polish under the coat-finish, it begins to peel and chip faster so that the manicure because of this sloppiness cannot live long.
7. Drying your nails in cold water
Contact with cold water only changes the consistency of the nail polish, but it doesn’t help it to dry. That’s because it doesn’t actually dry but gradually hardens under the influence of oxygen. And to make this happen, it is better to keep your hands in the air, not in water. However, having done a manicure a couple of hours ago, it is better to wash your hands in cold water. Because of the warm water the nail plate can expand, while the layer of nail polish will not change its size. Fresh manicures deteriorate more quickly for this reason.
8. Using cotton swabs
Many people think that the easiest way to get rid of blotches is to soak a cotton swab in nail polish remover and wipe off the colored marks left on the skin. However, the cotton buds are rather large and a careless move can wipe off the excess on the nail itself. Professionals advise using thin nail art brushes if you need to fix or clean up something.
9. Cut off gel polish
If a manicure salon offers to cut off gel polish to get rid of it quickly and proceed to renew your manicure, this should be rejected. And change the master. Together with a gel lacquer often sawed off the upper part of the nails. This, of course, spoils them, making them thinner and weaker.
